heinleinblog

From PolyQuandry: The Requisite Heinlein Post.

Many poly folks of a certain age have a soft spot for Robert Heinlein. We are the ones who had major “Ah ha!â€? moments when we read Heinlein for the first time. Science fiction resets the ground rules for reality – and Heinlein in particular re-envisions and explores the societal rules for alternative loving relationships. Many of us almost wept in relief when we discovered worlds with water brothers and line marriages. Heinlein’s words made us think that maybe, just maybe we weren’t freaks.

Yep. Heinlein was a conservative, all right.

Heinlein is mentioned in this poker blog post:

With poker metaphors being used everywhere from business to child care, its nice sometimes to see that the references about life sometimes have meaning for poker too

“Of course the game is rigged. Don’t let that stop you–if you don’t play, you can’t win.”

– Robert Heinlein

P.S. The quote is from “The Notebook of Lazarus Long.”

How many times did Heinlein reference poker?

Let’s play “Guess What They Are Promoting.”

The quote from the press release:

“It is the entrepreneurs of the United States who are the trendsetters, the people who have the audacity to do what others say cannot be done,” he said. “Robert Heinlein once said ‘Always listen to the experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it’.”

The product? A company that operates call centers. At least they are U.S.-based call centers.

[tags]Heinlein[/tags]

R.A.H. is invoked to discuss the life sentence handed down to Zacarias Moussaoui, who helped plan the terrorist attacks of 9-11:

Robert Heinlein imagined a deliciously suitable way of dealing with society’s worst criminals in his story “Coventry.” They were simply banished to a country of their own, to live as best they might manage among others of their own kind. Society then simply put them out of mind, which seems to me a far nobler exercise of the rule of morality. It says “You have proved that you cannot live peaceably among us. We do not presume to decide your right to live, simply your right to prey upon us. Begone!” It works pretty well for the Amish and the Mennonites. Moreover, it is in itself an almost unbearable fate for one who aspires to cut a blazing figure in the world as a martyr to some insane cause or another.

I have a feeling Heinlein would be spitting nails at the idea that we’re going to be paying for the care and feeding of Zacarias Moussaoui instead of sticking his head on a pole outside the city gates.

Coventry, as I recall, wasn’t a criminal sentence, but a place they send people who wouldn’t seek treatment for their “atavistic” behavior, such as punching someone in the nose. Not an apt analogy, in my humble opinion.

R.A.H. is invoked in an article about future treatments for bi-polar disorder:

The science fiction writers whose works I’ve read mostly seem to have underestimated how long it would take for their predictions to come true (though occasionally they overestimated). Robert Heinlein, one of my favorite writers, forecast “cold sleep” would be common by 1970, so that people with incurable diseases or any other reason (and enough money) could have themselves put in suspended animation. (In the same book, The Door Into Summer, he predicted waterbeds would be invented – after 2001.)

Garrison Keillor, of all people, wrote this (r.r.) for Salon:

As you see the price to be paid for flabbiness and immaturity and narcissism and bad manners and lousy grammar, you appreciate the military more and you ponder the consequences of its isolation in American life. Fewer and fewer of our leaders have military service in their résumés. They prefer to sweep blithely along from one comfy perch to the next, cushioned in self-regard, promoting, puffing, spinning, hitting their talking points, building their skill sets. They slip into public office without ever having been yelled at by a bullet-headed black man with sergeant’s stripes and made to stand up straight in 95-degree weather and march back and forth across a dusty field and not ask why. This is a shame.

The way to put military service back in the picture is to pass a constitutional amendment requiring that a candidate for president have at least two years of full-time military service. It would be a boon to the country, to the military and to the young. It would confirm the importance of service. The 42-year-old governor who discovers that he wants to be president would need to go down to the recruiting office and enlist. It’d be a big moment, like when Elvis went off to basic training. Think of Newt Gingrich climbing on a bus and going off to have his head shaved and his individuality taken away and rebuilt.

Keillor, who created “Prairie Home Companion” for public radio, conceded that he unashamedly dodged the draft during the Vietnam War. Heinlein, of course, was strongly opposed to the draft. He said a society that needed to conscript slave labor to do its fighting for it doesn’t deserve to survive.

I am wondering if Keillor has read Heinlein, specifically “Starship Troopers.”

I will note for the record that most presidents have been veterans. Including Nixon.

Hat tip to William Hughes in alt.fan.heinlein.

A member of the Gilroy Dispatch’s editorial board invokes Heinlein to explain the need for seperation of church and state:

Walker was responding to my recent column in which I argued that while personal faith is a perfectly valid basis for personal decisions, personal faith is irrelevant as a basis for deciding public policy in America. I gave several examples of some faiths’ assertions that the vast majority of Americans would not want enacted into law (modern medicine, technology and birth control are bad according to some faiths, so if faith is the basis of our laws, modern medicine, technology and birth control should be banned). In the incisive words of author Robert Heinlein, “One man’s theology is another man’s belly laugh.”

I notice that Walker did not answer my simple question: If you base laws on personal faith, whose faith do you choose?

The current ban on stem cell research is just one example of how George W. Bush’s religion is causing some people to die because cures are being delayed.

Some belly laugh, huh?

The Motley Fool invokes The Master to explain the moral pitfalls of socially responible investing:

Besides, basing your investments on emotion can lead you to some weird places. Suppose you’re a die-hard environmentalist opposed to mining companies’ practices. Does that mean you’ll boycott any product made with metal? Where do you draw the line? As author Robert Heinlein wrote, “Just bear in mind that a person who eats meat is on the same moral level as the butcher.”

I am also reminded of Mama Maureen’s newspaper column about investment tips in “To Sail Beyong the Sunset.”

motley fool,maureen,to sail beyond the sunset,heinlein

The Master is invoked to defend the 2nd Amendment:

In their view, only important people like politicians, celebrities and the rich deserve armed protection. But as Robert Heinlein put it, “When only cops have guns, it’s called a ” ‘police state.’ “

Heinlein,police state,michael moore,gun control,2nd amendment

“Violence never solves anything.”

– Virtually every peacenik and protestor who carries a sign in protest of the War on Terror.

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any
other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst.
Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their
lives and freedoms.”

– Robert A. Heinlein.

It is with these words that I announce the following: I am shutting down heinleinblog. As was the case with my involvement with the Heinlein Society, I simply do not have time to give this blog the attention it deserves.

But these posts — which have grown so infrequent as to classify this blog as defunct — will be moved to my man blog, Peoria Pundit.

Soon, I’ll erase the posts from the server and leave up a static page noting the move.

I plan to move the entire site to a new hosting company within the month, so it was time to make the move, anyway.