Cats are always on-topic in any discussion of Robert Heinlein. alt.fan.heinlein Bill Reich regular reported on the recent death of long-time family member Feather. All A.F.H. regulars offered Bill their condolences.

The Department of Defense is developing an exoskeleton that could lead to the type of powered armor Robert Heinlein invented in “Starship Troopers.” Check out this article in Discover magazine.

Government employment is often permanent employment, and the quality of service from civil “servants” is about what you expect from someone who cannot get fired. Heinlein didn’t think any more highly of workers sucking at the government teat any more than do most libertarians of today. “In a mature society, ‘civil servant’ is semantically equal to ‘civil master’,” Lazarus Long said in Time Enough for Love (1973). Lazarus spoke highly of Ira Weatheral’s method of governance on the planet Secundus: Ignore problems until they go away.

Ira says a good leader “keeps a sharp eye out and his ear turned for signs that subordinates are doing too much unnecessary governing. Half of my time is used in the negative work of plucking such officious officials and ordering that they never again serve the public in any capacity.”

“No matter how lavishly overpaid, civil servants everywhere are convinced they are horribly underpaid-but all public employees have larceny in their hearts or they wouldn’t be feeding at the public trough,” said Marjorie Friday Baldwin in Friday (1982).

In To Sail Beyond The Sunset (1987), Maureen Johnson recounts her father’s opinion of public employees: “There is a ready solution for anyone on the public payroll who feels that he is not paid enough; He can resign and work for a living. This applies with equal force to Countermen, Welfare ‘clients,’ school teachers, generals, garbage collectors, and judges.”

You don’t have to be a libertarian to oppose gun control, but libertarians are strong defenders of Second Amendment rights.

RAH shared this libertarian perspective. According to letters included in Grumbles from the Grave (1989), the original draft of Red Planet (1949) included a lecture on the evils of gun registration. Heinlein’s editor balked and insisted on a rewrite.

He rewrote the passage into a lecture from father to son on the need for gun safety. Heinlein explored the possibility a world with absolutely no gun control in Beyond This Horizon (1942). In this tale, any person can go armed. Duels are a fact of life and are not considered crimes — as long as the other person was also an “armed citizen.” In other words, it the only gun control was self control and personal responsibility.

Horizon is not considered Heinlein’s best work, by far. Yet it introduced a favorite quote among libertarians: “An armed society is a polite society.”

Some believe that Heinlein’s views shifted to the right. Isaac Asimov — a close friend when RAH was married to first wife Leslyn — blamed this shift on the influence of Virginia Heinlein, his second wife.

The problem is that Horizon establishes Heinlein’s pro-gun viewpoint during a period in which Heinlein’s latter-day critics contend he was a liberal. This lends credence to the contention of Heinlein scholar Bill Patterson and others that Heinlein’s core beliefs shifted little or not at all, while the popular definition of “liberal” drifted far to the left, leaving Heinlein to be labeled a conservative.

 

 

“The American Zone,” like most of the books set in L. Neil Smith’s North American Confederacy universe, suffers from preachiness. Which is understandable, considering Robert A. Heinlein’s great influence on Smith. Heinlein has been accused of preachiness.

But, unlike the first grandmaster of science fiction, Smith lets the preaching get in the way of the action. For every page devoted to advancing the plot, it seems there are five that portray characters doing little more that sitting and standing around telling each other, in no uncertain terms, what an evil thing government is.

It’s hard to blame Neil for this. Becoming a libertarian is a, well, liberating experience. It’s like a damn bursts in your soul. Suddenly, even the slightest government intrusion — especially those once considered innocuous — are the horrible violations of personal liberty. Neil’s characters — unless they’re the statist villians — almost universally seem to be in the early stage of post-Libertarian conversion. It seems unnatural that people who are the products of 200-plus years of libertarian civilization would be that worked up about the evils of a form of government they have never experienced first-hand.

Smith is preaching to the choir. Anyone uninitiated into libertarianism is going to be very put off by this book, and write it off as far-right dogma. True believers aren’t going to learn anything new and will get bored quickly.

“Yeah, we get it Neil. Got anything new to say?” I had hoped to see Neil’s insights into the events of Sept. 11. Nothing.

At the end of the book, a bad, pro-government character is portrayed at having a sense of honor. Much the same thing happened to a different pro-government character at the end of “The Probability Broach.” Neither redeemed character was developed further.

I recommend “Probability Broach” and others book in this fictional universe, like “Tom Paine Maru” and “Brightsuit MacBear.” Both are libertarian science fiction at its best. In “The American Zone,” Smith neglected the science fiction part.

In his own words, Heinlein found common ground with those at the forefront of modern libertarianism.

“I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand’s; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces — with the other matters handled otherwise. I’m sick of the way the government sticks its nose into everything, now,” he said in The Robert Heinlein Interview And Other Heinleinana by J. Neil Schulman.

Heinlein was much more colorful when expressing the thoughts of Jubal Harshaw, Heinlein’s thinly veiled surrogate in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) - “Government! Three-fourths parasitic and the rest stupid fumbling –Oh, Harshaw conceded that man, a social animal, could no more avoid government than an individual could escape the necessity of bowel movements. But simply because an evil was necessary was no reason to term it good. He wished that government would wander off and get lost!”

These thoughts also saw light Podkayne of Mars (1962). “…Think about it,” says Poddy’s Uncle Tom, himself a former politician. “Politics is just a name for the way we get things done… without fighting. We dicker and compromise and everybody thinks he has received a raw deal, but somehow after a tedious amount of talk we come up with some jury-rigged way to do it without getting anybody’s head bashed in. That’s politics. The only other way to settle a dispute is by bashing a few heads in… and that is what happens when one or both sides is no longer willing to dicker. That’s why I say politics is good even when it is bad… because the only alternative is force — and somebody gets hurt.”

In 1946, Heinlein wrote TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT: A Practical Handbook For the Private Citizen Who Wants Democracy To Work. It was published after his death. In it he wrote:

“From politics I have come to believe the following:

(1) Most people are basically honest, kind and decent.

(2) The American people are wise enough to run their own affairs. They do not need Fuehrers, Strong Men, Technocrats, Commissars, Silver Shirts, Theocrats, or any other sort of dictator.

(3) Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them don’t want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit them to raise families in decent comfort without fear of the future. They want the least government necessary to this purpose and don’t greatly mind what the other fellow does as long as it does not interfere with them living their own lives. As a people we are neither money mad nor prying. We are easygoing and anarchistic. We may want to keep up with the Joneses — but not with the Vanderbilts. We don’t like cops.

(4) Democracy is not an automatic condition resulting from laws and constitutions. It is a living, dynamic process which must be worked at by you yourself — or it ceases to be democracy, even if the shell and form remains.

(5) One way or another, any government which remains in power is a representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine, then it is because you and your neighbors prefer it that way — prefer it to the effort of running your own affairs. Hitler’s government was a popular government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their franchise.

(6) Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented by the human race. On the record, it has worked better in peace and in war than fascism, communism, or any other form of dictatorship. As for the mythical yardstick of ‘benevolent’ monarchy or dictatorship — there ain’t no such animal!

(7) A single citizen, with no political connections and no money, can be extremely effective in politics.”

Heinlein has been accused of being a fascist or at least, hostile to democracy. Obviously, this was not the case in 1946, at about the time he was supposedly beginning his transition into an authoritarian and fascist.

Robert A. Heinlein met Virginia Gerstenfeld where they both worked at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during World War 2. They married her 1948. She, like her husband, was a former naval officer. By all accounts, Virginia was and still is a remarkable human being, as were most of the female protagonists in Heinlein’s fiction. “Ginny” learned the Russian language prior to the couple’s famous visit to the Soviet Union in 1960s. She helped him build their home in Colorado. Virginia not only nursed her husband a series of illnesses, she handled virtually all his correspondence and assisted him in writing and research. If not for her, there would have been no Stranger in a Strange Land, no Starship Troopers and no Moon is a Harsh Mistress, nor would there exist his profound influence on the entire genre. The world of science fiction owes her a debt of gratitude.

But there are those who believed that Mrs. Heinlein deserved more “blame” than “gratitude.” This group includes Isaac Asimov:

“… although a flaming liberal during the war, Heinlein became a rock-ribbed far-right conservative immediately afterward. This happened at just the time he changed wives from a liberal woman, Leslyn, to a rock-ribbed far-right conservative woman, Virginia… I used to brood about it in puzzlement (of course, I never would have dreamed of asking Heinlein — I’m sure he would have refused to answer, and would have done so with the uttermost hostility), and I did come to one conclusion. I would never marry anyone who did not generally agree ith my political, social, and philosophical view of life.” (From I, Asimov: A Memoir, 1994.)

Asimov is wrong on many levels.

His description of Heinlein as a “rock-ribbed far-right conservative” is incorrect. Many of Heinlein’s beliefs are shared with the right. There is no “right,” as far as liberals are concerned. “Far-right” is their term for anyone less liberal than they. Other of Heinlein’s beliefs would be described as left wing. Also, Heinlein’s politics never shifted that much, but the concept of what defines “liberal” and “conservative” did change. Asimov commits a mistake in reasoning, namely that if B followed A, then A caused B. What really caused a change in Heinlein’s political outlook was the development of nuclear weapons. He started writing cautionary tales almost immediately afterwards.

On a personal level, Asimov’s attempt to blame Mrs. Heinlein for her husband’s shift in politics is nothing less than an attempt to emasculate Heinlein. Democrats tried to do the same thing to Ronald Reagan when they blamed his change from a New Deal Democrat and leader of the actor’s union into a Republican.

Asimov’s ego just couldn’t handle the fact Heinlein dared to have strongly held opinions differing from his own. What did Asimov think Mrs. Heinlein was doing, rewriting his books to insert conservative dogma? Perhaps Starship Troopers was originally about a non-violent Galactic Peace Corps? Perhaps the revolutionaries of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress staged sit-down protests and hunger strikes? Bull! Heinlein was forcefull personality, unlikely to completely to be compelled by anyone to alter his way of thinking.

After her husband’s death, she edited several titles, including Tramp Royale (the story of the couple’s tours across the world) and Grumbles from the Grave (a collection of letters). Mrs. Heinlein is alive and well and resides on the Atlantic coast.

I’m about half-way through The American Zone and folks … it ain’t looking good.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress popularized the concept of There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, or TANSTAAFL. (Actually, the phrase may have its roots in the writings of ethicist Alvin Hansen in 1952, only he used the phrase “there is no such thing as a free lunch” or TINSTAAFL.)

In Heinlein’s novel, citizens of the moon expected to pay for what they received, even the air they breathed. These hearty, self-reliant people cast off their repressive masters on Earth and established a a free society. This book is beloved by libertarians.

The point of the phrase is that people must be responsible for their own welfare, not the state. Heinlein literature abounds with comments and situations in which a lack of self-reliance has a degrading effect on the human condition. This is where the “no free lunch” comes into play.

Heinlein was deeply suspicious of state-sponsored altruism to help the poor. He believed it robbed them of their independence. In I Will Fear No Evil, Heinlein introduces Joe Branca, the wife of the novel’s heroine. Joe is the illiterate product of an alcoholic welfare mother. Branca is deeply embittered over the government’s continued subsiding of his mother’s alcoholism. The book’s is set in a future society wracked by lawlessness caused in part by a paternalistic government ruling over an increasingly illiterate population.

In TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT: A Practical Handbook For the Private Citizen Who Wants Democracy To Work, Heinlein’s observed: ” … I was surprised to find an amazing and almost unanimous similarity in viewpoint on the part of the elderly rich and elderly poor. Mellowed and altruistic interests in the welfare and future of the whole community? Far from it! The elderly poor wanted $200 every month, or some other pension which would pay them more income than they ever earned while working, and they didn’t give a hoot what it did to the country! The elderly rich wanted the highest possible return from mortgages, rents, dividends, or other investment incomes, and they didn’t give a hoot what it did to the country.”

Another phrase that pops up throughout Heinlein’s fiction and nonfiction is “Bread and Circuses.” It refers to how theancient Roman emperors appeased the masses by distributing food and spending money on entertainment. Of course, this caused high taxes and diverted resources away from more valid state functions.

“Bread and Circuses” is the result when voters don’t head the warning of TANSTAAFL. By prmosing to hand out more goddies than their opponent, oliticians use voters’ desire for a “free lunch” to retain power. But the voters end up paying for it anyway, with higher taxes and a population unwilling to take care of themselves.

“What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it … which for the majority translates as ‘Bread and Circuses’,” said Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land).

Maureen Johnson uses the phrase in To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987) when listing the reasons for the decline of American civilization before it became a religious dictatorship under the Prophet, Nehemiah Scudder.

“Consider these:

‘Bread and Circuses’;
The abolition of the pauper’s oath in Franklin Roosevelt’s first term;’
Peer group’ promotion in public school.

These three conditions heterodyne each other. The abolition of the pauper’s oath as a condition for public charity insured that habitual failures, incompetents of every sort, people who can’t support themselves and people who won’t, each of these would have the same voice in ruling the country, in assessing taxes and spending them, as (for example) Thomas Edison or Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Carnegie or Andrew Jackson. Peer group promotion insured that the franchise would be exercised by ignorant incompetents. And ‘Bread and Circuses’ is invariably what happens in a democracy that goes this route” unlimited spending on ’social’ programs ends in national bankruptcy, which historically is always followed by dictatorship.”

Libertarians believe in religious freedom — the right to worship or not worship. Organized religion has no role in U.S. government.

Heinlein agreed.

“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics, ” Heinlein wrote in a postscript to Revolt in 2100, which includes “If This Goes On –”, a tale of how the United States fell into a religious dictatorship under the Prophet, Nehemiah Scudder.

“History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis,” said Lazarus Long, Heinlein’s surrogate in Time Enough for Love. “Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.”

Heinlein’s most acclaimed work, Stranger in a Strange Land, deals with a man raised on Mars who returns to Earth and starts a religion based on his Martian teachings. Job: A Comedy of Justice, deals with a fundamentalist minister’s discovery that Heaven and Hell are not what he imagined them to be.

“The Bible is such a gargantuan collection of conflicting values that anyone can prove anything from it,” said Jake Burroughs in The Number of the Beast.

The Branch Davidians were a bunch of overly religious gun lovers. Libertarians say: So what? Our nation was founded by religious gun lovers. The massacre at Waco happened after Heinlein’s death. So any opinion on this event (which weighs heavily on the minds of libertarians), must be inferred. The deaths started because of the government’s made-for-media raid to deprive the Davidians of their weapons.

Because Heinlein did not live long enough to see the government siege at Waco, we have no way of knowing exactly what he would have said when the siege started or when the tanks rolled in. But we know he believed believed in private ownership of weapons, and in many articles (”Free Men” in Expanded Universe, Requiem) urged readers to stockpile supplies (including weapons) in preparation for a coming war between the U.S. and the communist nations that Heinlein at the time believed was inevitable. Please note that no one was more pleased than Heinlein that this open conflict did not occur. Heinlein also would have defended the right of the Davidians to believe whatever the Hell they believed.

Heinlein clearly didn’t have much respect for anyone who professed to have the only inside track to God. But he did lack the arrogance, religious bigotry and self righteousness that made it possible for Bill Clinton and Janet Reno to order tanks to drive through a church on trumped-up pretense that children were in danger.