heinleinblog

Libertarians oppose government collection of information about its citizens. Such intelligence gathering threatens freedom.

Heinlein pretty much agrees.

In Time Enough for Love (1973), hero Lazarus Long notes: “When a place gets crowded enough to require IDs, social collapse is not far away.” Privacy includes the right to be secure in one’s own home. In Stranger in a Strange Land (1961), Jubal Harshaw, a surrogate who expresses Heinlein’s opinions, demands police prove they have search warrants before entering his home. Intrusive government authorities are villains in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985).

(Originally posted at Libertarianism & Robert A. Heinlein.)

Libertarians believe that free people should be able to cross borders freely.

In “Over the Rainbow,” printed in Expanded Universe, the president of the United States discusses with her Mexican counterpart some of the mistakes her country has made over the years, one of which is the closed border between the two nations. “What is the point of a fence that doesn’t work,” Madam President asks. “So I had it torn down.”

At one point, Heinlein believed in a one-world government. This was a throwback to his days as a Wellsian socialist. Some students of Heinlein say it was his trip around the world with Virginia Heinlein that convinced him this was impossible.

(Originally posted at Libertarianism & Robert A. Heinlein.)

An essential tenet of libertarianism — and a rule for membership in the Libertarian Party — is that neither people nor governments have the right to initiate force. In a free society, the only time it is appropriate to use violence is in self-defense. Before granting membership, the Libertarian Party requires its applicants to swear not to initiate force. It is that important.

Heinlein never openly states agreement with this philosophy. Yet agreement is inherent in various comments. Heinlein’s greatest hero, Lazarus Long, often expressed his distrust for getting involved in other persons’ and other nations’ affairs. Heinlein’s essays in Expanded Universe express a professional soldier’s hatred of war and a desire to avoid it. These are hardly the sentiments of a “fascist,” a word that conjures up memories of the Nazis storming into Poland and Czechoslovakia.

“The itch to be a world saver should not be scratched; it rarely does any good and can drastically shorten your life,” says Lazarus in Time Enough for Love (1973). He was talking about the “itch” as a private citizen and as a nation. Lazarus Long often comments that the best way to win a fight is to avoid getting into one in the first place.

This is an itch that George W. Bush coudn’t resist scratching, although an argument can and has been made that 9-11 was the first blow struck a world-wide movement by an Islamic-fascist movement.

This commonsense approach caused Lazarus all sorts of grief when he traveled back in time to 1916, several later earlier than he intended. When America enters the first World War a year later, he has no intention of getting involved — until he is shamed into doing so by his “adoptive” family.” He ends up getting his ass shot off. (Perhaps the Master is making a point here.)

Heinlein did not chose the names of his characters on a whim. The names had meaning, including the name Heinlein chose as the birth name of Lazarus Long: “Woodrow Wilson Smith.” In Time Enough for Love, Lazarus writes a time-capsule letter to Laz and Lor in the future in which he discusses the attitudes of Americans before the nation’s entry into the Great War.

“They won’t even believe they are about to be enmeshed in the first of the Final Wars: that is why the man for whom I am named is about to be reelected. ‘We Are Neutral.’ ‘Too Proud to Fight.’ ‘He Kept Us Out of War’,” Lazarus writes. Wilson helped create the League of Nations, the first real attempt at world government, a concept Heinlein favored at one time in his life.

Of course, the contention that Heinlein opposed intervention into the affairs of other nations takes a beating in the short story “Solution Unsatisfactory,” (1940) reprinted in Expanded Universe (1980). It is the story of the creation of “atomic dust” whose deadly radiation gives the United States the superweapon it needs to defeat the Axis. Of course, once the war is over, our Soviet allies could not be trusted and they develop their own version of the dust. The Soviets were put down, but the only solution Col. Clyde Manning can foresee is a form of “Pax Americana,” which must be headed by Manning, as the President is to short sighted to do what is necessary. Manning, by the way, is described as a liberal.

This story was written before the creation of the first atomic bomb. “Solution Unsatisfactory” demonstrated Heinlein’s skill as a Cassandra.

(Originally posted at Libertarianism & Robert A Heinlein.) 

Essentially, libertarians believe the government eventually screws up whatever it touches, including schools. In To Sail Beyond the Sunset, Maureen Johnson bemoans how during her lifetime, the public high school her children attended degenerated from academic excellence to a crime-infested warehouse for children. As RAH pointed out in Expanded Universe and many other of his works, the public school system system is failing.

In “A Tenderfoot in Space,” (Requiem), the young hero finds after immigrating to the frontier world of Venus that the “socialization” skills taught in Earth’s public schools left him years behind his colonial classmates in math and reading. Because Venus had no compulsory education laws, he is given a choice: Either study harder or leave and make his fortune without a diploma. The need to “socialize” children is one of the primary arguments by those who oppose the right of parents to educate their own children in their own homes. Libertarians support the rights of parents to home school their students.

“…from the ignoramuses we get for recruits I’ve reached the conclusion that this new-fangled ‘functional educational’ has abolished studying in favor of developing their cute little personalities,” says Captain Walker in Tunnel in the Sky.

Heinlein blamed lack of quality public education for the decline of American society.

In To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987), Maureen Johnson Smith (Lazarus Long’s mother) includes certain education policies when listing possible reasons for the decline of American society before it became a religious dictatorship under the Prophet, Nehemiah Scudder, which was detailed in “If This Goes On — ” (1940) which was reprinted in Revolt in 2100.

“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.”

(Originally posted at Libertarianism & Robert A. Heinlein.)

Libertarians favor the legalization of marijuana and other drugs. They believe it is not the business of the government to decide what one does with one’s own body, including whether or not a person self-medicates. Libertarians argue that this is not only sound philosophy, it is practical advice for a healthy culture and society. The government’s war on drug use has led to predicable abuses and corruption within government and police. Take, for example, the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, such as fighting nausea in cancer and AIDS patients. The government denies these benefits exist, yet and will not allow the type of research that might prove or disprove it.

From what Heinlein has written, I believe he might have favored legalizing marijuana use for medicinal purposes, but probably was opposed to outright legalization. In The Number of the Beast, the crew of Gay Deceiver visit a parallel version of Mars inhabited by British colonists. Their chief economic export of this conservative penal colony is the “raw pharmaceutical” crop known as “Cannabis Magnifica Martia.” Later, Captain Hilda Burroughs orders Gay Deceiver’s immediate evacuation from the E.E. Doc Smith’s “Lensman” universe because their cargo includes “two pounds of concentrated extract of Cannabis magnifica,” which Hilda was told is “incredibly valuable in therapy, as a basis for endless drugs.” Hilda feared the law-and-order Lensman they had encountered would be obligated to arrest the four of them and seize their ship.

Another noteworthy mention of illegal drug use was in To Sail Beyond the Sunset. Maureen’s son and daughter come to live with her after running away from their father, who held custody of the two after his divorce from Mamma Maureen. The kids are undisciplined and in trouble. At one point, Maureen searches Prisilla’s room and finds marijuana and cocaine. Both resist all efforts to discipline them, and Maureen threatens to have them arrested — Prisilla for drug possession— unless her ex-husband, Brian, comes to retrieve them.

Later in the book, Maureen related why she decided to move to her universe’s version Albuquerque, N.M., late in life. Among the reasons was the the enactment of the death penalty for drug dealing, by way of public hanging. She also expressed appreciation for tough anti drug policies at the University of New Mexico, which apparently included drug testing and searches.

There are numerous instances — in Friday, for example — in which major and minor characters enjoy recreational cannabis use. I don’t believe this was an endorsement of marijuana, or necessarily an endorsement of legalization. Friday’s setting was an Earth on the verge of total collapse because of it’s “sick culture.”

It is a mistake to always assume opinions expressed by a Heinlein character are always those of Heinlein himself. Maureen’s intolerant approach could be Heinlein’s way of showing her advanced age. But, they could also be Heinlein’s, as well.

(Originally posted at “Libertarianism and Robert A. Heinlein.”)

Heinlein loathed censorship. This is not only the opinion of characters who have served as surrogates for Heinlein, but it is also Heinlein’s own expressed opinion. Libertarians oppose any effort by the government to suppress or control freedom of speech and expression.

“A managed democracy is a wonderful thing, Manuel, for the managers… and its greatest strength is a ‘free press’ when ‘free’ is defined as ‘responsible’ and the managers decide what is ‘irresponsible,â€? says Prof. Bernardo de la Paz in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

“I don’t like suppression of the truth for any reason. I think the word classified stinks!â€? Heinlein said when he was the guest of honor at the 19th World Science Fiction Convention in Seattle in 1961. This was after he wrote Starship Troopers, providing yet more evidence contradicting the ill-informed opinion he was a fascist. Imaginea true supporter of Hitler or Mussolini arguing against the government suppression of information. It was also at this convention he railed against what he perceived as the Soviets’ greatest failing: Their suppression of truth in their attempt to change reality.

“I hate Communism most for its cold-blooded murder of the truth! Pravda doesn’t mean truth. Pravda means whatever serves the world Communist revolution,â€? he said.

This philosophy found its way into his fiction, in this passage from “If This Goes On –” in which John Lyle discusses freedom under a religious dictatorship.

“For the first time in my life, I was reading things which had not been approved by the Prophet’s censors, and the impact on my mind was devastating. Sometimes I would glance over my shoulder to see who was watching me, frightened in spite of myself. I began to sense faintly that secrecy is the keystone of all tyranny. Not force, but secrecy…censorship. When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to it’s subjects, ‘This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know,’ the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything—you can’t conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.”

Heinlein often didn’t think highly of the quality of the journalism he encountered (a little unfairly, I think, judging by the examples he cited), but he recognized the importance of a free and unfettered press in a free society, and this view was represented through his characters, such as Ben Caxton from Stranger in a Strange Land. Ben used the press to put heat on the government to free Michael Valentine Smith. Caxton’s writing prompted the government to illegally detain him. At one point, Jill defends Ben as a “lippmannâ€? not a “winchell.â€? The references are respected New York Herald-Tribune columnist Walter Lippmann and not-so-respected gossip columnist and Red-baiter Walter Winchell. Actually, while Caxton was a columnist, he would be better described as a “woodwardâ€? or “bernsteinâ€? because he was more of an investigative reporter. I am sure Nixon would have loved to do to Bob Woodward what Douglas did to Caxton – lock him up where no one would ever find him.

Libertarianism also holds that government sponsored expression is just as bad as government suppression, an opinion Heinlein seems to share. “A government-supported artist is an incompetent whore,â€? says Jubal Harshaw in Stranger.