Inside the Asylum

We haven't had one of these for quite a while, and this quote is particularly timely in light of the health insurance debate, in which the Obama regime thinks that they should compel all people to buy health insurance whether they want it or not. This one comes from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Speaking of which, when is the damn movie going to be coming out?

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

Here's the script to the movie from 2005. Did the project die? I want to see that damned movie!

Heinlein on the space race.

Is there intelligent life in Washington, D.C.?... If in fact Mars is uninhabited, shortly there will be a land rush that will make the Oklahoma land stampede look gentle... But don't be surprised if the Japanese charge you a very high fee for stamping their visa into your passport plus requiring deposit of a prepaid ticket or, if you ask for immigrant's visa, charge you a much, much higher fee plus proof of a needed colonial skill. For there is intelligent life in Tokyo.

From Where To? in Expanded Universe.

I suspect if he wrote this today (instead of 1980), he would amend it to "Beijing and Delhi" who appear to be the powers with an interest in pushing ahead. Maybe he'd leave Tokyo in the list, but he wouldn't have anything different to say about intelligent life in D.C.
[I put this Heinlein quote in because of my previous post on the Space Race, and learning from China's history.]

Time for another Wisdom of Heinlein, but for this one I turn to the words of someone else describing Heinlein. It will only mean something to those who have read Starship Troopers, but it was a book that had a real impact on me as I grew up, and I've read it more times than I can remember. If you haven't read it: why not? If you've seen the movie, wash your eyes out with soap and then read the book.

Starship Troopers takes the most heat, which is peculiar, since the society it describes is founded by soldiers fed up with war, no conscription is permitted, the franchise won by military service (aggressively coeducational military service) doesn't apply until the service is over with, and the book's hero, like many Heinlein characters, is (unobtrusively) non-white.

Robert Heinlein Remembered by L. Neil Smith

Time for another timely Heinlein quote. If this doesn't describe Pelosi's attitude to waterboarding, I don't know what does:

"Most self-described 'pacifists' are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger."
From Time Enough For Love

Post Sept 11, the likes of Pelosi were fine with the "do whatever it takes" approach, but now the wind has changed they're back to moral outrage... and of course one day the wind will change direction again.

A couple of months ago I began my "Wisdom of Heinlein" series, and my first one was this:

“Most liberals believe that water runs downhill, but, praise God, it’ll never reach the bottom.”

From a very early Heinlein short story Solution Unsatisfactory.

Professor Bainbridge writes today about an Obama apparatchik who apparently believes, "You don't need banks and bondholders to make cars."
Bainbridge comments:

that official -- who's probably never run any business more complicated than a lemonade stand -- will soon discover just how wrong s/he was. It's called CAPITALism for a reason, after all... Like most bullies, the Obamabots seem unable to realize that their conduct may have long-term consequences.

What will they do when the water reaches the bottom?
(Via Instapundit)

Time for another Heinlein quote. I'm constantly amazed how prescient he was.

Don't ask me why it was top secret, or even restricted; our government has gotten the habit of classifying anything as secret which the all-wise statesmen and bureaucrats decide we are not big enough girls and boys to know, a Mother-Knows-Best-Dear policy.

From Puppet Masters 1951.

Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called... If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say: Let the damned thing go down the drain!

in Expanded Universe.

Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft.

from Red Planet

There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.

Lifeline, Heinlein's first short story.

"He singled me out again. 'Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house ... and occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then one day you notice that he is now a grown dog and still not housebroken - whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead. Comment please?' '
Why ... that's the craziest way to raise a dog I ever heard of!'
'I agree. Or a child. Whose fault would it be?'
'Uh ... why, mine, I guess.'
'Again I agree. But I'm not guessing.'
A girl blurted out, "but why? Why didn't they spank little kids when they needed it and use a good dose of the strap on any older ones who deserved it - the sort of lesson they wouldn't forget! I mean ones who did things really bad. Why not?'
'I don't know,' he answered grimly, 'except that the time-tested method of instilling social virtue and respect for law in the minds of the young did not appeal to a pre-scientific pseudo-professional class who called themselves "social workers" or sometimes "child psychologists." It was too simple for them, apparently, since anybody could do it, using only the patience and firmness needed in training a puppy... The tragic wrongness of what those well-meaning people did, contrasted with what they thought they were doing, goes very deep... The more earnest they were, the farther it led them astray.'
Starship Troopers pp116-117

"'Disturbing the ecological balance is the worst mistake any government can make.'... 'I can suggest the imbalances that might follow any attempt to get rid of dragons... These rats and hogs destroy crops. Rats help to keep the hogs down by eating piglets. But rats are even worse than hogs, on food crops. The dragons graze through these very woods in the daytime ... the dragons and hogs keep the underbrush cropped back and the dragons keep the lower limbs trimmed off. But dragons also enjoy a tasty rat, so whenever one locates a rat hole, it gives it a shot of flame, not always killing adults as they dig two holes for each nest, but certainly killing any babies - and then the dragon digs in and has his favorite snack.'
'But why not kill the rats, and then clean up the dragons?'
'And let the hogs run wild? I simply know that disturbing a natural balance is a matter to be approached with fear and trembling - and a very versatile computer.'" From Glory Road pp.145-146

"A trillion seconds is 31,688 years, 9 months, 5 days, 8 hours, 6 minutes, and 42 seconds ... It would take us to 29,708 B.C... I don't understand a trillion dollars any better than I do a trillion seconds. I simply know that we had better stop spending money we don't have if we want to avoid that Man on Horseback." Taken from "The Happy Days Ahead" in Heinlein's 1980 collection Expanded Universe.

I've been reading Expanded Universe, and I was amazed to realize that I had not read it before. I found it most interesting for the stunning prophetic things discussed in pre-1980 essays that directly address the current situation. It got me to thinking that I'd like to start a series of short posts called "Wisdom of Heinlein".
Here's the first: "Liberals are people who know that water flows down hill, but think it will never reach the bottom."
(That pretty much describes every policy agenda of the current US administration.)