Posted on 08/03/2011 6:46:27 PM PDT by stolinsky
Ping.
bump for later
Heinlein ping
It's happening all the time now with "gay culture," global warming, fight for malaria and against DDT, etc. etc. Anything is moral according to them, even if you happen to kill millions of humans in the process.
Stalin and Hitler and Mao are probably no longer the greatest villains of this civilization. All they did is they destroyed some millions of bodies. Modern politicians let people keep their bodies but destroy their mind - and they do it to hundreds of millions of people.
Read it before, happy to read it again. I always do get a little teary eyed at the end.
Ping
Excellent read.
Thanks for posting.
Oh, and Asimov, who knew him, called him a "flaming liberal" at the time. That one always cracks me up.
It’s impossible to know which phrase or sentence to highlight; they are all so right and correct. Heinlein is like that. Reading his prose is like discovering an apple tree with perfect fruit. Which do you pick?
Anyway, here’s my humble choice:
Your most important classroom is Memorial Hall. Your most important lesson is the way you feel inside when you walk up those steps and see that shot-torn flag framed in the arch of the door: “Don’t give up the ship.”
If you feel nothing, you don’t belong here. But if it gives you goose flesh just to see that old battle flag, then you are going to find that feeling increasing every time you return here over the years, until it reaches a crescendo the day you return and read the list of your own honored dead ? classmates, shipmates, friends ? read them with grief and pride while you try to keep your tears silent.
(How true and the fruit is perfect)
Heinlien was the writer that had the greatest effect on my young mind. I wish I had met him. A couple of people I did meet when I was young besides my dad were Ron Paul and Chris Kraft
Thanks for posting this..
But if what he wrote influenced you, in a real sense you DID meet him.
I grok that.
I Grok!
bfl
Thanks for the post; I didn’t know this about Heinlein.
Thanks...saved to read later
RAH is quite unfair to Dr. Johnson.
The actual quote, as taken from Boswell's biography: "Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." But let it be considered, that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self-interest."
I really doubt RAH would disagree.
RAH is quite unfair to Dr. Johnson.
Actually “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel” is one of the all-time two most misconstrued phrases. The other is Asimov's favorite "Violence is the last resort of the incompetent"
Think about the literal meaning of the words used.
"Only the incompetent wait until the last extremity to use force, and by then, it is usually too late to use anything, even prayer." - H. Beam Piper
Oh, and Asimov, who knew him, called him a ‘flaming liberal’ at the time. That one always cracks me up.”
Maybe he skipped “Starship Troopers” and “The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress,” only catching “Stranger In A Strange Land,” which probably could have been written by a hippie (without being a satire).
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