Take Back Your Government!

Notes

Jerry E. Pournelle, Ph.D. Introduction to the Notes

One attempts to improve the work of a master with some trepidation; but the job had to be done. Mr. Heinlein wrote this book in 1946. We had just ended a great war, and confidently expected things to go back to more or less what they had been before the War and the Great Depression. Much had changed, and no one knew that better than Robert Heinlein; but not even he knew just how profound the change had been, and what changes were to come.

In 1940, Washington, D.C., was a small Southern Border town. There was no air conditioning, and Washington was uninhabitable in the summer. That didn't matter, because what went on in Washington wasn't very important to the average citizen. The political decisions that really counted were made in state capitals and city halls. Federal taxes were quite low, as were federal expenditures.

The War changed all that. The United States emerged victorious from World War II, but we found ourselves saddled with what seemed to be enormous debts, and we faced a devastated world. Money was needed. The Marshal Plan saved Europe, but it cost us. We had built a tax-gathering machine to finance the War; the needs of others kept that machine in place after the war ended. The result was a great increase in federal power, coupled with new international responsibilities. In the Far East, MacArthur rebuilt Japan from an aggressive empire to an unarmed liberal democracy. In Europe, General Lucius Clay in cooperation with democratic elements built West Germany into an armed liberal democracy. NATO became a permanent "entangling alliance."

We were not done rebuilding our former enemies when we found we were in a new war. The Cold War wasn't as bloody as World War II, but after Korea it was clear that it was bloody enough. It was also quite expensive. Instead of dismantling the enormous war machine we had created to beat the Germans and Japanese, we had to augment it. This required management, and Washington, swollen from the wartime expansion of its functions and equipped with new tax-gathering machinery, swelled again and again.

The Cold War brought about genuine divisions among the American people. While most (including Mr. Heinlein) saw armed militant Soviet Communism as a direct threat not only to world peace and stability but to the United States, many intellectuals thought the only threat was anti-Communist hysteria. Meanwhile, we had what appeared to be politics as usual, but with this difference: politics became more important than business; more important than the churches; more important than anything else we did. The growing tendency of political decisions to affect our lives inevitably attracted more professional politicians: the long era of amateur government was coming to an end.

That end came in the Johnson era. The Great Society programs were intended to make fundamental changes in the power structure of the nation; and they did. The changes wrought were probably not those intended. Then came the Watergate scandals, and a perceived need for reform.

The reforms deliberately crippled the party structure. Power was fragmented, doled out among the 435 representatives and 100 senators, divided among endless committees and sub-committees - but never returned to the people.

By 1975 the world described in this book had ceased to exist.

These notes have two purposes. First, they explain terms no longer in use, or used differently two generations ago. They also provide the opportunity to show where Heinlein was exactly right, or, more rarely, where he is known to have changed his views. Robert Heinlein began his political career as a moderate Democrat. His attempts at electoral office ended when he was defeated for the Democratic nomination to the California State Assembly by an up and coming Los Angeles Irish politician named Sam Yorty, who went on to win the Assembly seat, and later to become mayor of the City of Angels. Years later, Mr. Heinlein visited me when I was campaign manager for Yorty's successful bid for a third term as mayor. By that time, Heinlein had made many changes in his political philosophy, moving closer to the Libertarian position.

Thus the notes: the world changed a lot after this book was written, and so did the philosophical views of the author. I have attempted here to deal with both changes. Since this is a work on practical politics, I have tried to keep political philosophy to a minimum; but since the practical value of this book is as a manual of operations for a political system that doesn't exist, but which can be reclaimed, clearly we can't avoid the question. At the least we have to decide whether the system can be restored, and if so should it be.

On that question I feel comfortable: Robert Heinlein loved the America of this book, and would have loved to see it come back.

However: since we can't just turn back the clock, there will inevitably be questions about which changes to the system are acceptable and which are not. In some cases we know, from other works, particularly Expanded Universe, some of what Mr. Heinlein might have said. In others I can only guess, and rather than do that, I give my own opinion. So far as I know Mr. Heinlein and I were in agreement about most basic philosophical issues - hardly surprising given his influence on my life-but not on all. As an example, we disagreed profoundly about conscription. Ironically, when Heinlein wrote this book, he supported peace-time conscription (while recognizing that there were legitimate contrary views) and had absolutely no doubts about the necessity for the wartime draft; positions which I hold now, but which he rejected in his later years.

Therefore, you must think of these notes as my commentaries. I speak as an unabashed admirer of Robert A. Heinlein; as one whose formative years were profoundly influenced by his writings, and whose later years were enriched by our friendship and his generous support of my career; but I speak for myself. I wouldn't dare try to speak for Robert.

Jerry Pournette Hollywood, California July 1992

NOTES

1. (Seepage 6) Unfortunately, while some forgot the lessons of the past, others learned the wrong ones. In the rush to "reform" the political process after Watergate, changes were made that insured that the "senile congressman" would stay in office. So would all the others. By the 1980s the turnover rate in the House of Representatives was lower than that of the British House of Lords, or of the Politburo of the U.S.S.R. This was not the intended consequence of the "reforms" but it was a predictable effect.

It's important to note that the post-Watergate "reforms" took place largely because many good people became disgusted with the political process and turned away from it, leaving the reformation to be organized by zealots and incumbents. It probably should have surprised no one that given their heads, the incumbents made it nearly impossible to defeat them, but in fact most were surprised. The incumbents were shocked to discover that they could no longer be voted out of office.

Whether term limits are a good idea or not is legitimately debatable, but there's no question that term limits address what has become a very real problem.

2. (Seepage 8) Roosevelt had permitted Stalin to send Soviet forces into Iran as a safeguard against a Nazi presence there. When the war ended, Stalin didn't want to leave. President Truman insisted and went so far as to threaten war if the Soviets did not pull back behind their own borders. This prevented the Iranian oil fields from falling into Soviet hands, and had a profound effect on the future of the Middle East

The U.S. presence in Korea was tested a few years later, and we're still there. Britain left Egypt and, largely because of U.S. pressure, did not retain any rights to the Suez Canal. This led to the Suez crisis of 1956, which, coupled with the failed Hungarian uprising, convinced many people that the Communist system would eventually spread worldwide.

Heinlein has chosen as examples issues which turned out to be important throughout the century.

3. (Seepage 8) The Smythe Report on nuclear energy was an early study that concentrated on fission weapons, largely of the Hiroshima class. It has been replaced by The Effects of Nuclear Weapons, available from any Government Printing Office for about ten dollars.

One could conclude from the Smythe report that industrial civilization would be grievously harmed, but not destroyed, by a nuclear war. After fusion weapons - H-bombs - were developed, it was pretty clear that a post-war world would be a very devastated place.

Some, however, would survive. Civil defense could be important, and Heinlein built and stocked a fallout shelter at his home in Colorado Springs during the 1950s.

4. (Seepage 9) It was rather daring for Heinlein to quote Booker T. Washington in 1946, an era in which segregation was quite legal in a quarter of the nation. In those times racial prejudice was not only widely acceptable, but in many circles practically demanded. It's clear that Heinlein, who believed passionately that people weren't equal but race had nothing relevant to say about a person, quite deliberately chose to open this chapter with a quote from a black intellectual. I can only speculate on why, but my guess is that he hoped thereby to discourage the average bigot from reading any further....

Today, of course, it is extremely Politically Incorrect to quote Booker T. Washington, who is seen by the Politically Correct as an "Oreo cookie" or Uncle Tom. More fools they.

5. (Seepage 13) The world was smaller then, and precinct politics a very great deal more important As late as 1965 it was traditional in political science classes to point out that Hughes lost California by one vote perpretinct

In 1969 when I managed Sam Yorty's successful campaign for a third term, I would cheerfully have given this book to every one of my campaign workers as a practical manual for political operations. By 1973 campaign tactics had changed. Professional managers were much in vogue; and professional managers never did care much for precinct organizations. They would rather hire people. Volunteers tire; boiler room operatives are paid to stay energetic. Volunteers require persuasion; paid operatives can be given orders. Perhaps more to the point, most professional political managers own an advertising agency through which all campaign expenditures are tunneled. They collect a fee, generally 15 percent, of all that money; and of course there is no percentage fee involved with the recruitment and management of political volunteers.

This is not to negate Heinlein's point that your activity matters. It matters a lot. If we are to reclaim the republic from the professional politicians, it will require more, not less, effort by the citizens. The rewards will be correspondingly greater.

6. (Seepage 13) Political clubs hardly exist today. In the early part of dais century clubs like Tammany Hall were part of the governing fabric of American life. They could be again, but they will have to be rebuilt nearly from scratch.

Political clubs failed for two reasons. First, of course, movies, radio, and television provided alternate sources of entertainment: it was no longer necessary to go down to Tammany Hall or some other political clubhouse to meet people, play cards, and otherwise kill time. TV can absorb all the time one has and then some.

The second and more important reason for thedecline of political clubs has been the centralization of politics. When the decisions important to you are made at a local level, it makes sense to have a place to discuss those decisions; but when everything is decided thousands of miles away by people you will never meet, the incentive to be part of politics through a political club tends to vanish.

The reconstruction of some equivalent to the political club - possibly through electronic networks or interactive television - is a matter of some importance if we are to reclaim the republic.

7. (Seepage 15) Local party officials no longer have much for volunteers to do. The success of the Perot movement may change that. Perot's campaign was completely built by volunteers, much as Heinlein describes here. It is likely that the other parties will pay attention to that lesson.

However, it is also likely that the professional politicians will make every effort to gain control of any such movement. You have been warned.

8. (Seepage 17) An important point. There's nothing magic about political parties, and little continuity about what they stand for. Prior to World War II, the Democratic Party regularly had a platform advocating "Tariff for revenue only," i.e., decrying protectionism. The Republicans, on the other hand, wanted tariff to protect American industry. Nowadays the Republicans tend to be for free trade, and the Democrats demand an "industrial policy."

Incidentally, this issue isn't as easily decided on ideological grounds as it used to be. As an example: is it protectionism if the U.S. places a tariff on imported goods which make use of technology developed in U.S. institutions from research subsidized by U.S. tax money? Trade relations will be extremely important over the next few years, and it is not at all clear what the optimum trade policy ought to be.

The Perot phenomenon illustrates another case in point. As I write this, there is no Perot party. It is pretty clear that if the Perot supporters hope to reorganize the national political process they will need a party: either to capture one of the existing parties, or, more likely, to form their own. The United States has historically had little use for parties organized around a single person. De Gaulle disliked parties and politics, and tried to govern France by forming his "rally" rather than a party; but today it looks much like any other French political party. It is likely that the Perot supporters will discover they have no choice but to form a permanent institution which will probably look a lot like a party. Clearly those who get in on that early using the techniques described in this book will have considerable influence over what that institution looks like.

9. (Seepage 20) This would have been impossible in the 1980s; but if we are to reclaim the Republic it must be again. The Perot movement may help.

In the 1960s I went through much the same process that Robert describes, moving from precinct worker to district leader. I then moved from Seattle to San Bernardino, California, where within weeks I became county chairman of a major party, largely because of the connections I had built in Washington state. In those days the position of county chairman carried, if not precisely influence, then certainly access to the influential.

10. (Seepage 21) It used to be said in political science classes that the true governing class in the United States consisted of about 200,000 self-selected political party officials; and it was quite true. Of course in those days government was not as important as now. Alexis de Tocquiville was astonished at how much of what would in Europe be done by government was in the United States done by volunteers in association. That too remained true until the professionalization of politics.

When politics changes the rules so that it becomes the only game in town, it should not be surprising that unscrupulous people will try to get control of the game: meaning that the citizens who want to retain the republic must work even harder.

Regaining control over our lives clearly will be incomparably easier if the centralization process done in wartime and continued during the Cold War is reversed. This not only means devolving as many issues as possible from Washington to the states, and from state capitals to local government, but also divesting government of many activities which aren't properly its business in the first place.

11. (Seepage 22) Again, this is how it used to be. Alas, nowadays the paid political professionals have very great influence, and often end up as appointed officials. It is precisely those who refuse to become professionals (and thus have to earn a living) who find themselves frozen out.

When Heinlein wrote this, most state legislators were underpaid and met only for a few weeks each year. The notion of a full-time paid City Council would have been ludicrous.

Yet Heinlein is right: those with real power don't much care for the hired help. However at the moment they can't do without them. If enough people take Heinlein's advice that could change.

12. (Seepage 27) Heinlein's views on Communism, both foreign and domestic, changed considerably from the time this book was written. Today Communism is no longer armed with ICBMs and H-bombs and thrives mostly in American universities.

13. (See page 27) And Whitaker Chambers went precisely from Communism to Quaker. His book Cold Friday remains one of the most readable accounts of just why Communism had to be taken seriously right up to the moment it fell. Chambers, incidentally, died convinced that he had abandoned the winning side for the losing when he left the Communist Party of the United States.

14. (Seepage 28) As a native of Tennessee I have to say that while the restriction on teaching evolution was in full force all during my high school years there, it had no effect whatever on what was actually taught; we learned modern biology including evolution. Nowadays there may be no law against teaching evolution, but the schools are incomparably worse. Note, however, that most of this section is as valid in 1992 as in 1946; indeed given the proposed Voucher System and the utter failure of public education, that debate couldn't be more timely or important.

15. (Seepage 31) One could wish that the post-Watergate reformers had read this passage. The fact is that most laws have unintended consequences. Milton Friedman has proposed as explanation an "Invisible Foot" that inevitably mucks up any great reform scheme. It's hard enough to knock down needless social mechanisms; it's hard enough for government to prevent harm. For it to positively do good may be possible, but experience shows it's not easy.

Probably the most important lesson here is that any proposed changes ought to have a built-in mechanism for its own destruction. Just in case.

16. (Seepage 32) Probably nothing dates this book more than Heinlein's remarks about women.

Heinlein was personally convinced that women were at least as smart as men, and suspected that they were smarter. This suspicion was reinforced by his association with his wife, Virginia, former research chemist and officer of the U.S. Navy, and demonstrably as good an engineer as he was.

His public views were colored by what he thought would be the readers' expectations. In any event most of this section is of historical interest only. The "political streetwalkers" he describes here may have been common in his day, but were rare in the 1960s, and have pretty well vanished today, doubtless due to the changed economic situation.

17. (Seepage 33) This too is hardly a modern view: but then the "daily occupations" of women are no longer what they were in 1946. See note 16 above.

18. (Seepage 35) The dub woman is still very much with us. The important point here, though, is the conclusion: "Be a politician who happens to be female." Hardly a startling conclusion today, but a fairly bold thing to say when written.

19. (Seepage 36) The United States is aging. Over the next twenty years there will be a 75 percent increase in the number of people 50 and older-and only a 2 percent increase in those younger than 50. This has never happened before, in the history of the U.S. or of any other country.

It's something to worry about. We can hope that Heinlein's assessment of older people in politics is exaggerated, or plain wrong. Alas, the politics of the American Association of Retired People doesn't contradict what Heinlein says here. Note also that since this was written the United States has spent our grandchildren's inheritance and saddled them with debt; but Social Security remains "untouchable."

20. (Seepage 37) Old vultures some may be, but we had better find a way to incorporate the elderly into the political process in a way that remains acceptable to those who are actually producing goods and earning money.

When Social Security began, some eight workers paid into the fund to support each one who took money out. That number is down to about three to one today, and will actually go the other way after the turn of the century: that is, more will be drawing from the fund than paying into it. Clearly this is a matter of great concern, since if the democratic process attempts to enslave the young to the old, soon thereafter the democratic process will be set aside in favor of something more realistic.

21. (Seepage 37) Punching doorbells used to be the most common form of political activity. One rang doorbells and offered to talk politics. If die people inside liked what you said, you tried to recruit them to go work on their neighbors. You also got a small donation, on the theory that anyone who gave a dollar to a political campaign would almost certainly vote for the candidate-a principle that remains valid today. Much of this book deals with how to do that, and everything said is spot on. However, it has been about 20 years since any political worker came around my neighborhood. The professional politicians have found what they consider better ways. I'm not so sure of that, myself, and I suspect - indeed hope - that things will change so that punching doorbells is once again a common political activity for volunteers. It's part of the process of reclaiming citizen control of the republic.

22. (Seepage 39) I have managed five political campaigns (won four) and worked in countless others, and I want enthusiastically to second what Heinlein says here. The mainstay of three of my campaigns was a group of elderly men and women.

23. (Seepage 42) Another sign of the times: today's regulatory environment has become so complex that it's impossible even to know what the laws and regulations are, much less keep each unbroken. We all break some law every day; there's no help for it, since some of the laws are contradictory. The result is to give great discretionary power to the law enforcement officials, and to undermine the whole concept of the rule of law. The remedy for this is obvious.

24. (See page 43) "An honest politician is one who stays bought," goes the old political maxim. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, when the city was dominated by E. H. "Boss" Crump, one of the last of the old-time political bosses. I have to say that the city was well run, we were all pretty happy about city government, and most of my friends look nostalgically on those days before politics was "reformed." Most "reform" movements dissipate power, on the theory that this will reduce corruption; the result, alas, is to dilute responsibility untilit becomes impossible to know whom to blame. That's been my observation, anyway.

25. (Seepage 43) I completely agree with both the substance and the spirit of what Heinlein is saying here. Do note, though, that we all have seen one "successful" politician make a solemn promise and break it. "Read my lips. No new taxes." Of course as I write this his continued success is very much in doubt.

26. (Seepage 44) My partner is fond of pointing out that the Beverly Hills Police Department has no doubts about whom the police work for. That's not the case in Los Angeles and many other places. The result is that the police, afraid of prosecution for excessive violence, tend to avoid the violent criminal and concentrate their efforts on enforcing the law among the middle class who don't resist arrest and don't start shooting. That in turn adds to the disaffection of the middle class. It's all part of the problem mentioned in note 24 above.

Heinlein's contempt for political "reformers" knows no bounds. In formal political science courses these people are known as "goo-goo's" (from "good government"); and many a political mess can be traced to their efforts. Heinlein's point is that the only effective reform is constant citizen participation in government. In other words, eternal vigilance is the price ofliberty....

27. (Seepage 45) Note that Heinlein refers to the crisis that left France vulnerable to the Nazi invasion. This book was written before the French defeat in Viet Nam, the Suez Crisis, and the subsequent loss of the French Empire.

28. (Seepage 48) Signs of the times. Today it's April 15th. And the tax laws are far more complex and contradictory than when Heinlein wrote this. The federal government takes in far more money than anyone other than an out and out Socialist would have dreamed possible in 1946; yet it's still broke, and the nation is in such a sea of debt that our grandchildren will not be able to pay it all. We tax capital gains as if they were ordinary income. Anyone want to bet that tax law won't be important 20 years from now?

29. (Seepage 48) In Heinlein's day the Post Office was a courteous and efficient place, not yet the butt of national jokes. Robert was fond of telling stories about that efficiency, including a time when they delivered a package that had been nearly destroyed in a rail accident; attached to the package was a bag of candies which had spilled when the package wrapping tore. Those were the days....

30. (See page 49) TURN THE RASCALS OUT! was long the traditional cry of voters who had had enough. Today the rascals are very thoroughly entrenched.

Heinlein's comments on civil service and patronage are as relevant today as when written, but I doubt he would today have as much faith in written (as opposed to oral) examinations. The problem is the entrenched nature of civil servants and their immunity to political responsibility: for my own part, I think I'd rather see a spoils system for the non-technical work of government.

31. (Seepage 50) How far have we come. Since that was written we have built an enormous welfare bureaucracy which has a heavy financial interest in keeping up the supply of poor people as clients. NASA has become swollen with civil servants appointed on merit but entrenched in a system that produces little but paper. It is needless to multiply examples.

32. (Seepage 51) It's pretty clear that Senator Byrd was right and Heinlein wrong in this instance.

33. (Seepage 51) All that has been changed. Con-gresscritters get enormous perks as well as quite good pay, and have access to other sources of income and perks. State legislators are well paid, and often are full time. The original notion of a legislature was that a group of citizens would go approve laws they then had to live and work under. That got lost, in part due to well meaning "reform" efforts. Heinlein argues that the laborer is worthy of his hire: the evidence is that in politics if you pay the legislator what he is in theory worth he will cease to be a representative, and become a professional politician. What happens is that when the salary is worth competing for, people will compete for the salary. It's possible that what's needed is a legislature made up of one full-time paid professional house and one part-time amateur house. In any event, one can hardly argue that legislators are underpaid today: or that paying them a lot more solved more problems than it raised.

34. (Seepage 51) The public trough used to be slim pickings, but things are very different now. An obvious reform is to go back to what Heinlein describes. Government today dispenses a much larger part of the Gross National Product than when this was written.

35. (See page 51) Nothing has changed here, of course. The lawyers dominate all the legislatures: which may or may not have a bearing on why the laws are always so complex as to require the citizens to hire lawyers in order to obey them.

36. (Seepage 52) Ed Crump used to distinguish between "honest graft" and "dishonest graft." Dishonest graft was stealing from the public; making work that didn't need to be done in order to be paid for it; overcharging for services to the public; that sort of thing. Honest graft was patronage: channeling money that had to be spent to one's friends or associates, or where it would do the most political good, always insisting that the work or services bought be honestly delivered. Although Crump probably wouldn't have cared for Affirmative Action (Memphis was legally segregated during his era), he would almost certainly have included Affirmative Action, Hire the Handicapped, etc., as "honest graft" since those programs involve transfer of public money to people selected by political means.

37. (Seepage 52) I don't know what Heinlein's views on this would be today. My own are that the experiment was tried, and now we need term-limit laws. See above: the problem is that if you pay people a living wage to be politicians, they will make a living as politicians: which removes government from the people and hands it to a political class.

38. (See page 52) The disgust of the public with officeholders is stronger today than when that was written, despite our having made most legislative offices full time and highly paid. See note 37.

39. (Seepage 53) I agree: moreover, I think it was a very good thing that many of our political leaders were mostly motivated by patriotism. In fact, by professionalizing public office we made it more likely that office holding would be merely another job, not a patriotic act. Clearly I am in disagreement with what Heinlein says earlier in this book. I don't know what his views would be today. I doubt he'd have been much impressed by the current group of officeholders; I seem to recall him saying once that the California Legislature was the finest money could buy, but whether this was intended as jest or serious comment I can't say.

40. (Seepage 53) The heart of the matter. Be a party regular. That, however, presumes that the parties matter. Increasingly they don't. The federal structure of the United States has always made life difficult for national political parties. The state parties were fer more important Members of Congress and senators were part of the state party system, generally drawn from the same pool and acting interchangeably with state legislative and executive officers. Periodically the state parties would get together to select a national standard bearer; that was usually as a result of discussion and debate and "power brokering." Today it's far different. The parties have little role in selecting a president; that's done in a series of endurance contests called primaries. Primaries are supposed to be more democratic than a party caucus: this supposes that the ordinary voter, who generally knows no more about a candidate than has been reported in the newspapers and conveyed on TV in 30-second sound bites, will make a more intelligent selection than a party official who may know all the candidates fairly well. It's not a compelling theory, and the results could be imagined if they weren't all too clearly in front of us.

The Founding Fathers of the United States hated political parties, which they called "factions"; but they soon found they couldn't govern without them, and Madison, whose Federalist Papers essays denounce "factionalism" in ringing terms, had no choice but to participate in the building of a party system. For those familiar with the details behind Marbury vs. Madison, the case in which John Marshall asserted the right of the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down acts of Congress as unconstitutional, the irony is delicious: Madison as Secretary of State under Jefferson was acting as a party leader when he failed to deliver the judicial commission demanded by Marbury (who had been appointed by Adams in his outgoing hours).

Heinlein is saying here that parties, particularly local parties, are the most important part of citizen participation in politics; that parties are, and should be, worthy of your support and loyalty.

This is a view not much held any longer; but it is a view very much worth attention. In my judgment Heinlein has come to the heart of the matter: you cannot have citizen control of government without strong LOCAL political parties; and you cannot have strong parties without the kinds of activities he describes. I wish every citizen concerned with reclaiming the republic would read this section carefully and reflect on it.

41. (Seepage 54) Exactly so. I've put a note here to draw attention to the text, not because I have anything to add.

42. (See page 56) Still true, although the Congress-critter will pretend to be impressed. The simple fact is that Congresscritters pay attention to PACs bringing money and not much else. There is a standard price for an hour of a Congresscritter's time, and every PAG leader knows it.

It used to be that Congresscritters paid a lot of attention to people who held party office; what we have to do is make that true again.

43. (Seepage 57) More of the heart of the matter. Some of Perot's support comes from people who never before took part in politics. Others are people disaffected with their parties.

If these people are to have any lasting effect on the American political scene, they must organize along regular party lines: either take over an existing party, or build their own.

The alternative is to chop away the "reforms" of the past 40 years and return the system to what it used to be: but in that case diey will still have to join the regular parties to keep control.

There is nothing more temporary than the enthusiasm of a reform movement. Parties endure. Reform movements flare and vanish.

44. (Seepage 58) What Heinlein is saying here comes right out of old Boss Flynn's book You're The Boss, and it's spot on.

45. (Seepage 59) While most of us agree that divided government is not a good idea in theory, the Cold War produced some odd - we can hope unique - situations. The Left demanded a number of domestic political concessions, notably the Great Society, in return for allowing the Right to conduct the Cold War and continue building up defenses. The Carter presidency demonstrated that the Democrats were not optimum for handling the Cold War. By the time Reagan was elected, Congresscritters of both parties were the beneficiaries of such powerful incumbency advantages that it was impossible to bring in Republican control of the House. Whether having a Republican majority in both houses would have been a good thing is another matter, and one subject to legitimate disagreement.

However, Heinlein's principle is good. Divided government means no one is responsible.

46. (Seepage 60) Alas, most of this chapter, and the rest of this book, is obsolete. It doesn't have to remain so; but before we can return control to citizens in general, we must devolve many to most government controls back to local areas. It is fer more difficult to get people involved in politics when the decisions are made thousands of miles away; if they're made dose by, it's another matter.

I've always called that the horsewhip theory: if the important decisions affecting my life are made by people we can get at with a horsewhip, we're probably in good shape.

This chapter and those following are wonderful introductions to the arts of political doorbell punching, dub organizing, and general local politicking, and with luck and a lot of work these will become the most relevant chapters of the book; for the moment parts are more of academic and nostalgic interest.

On the other hand, if enough people pay enough attention to organizing political dubs, the problems of the country just might solve themselves. Meanwhile, Heinlein, like Dale Carnegie, gives timeless advice on how to win friends and influence people. His final chapter exhorting people to political action is both eloquent and important.

One could only wish that his advice had been taken before we lost control of the political process.