But you should really read the whole thing.
I know the one you're talking about. Lemme see if I can find it.
Google is your friend.
http://www.nitrosyncretic.com/rah/ftp/fedrlsvc.pdf
etc.
I transcribed the entire scene from the book online. Danged if I remember what happened to it.
There were lots of justifications and ratioanalizations given for it, but Rico's citizenship instructor boiled it down to "because it works" as the actual reason beyond how it started.
Okay, the passage in the book that I found is a later one when Rico is in OCS, chapter XII, maybe halfway through the chapter.
Starship Troopers is decent... but I am forever unable to consider myself a Heinlein fan after having read the godawful, brain-numbing "Number of the Beast".
And you have to wonder how many people became liberals after reading "Stranger in a Strange Land" too.
Qwinn
I tell you three times: Read the book!
There is a Heinlein site which dicusses this, and has an interview with RAH which refers to the subject.
"Expanded Universes" by RAH talks about his ideas on franchise.
In "Starship Troopers", the ideas are discussed by Du Bois(Rico's teacher), and later in the chapters dealing with Rico at Officer's School.
Heinlein ping. . .
I looked it up, it's when he's gone career and is at
officers school. Starts pg 142 or so.
So now we're supposed to do people's homework too?
"Mr. Salomon, can you give me a reason - not historical, nor theoretical but practical - why the franchise is today limited to discharged veterans?"
"Uh, because they are picked men, sir. Smarter."
"Preposterous!"
"Sir?"
"Is the word too long for you? I said it was a silly notion. Service men are not brighter than civilians. In many cases civilians are much more intelligent. That was the sliver of justification underlying the attempted coup d' etat just before the Treaty of New Delhi, the so-called 'Revolt of the Scientists': let the intelligent elite run things and you'll have utopia. It fell flat on its foolish face of course. Because the pursuit of science, despite its social benefits, is itself not a social virtue; its practitioners can be men so self-centered as to be lacking in social responsibility. I've given you a hint, Mister; can you pick it up?"
Sally answered, "Uh, service men are disciplined, sir."
Major Reid was gentle with him. "Sorry. An appealing theory not backed up by facts. You and I are not permitted to vote as long as we remain in the Service, nor is it verifiable that military discipline makes a man self-disciplined once he is out; the crime rate of veterans is much like that of civilians. And you have forgotten that in peacetime most have not been subject to the full rigors of military discipline; they have merely been harried, overworked, and endangered - yet their votes count."
Major Reid smiled. "Mr. Salomon, I handed you a trick question. The practical reason for continuing our system is the same as the practical reason for continuing anything: It works satisfactorily.
"Nevertheless, it is instructive to observe the details. Throughout history men have labored to place the sovereign franchise in hands that would guard it well and use it wisely, for the benefit of all. An early attempt was absolute monarchy, passionately defended as the 'divine right of Kings.'
"Sometimes attempts were made to select a wise monarch, rather than leave it up to God, as when the Swedes picked a Frenchman, General Bernadotte, to rule them. The objection to this is that the supply of Bernadottes is limited.
"Historic examples ranged from absolute monarch to utter anarch; mankind has tried thousands of ways and many more have been proposed, some weird in the extreme such as the antlike communism urged by Plato under the misleading title The Republic. But the intent has always been moralistic; to provide stable and benevolent government.
"All systems seek to achieve this by limiting franchise to those who are believed to have the wisdom to use it justly. I repeat 'all systems'; even the so-called 'unlimited' democracies' excluded from franchise not less than one quarter of their populations by age, birth, poll tax, criminal record, or other.'
Major Reid smiled cynically. "I have never been able to see how a thirty-year old moron can vote more wisely than a fifteen-year old genius ... but that was the age of the 'divine right of the common man.' Never mind, they paid for their folly.
"The sovereign franchise has been bestowed by all sorts of rules - place of birth, family of birth, race, sex, property, education, age, religion, et cetera. All these systems worked and none of them well. All were regarded as tyrannical by many, all eventually collapsed or were overthrown.
...
"Under our system, every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage. And that is the one practical difference. He may fail in wisdom, he may lapse in civic virtue. But his average performance is enormously better than that of any other class of rulers in history."
Bottle of sea water to the moon bump.
Hmmmm. Is there a reality show in there somewhere? You could become mega-rich.
Heinlein is the best. Starship Troopers, in fact, is the book that got me interested in eading SciFi. I've read ALL of his works.
It comes up when Rico goes to Officer Candidate School. Unlike his time in high school, he must actually PASS History & Moral Philosophy.
I would also recommend his anthology Expanded Universe, where he makes an interesting string of recommendations for who should actually get the franchise.