Heinlein Is Right

Heinlein wrote the novel to be the part of the juvenile series of science fiction novels published by Scribners and as a response to pro-Soviet peace activism. In the novel a young man grows from a naive high school student to a junior officer in the army. The narrative of the novel also serves as the framework for a series of lectures about the nature of man, morals, war, and government. The most controversial concept in the novel is that not everyone should be allowed to vote. In the place of universal suffrage Heinlein proposed the idea that the legal status of Citizen, who is a member of the sovereign class of the nation with the authority to vote, has to be earned.    Then as now there were people who clearly didn’t understand the concept of government. Then as now there were those who sought to exploit the ignorance of the mere voter in order to obtain political power. And worse to obtain power without restraint.  Heinlein had proposed the idea of earning the sovereign franchise as a filtering mechanism to prevent obvious fools--such as peace activists--from influencing government.

The idea of the restricted franchise is not new. In the Polis of Athens the franchise was restricted to property owning members of the tribe but there was no legal restraint on the state. As history had shown this led to dysfunctions such as legal murder of Socrates. It was not enough to restrict the powers of government but to restrict who could actually participate in the process of governing.  In effect to idiot-proof the system.

So is it actually necessary to fully implement the system that Heinlein proposed?

The fact is that all forms of authority are based on knowledge and political authority is no exception.  But in the present system political authority is granted to any warm body without regard to their the actual state of knowledge. As a result some warm bodies have traded their votes for a material object such as an IPad or a wad of cash. Or worse they have traded their votes for the warm and fuzzy feeling of having been compassionate.

The result is out present state of our nation. Those who lack knowledge or simple concern for consequences should not have authority over another person, let alone the fate of a nation.  My solution to the problem is simply proper education in the obligations of citizenship.   The course would be similar to a driver education course as presently taught. The first part of the class covers The Constitution, the proper functions of each branch of government, the function of each clause and amendment, the duties of the citizen as a member of the sovereign authority of the nation, and what is expected to happen when the Federal Government enters the failure mode.  The second part of the course covers the function and use of the instrument of political authority, the personal weapon. This covers rifle marksmanship and maintenance. Also covered is the basic organization and tactics of the citizen militia unit.

While the citizenship course will not be mandatory, completion and a passing grade will be required to exercise the authority to vote. 

Thought For Today

Never allow the enemy to have a safe space.  Toss a couple of hand grenades in and then shoot every last one of them.  Remember, when you fighting for your life then anything goes, there are no exceptions. And also remember, a vote for for Hillary Clinton is a vote for a civil war.  They will kill every one of us they can find  They will murder every wife and child they can find and they will  make no exceptions..  There are no excuses and we must make no exceptions when we wipe them out in return.

Thought For The Day

They leap at the chance to rob and murder and then complain that they are treated as robbers and murderers.   They refuse to apologize for their actions but demand that we apologize for ours.

No.

Thought For The Day

Sometimes I just want to scream.

Saint Hillary

Once upon a time ago I was working on a bit fiction set in the Official Traveller Universe:

Ian saw that the old bakery building at 22nd Avenue and Washington Street was boarded up again, another attempt to redevelop the property without demolishing the original single story brick structure had failed.

Plastered all over the structure were posters showing a black and white photograph of a sixty-ish woman, with short fake blonde hair, a standard nine-millimeter service pistol was aimed at her head. The hammer of the pistol in the photograph was blurred as though it were falling on the firing pin.

Over the photograph on the poster in all capital letters was the one word, REMEMBER.

"I'm sorry sir," said the Chief as he pointed to the posters, "but I'm not fully familiar with that bit of Terran history."

"Well," Ian replied, "That's Saint Hillary, a martyr for the holy cause of Democracy. She was just a stupid old bitch who believed that being democratically elected somehow constituted an excuse for abusive and destructive behavior."

So Anyway

Today is Talk Like A Pirate Day.  To honor this day I am reposting the following:

Its the International Talk Like A Pirate Day!

And that means its time for get in touch with your inner pirate. And who doesn't want to get in touch with their inner pirate?

Once you've gotten in touch with your inner pirate, the job is not over. Remember to consult the Affirmations for your Inner Pirate:

Stuart Smalley's Daily Affirmations for the Inner Pirate

Monday:
"I'm going to rape and pillage today just for the heck of it because, gosh darn it, I deserve to have a good time."

Tuesday:
"I am not a fraud, a thief yes, but not a fraud."

Wednesday:
"I deserve all the loot and booty I can carry without feeling ashamed or being grandiose."

Thursday:
"I will express my feelings today. I will not hide them behind my eyepatch. My eyepatch is not a mask for my feelings, but rather a small swatch of leather that covers a hideous scar."

Friday:
"When I overtake that merchants vessel, I will not be playing those parent tapes in my head: "You wield a cutlass like a girl" . . . "Why can't you be more like Blackbeard's son?" . . . "Philosophy? What kind of major is that? It's useless!"

Saturday:
"Just because I indulge in wine and wenches does not mean I'm an alcoholic sex-addict like my father."

Sunday:
"If I must violently put down a mutiny today, it is not because I am a bad person or that I am not worthy of love; it is because my crew are a bunch of yellow-bellied, lily-livered sons-of-whores--and I am mean enough, ruthless enough, and dog gone it, people fear me."

transcribed by James R. Torrence
Arrrrrr...

Objection

Um...no.

I want to see her in prison.

An Answer

I've had  pneumonia and it damned near killed me.

In October of 2011 I went to bed with the expectation of working another twelve hour day driving a taxicab in Minneapolis.  Roughly a month later I woke up in an ambulance while being transferred from Fairview Southdale hospital in Edina to a long term care facility in Hopkins.   And I have no memory at all of the first month hospitalization.  And I have no memory at all of the heart attack that left me clinically dead for 40 minutes and nearly killed me.

So when Hillary Clinton is claiming that her very apparent health problems are due to pneumonia I'm not about to believe her.

Question

When has a Democrat not lied?

Anniversary Of 9/11

For those who are victims of the public schools and mainstream media a fifteen years ago a group of Muslims managed to hijack four commercial airliners and crashed three of them into each of the main towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.   We have yet to properly respond to this atrocity.

Update 1040 CDT:

By a proper response I mean that we should have erased the abomination commonly known as a Kaaba from the face of the Earth with a high yield thermonuclear weapon.  And in doing so we would have demonstrated that the deity known as Allah was without question a false god and the  doctrine known as Islam was an absolute load of nonsense.

Of course there will be those who point a finger at me and scream that I'm expressing hatred. 

So what?

If we would hang a traitor once in a while (pour encourager l'outres) they wouldn't be so annoying.

And remember:

Repeating Myself

What the Republican Party needs to get through their collective skulls right now is the fact that the age of politics as usual is over.  No more compromise. No more deals. No more bipartisanship. 

There must be a radical clean up of the mess that the Left has created. The partisans of socialism must be systematically removed from our public institutions. And if we are to have a future as the core nation of our civilization we must make a special effort to clean out the Augean Stables that our educational establishment has become under the tutelage of the Left.  And we must with volume and clarity tell the spoiled brats who imagine themselves to be the heirs of Marx and Lenin to grow up or get out.

And of course if those idiots would just die it would be nice too.

Thought For The Day

Calling the Left a bunch of idiots is an insult to idiots.

So Anyway

Those who do not remeber the past are highly sought after as voters.

During my early morning walk I found five Black Lives Matter yard signs.  On the plus side I also saw one yard sign in support of the police.  Nevertheless support for the anti-human thugs is strong in North East Minneapolis.

On Occasion

Somebody does something honest.

Another Part Of Chapter Six Of Reset

On a Sunday afternoon Evelyn brought Vicky to the Uptown Theater on the corner of Lagoon and Hennepin south of the downtown area of Minneapolis.  It had been briefly run as a  porno house before being purchased by Landmark Theaters and brought into service as a revival theater.  This weekend the Uptown was showing a Monty Python double feature.  And Now For Something Completely Different along with Monty Python And The Holy Grail. 

Of course in order to bring Vicky along he had to briefly explain both films to her parents.

“Well the first is basically a recreation of several of the original television sketches in the standard cinematic format.  And the second film is a retelling of King Arthur’s quest for the Holy Grail.”

Fortunately Evelyn didn’t have to explain how the shortfall in the production budget led to adoption of a major plot device or how an annoying critter had to be dealt with by a sacred artifact.  Although it would have been nice if there were actually a Book Of Armaments in the New Testament.

Except for the passages about anchovies, of course.

Evelyn met Vicky at her home after Sunday Mass and took the bus down to the theater.  After change of bus downtown they arrived before opening time and were at the head of the line of other local Monty Python fans.  At roughly ten minutes before opening time a woman with long grey hair and wearing glasses with a clipboard walked up to the head of the line.  To Evelyn she looked like John Lennon in drag and something about her just said that she was a closet communist.

And then he looked at the woman again.

Oh shit.  He thought.

Stone recognized the woman.

On the second day of the war the Army Reserve company Stone was assigned to had mobilized at Fort Snelling.  They were part of the 205th Infantry Brigade and assigned to the defense of Alaska from the Soviets.  But now the 205th would be sent to Western Canada to fight the Soviet Airborne and Naval Infantry units that landed there.  The original plan was for the unit to be flown to Alaska but with most of the airlift capacity destroyed on Day One the brigade would be transported by rail from the Amtrak station in Saint Paul.  A mob of peace activists were blocking the entrance of the station.

And the woman was leading the mob.

Instead of beating the woman to a bloody pulp and granting the status of martyr he decided to do something worse.

Far worse.

He would mock her.

The woman launched into her impressive spiel about the evils of the American nuclear arsenal and the the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles which were presently deployed in North Dakota when Stone rudely interrupted her in his best impression of John Cleese.

“Madame, both my date and myself are too young to commit treason, and in case you haven’t noticed all of us here are waiting to see a Monty Python film.”

And with his right hand he gestured towards the other people waiting in line.

“And you didn’t actually believe we would take your sacred mission and delusion of importance seriously, did you?”

The woman was about to respond when Stone spoke again.

“And there’s also a reason those nice folks in the Kremlin call people like you a bunch of useful idiots, but then Soviet Communists never gave an actual damn about the emotional state of your lot.  Seriously, you should take your silly petition and shove off.”

As the woman stormed away in anger Vicky spoke.

“That wasn’t nice.”

“It wasn’t meant to be nice.”  He replied.  “Beating her to a bloody pulp is clearly not an option, so what else can I do?”

“Okay.”

After the screening Evelyn and Vicky had a meal at the McDonald’s across Hennepin Avenue from the theater.

She had a question.

“So what’s with the coconuts?”

Evelyn answered.

“They didn’t have the funds to rent horses for the actors, so they used an old technique for simulating the sound of horses on the radio.  And I may be wrong, but Graham Chapman also had a serious drinking problem at the time, which may explain his difficulty with counting up to five.”

“Three.”

“Oh right,” he said, “three.”

It was while waiting for the bus to go home that the peace activist walked up to them.  She was still visibly angry at being humiliated and started to go off on him.

Stone responded as a drill sergeant.

“Madame, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has murdered no less than fifty million people since they seized power.  And there is no excuse for supporting them, even in an indirect manner.  As long as you support the Enemies of Mankind, then you will be identified as and dealt with as such and very likely this will be with a single round to the head.”

As the peace activists were blocking the entrance of the Amtrak station Stone had stepped away from his fellow combat riflemen and chambered a round in his weapon.  He took careful aim and place the round between the lenses of her glasses.
   

Thought Of The Day

If you're lithobraking in space flight you're doing it wrong.

A Bit Of Chater Six

Hot dish was a relatively quick and economical form of Minnesota cuisine using simple components such as ground beef, macaroni and cheese mix, and a can of condensed tomato soup.  There were some people who put an elaborate effort into making hot dish but that missed the point.  It was supposed to be a cheap and easy meal to make.

Quote

Yoko Ono certainly was a no-talent waste of mass and energy, but that was no excuse to erase New York City.

-Star Of The North by E.A. Stone

Restaurant Review

Before a doctor's appointment today I checked out the Smash Burger location at the Southdale Mall.  Frankly I'm disappointed.  Although the burger was made with Angus beef I could barely taste the distinct flavor of it and the fries were cut way too thin. 

Seriously, if I still had a functioning car I would rather go down to Fuddruckers.

So Anyway

I don’t know if I’m going to use this yet but here’s an excerpt from Star Of The North by E.A. Stone.

There was no shortage of idiots on our side during the war.  One fellow actually wanted to ban sliced bread.  He was actually serious about this.  His excuse was that it would prevent wear on the production machinery.  It didn’t matter to him that without slicing to a regular thickness there would be a waste of bread.  A millimeter here or there and soon you would have a full loaf of bread.  Do this with millions of loaves and this would be a real problem.  Every bakery still in operation ignored the order but this idiot wouldn’t shut up and he was soon assigned to mine clearing duty.

Mine clearing?  No, I’m not kidding.

The primary method of clearing mines during the war was to crawl out and poke the ground ahead of you with a wooden stick.  When you found a mine you would mark the spot then go around and continue the search.  In contrast the Soviet method of clearing mines was to take prisoners from the gulag, usually Mexicans or other Central Americans who got on the wrong side of a commissar, and march them out across the minefield at gunpoint to deliberately detonate the mines.  A lot of the victims who survived the procedure were enthusiastic recruits for our side.  They mostly wanted to go home and they didn’t care how many Reds they had to kill to get there.