Posted by
Andy Zarowny on Wednesday, August 05, 2009 9:30:15 PM
Kudos to Steve Sailer who's
isteve.blogspot.com is always
worth a visit. Steve recently
wrote about the 'Cash For
Clunkers' (CFC) issue where
he tied in to the novel, "The
Door To Summer". Written
by Robert A. Heinlein in 1956,
it depicts a man who enters
cryogenic sleep in the 1970s
and awakens 30 years later.
The hero does this for purely
selfish reasons, to mock a
woman who jilted him after
she ages, and he doesn't.
LOL! What a guy!
But our hero finds himself in
an America that he no longer
recognizes. He gets a job
at junk yard, destroying cars
that were unsold. These two
year old cars are perfectly
good. They work fine, and
have no mileage on them.
But the auto companies are
forced to turn the cars over to
the Federal government as a
repayment of loans and price
supports. The relationship
is explained to our hero as
very necessary. After all, if
the auto companies didn't
produce more cars than they
could sell, a lot of people
would lose their jobs! All
this sounding familiar?
I love Heinlein! He's my
favorite science fiction
author. His works are very
well thought and technically
realistic. But more impor-
tantly, his political viewpoint
is always very clear. Which
is why the Left Wing hates
him so.
"Starship Troopers", for ex-
ample, was written for pre-
teens. However, due to it's
political content, the National
Association of Librarians
actively campaigned against
the novel, forbidding it to be
in the children's section of
libraries. The whole idea of
of a government where one
must essentially earn citizen-
ship, and the power to vote,
hold public office or even
teach in school, was not taken
very well by the Left. The very
notion of a meritocracy stands
against socialism/communism.
Heinlein was always one for
glorifying individual achieve-
ment and private enterprise.
In "Destination Moon", it's
not the government that lands
man on the moon first, but
a consortium of private com-
panies. He was also very
prophetic, probably more so
than Ayn Rand in her tome,
"Atlas Shrugged".
In another of my favorites,
"Farham's Freehold", a man
sits out nuclear war in his
bomb shelter with his wife,
daughter and her fiancée
playing contract bridge. LOL!
A direct blast from a nuke
sends the bomb shelter right
through a tear in time and
space into a distant future.
One where the Earth is run
under Shiria Law by the
dominating Muslims. The
four white devils are quickly
captured and enslaved being
the infidels they are. But the
father makes the best of things
by teaching his master, a
local caliph, contract bridge.
Together, they start a company
selling all the classic games of
the forgotten past. Wonderful!
Nearly all of Heinlein’s books
warn against the evils of
socialism and tyranny. Some-
times with a twist of humor,
too. All are good reads. So
thanks, again, to Steve Sailer
for pointing us in a pleasant
direction. It’s nice to see that
the notion of the government
using tax money to destroy
cars and fund jobs is not so
strange as to be considered
by the fertile mind of Robert
A. Heinlein.