Posted on 10/31/2004 8:57:04 PM PST by Lancey Howard
Socialism is the result of the work of very limited minds. It can easily be proven logically and emotionally with simple anecdotes as to why it cannot work in large populations that do not have a close familial relationship.
I agree. I dumped it.
OK....date yourself.....Anyone else remember "SLAN"?
Bookmark for Later Reading
I agree with you. I finally read it to conclusion in 1990, after the author's death, and thought it was sort of miserable.
I thought that was by van Vogt, but I may be wrong. Was that the one about a boy who is a "superman" years after the supermen had conquered and then lost the world, and are now hated by the "normals"? I vaguely remember thinking the original Star Trek episode with Khan Singh (Ricardo Montalbon) ripped off the ideas (but not the plot). I may have dated myself, but at least I'm not senile yet if I'm remembering this; it's literally been decades.
I was addicted to Tom Swift around age 13. Re-read few of 'em recently -- and was shocked/nauseated at what lousy writing and even worse science they contained! Instead of a "deus ex machina," the teenage superman would annul an existing law of nature, or discover a new one just in time to solve his dilemma!
I guess the genre appealed to frustrated nerds who needed a surrogate who succeeded in every area wherein he himself was a failure. Somebody who actually got things done.
In retrospect, Cordwainer Smith put in a kind word for Jesus in an otherwise hostile mileu. The Stars My Destination (Alfred Bester) provided a vivid image of transcendence at the end of angst, turmoil, and rage. (that's one I've re-read many times!)
And it's amazing how many people in Christian Reconstruction (calvinism on steroids) grew up on RAH. Learning from that exemplar of an earlier America's attitudes that welfare statism need not be the norm.
Thanks for the post.
As a teenager, I read every Heinlein book then in existence during the '60s. Politics was not discussed much in my home. So now I wonder how much my "politics" were subliminally formed through my reading of Heinlein (and others).
All the while I thought I was just reading cool space adventures!
Check my tag line.
thanks. i loved that book.
Glock!
Yep.....also read James P. Hogan, one of the most thought provoking authors in SF.....
Red Planet should come before Podkayne of Mars.
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