The American Spectator

Reader Mail

p> WALKING A HEINLEIN br> Re: Colby Cosh's Starship Bloopers : /p>

Actually, most of the great science fiction writers of the Golden Age started off as raging lefties: read Fred Pohl's The Way the Future Was for the adolescent Marxist feuds that rampaged through fandom and the early years of the field.

p>And Mr. Cosh oversimplifies Heinlein's form of democracy: it was not merely a democracy "in which only military veterans and certain similar public servants had the franchise." Anyone who wanted the franchise was entitled to it, but they had to perform a period of public service, military or civilian, to demonstrate that they were capable of putting the social good above personal benefit, and thus would at least be more likely than not to use their vote responsibly. br> -- Richard McEnroe /p>

Intriguing essay. I've always been fascinated by that mind that could create The Puppet Masters with its defense of democracy and the Constitution, then evolve to the espousing of a benevolent despotism in, was it Glory Road?

p>That has always struck me as an embrace of a luminous and vibrant despair. br> -- Bill Lannon

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