Posted on 08/19/2007 6:06:46 AM PDT by tpaine
and a free and efficient enterprise minimizes unhappiness in society as a whole.
“Starship Trooper” Bump.
My Infantry Officer dad gave me that book as a High School Senior. It changed my life and world view. Affects me to this day...
Regards,
In my view, his latter works were long and filled with too much meaningless dialogue.
One of my favorites “Never trust a shaman’
These days, of course, no matter what you do, you will find someone to complain that it is damaging them.
48 Right Wing Assault
rbg81
Hmmm...an interesting, but deeply flawed statement.
I am surprised someone as intelligent as Heinlein did not recognize it as such.
There is short term (immediate) physical harm resulting from one's actions. But there is also long term, social and cultural harm of one's actions. The latter is tough to prove and can only be measured over generations. Gay marriage is one example. When gays started to marry in MA, the sun still rose in the morning and things were still the same as yesterday. But the effect of it 20, 50, 100 years hence is still unknown (and I suspect negative). Of course, the current generation may be so twisted, that they refuse to recognize the rot until it is too late.
There may be long term, social and cultural harm of one's actions, -- but under our Constitutions principles, - of due process under rule of law, -- our various levels of gov't cannot make or enforce prohibitive 'laws' that infringe on our individual liberties..
if your actions damage another, a jury of your peers must find you guilty of that actual damage, not some theoretical "long term, social and cultural harm".
Socialism is predicated on the theory that a moral majority can issue decrees-'laws', -- based on long term, social and cultural harm.
Such socialistic theories are a political disease.
For those of us whose formative years included Heinlein’s writing years, he was far and away the American Author of Choice!
“Goldwater’s appeal had two things in common with Heinlein’s: an individualist sense that Americans were being overmanaged and overpampered by an out-of-control federal government, and a belief that those rotten commies needed to get it, good and hard.”...not much has changed, really! The attack on the individual is now coming from both communists and islamowackos!
I grew up reading things like “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (probably my favorite, his future history stories, and “The Martin Chronicles” starting at the age of about 11.
No wonder I ended up a strange child...
The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of ‘-loyalty— and ‘ duty.”
Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute, get out of there fast!
You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society.
It is doomed.
LAZARUS LONG
I think perhaps, you’re agreeing with Heinlein’s quote...and perhaps noticing that the flaw is (with any material action) there will almost always be a ‘reaction’. The key is ‘no harm, no foul’ is perhaps his message....and as today, too many laws can appear to create a ‘foul’ where there is none!
You obviously have never been a single handed sailor, or a mountain climber, etc! While even us single-handed sailors defer every now and then to a specialist out of convenience, it may not mean we couldn’t’a done it ourselves! His message stands as written, elitism notwithstanding!
Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent.
LAZARUS LONG
It's just a reworded Wiccan creed: "So far as you harm none, do what you will."
...and my favorite singer is Starship Trooper, Sarah Brightman...affects me to this day, as well!
#64...what you said!
” Freedom is better than serfdom, period.’
Well, yeah. But is that any more profound than, “Pain hurts”?
Thanks for the ping, must be Professional Engineer. ;)
Number of the Beast (read in college) was interesting, but it petered out toward the end when it introduced characters from his other works that I wasn't familiar with. (I also wasn't too comfortable with the idea that incest was okay as long as scientific precautions were taken to eliminate the hazardous results that have caused the cultural taboos.)
OTOH, "TANSTAAFL" has become shorthand on many of the old BBSes and internet web boards that I have visited over the years.
Well, yeah. But is that any more profound than, “Pain hurts”?
If freedom being better than serfdom was that self-evidently obvious (and for whom, and when), or anything less than profound, socialism would not exist. There are too many people who believe, in practice even if they will not state so explicitly, that serfdom is better than freedom...and I'm betting some of them are your neighbors.
I had friends living in Canada during the Cold War who had emigrated out of Hungary. They had friends who had voluntarily gone from Canada back to communist Hungary because freedom, as in freedom to fail, terrified them. The thought of not having a job for life along with the other ‘risks’ of capitalism worried them so much they preferred the communism that had defined their lives in Hungary. For some, evidently, serfdom was preferable to freedom.
That was in PEANUTS, BTW. As I recall it, Lucy is fearful of getting a shot, and when Charlie Brown asks her, “You aren’t afraid of a little pain are you?” she replies, “Of course I am, pain hurts.”
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