"Heinlein, Robert A - Take Back Your Government" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

I wonder what the result would be if one could attack the constitutionality of a law on the grounds that it could not be understood by the ordinary literate adult? The ordinary adult is required to obey the laws-which carries with it the implication that there must be some way of telling him what it is that he must do. How would it be to require that laws be expressed in such terms in the first place?
Even a lawyer cannot require me to rimpf unless he has some way to tell me, in English, what it is I have to dotorimpf.
A foreign language is a minor vice of the lawmaking lawyer, however. Foreign languages can be gotten around, more or less, through interpreters. The worst thing a lawyer brings to the task of lawmaking is a faulty orientation.
You have heard of the Fillyloo Bird? He flies backwards because he does not care where he is going but he likes to see where he has been. Lawyers as a group are strongly related to the Fillyloo Bird, by training, by lack of training, and by association. They look to the past
That's a helluva way to try to draw up a new law to cover a new situation!
We are now confronted with the disheartening spectacle of lawyers attempting to draw up laws on the subject of atomic physics. They look to the past for precedents; there are no precedents - and their own esoteric professional training does not require that they be exposed in any fashion to science nor the methods of science.
The dilemma is not new, it is just more acute. In a myriad ways we permit a group of men who know rather less about the real world than do farmers, engineers, mechanics, or grocers make for us our most important decisions, in accordance with dusty precedents of dead men of their own clique.
The real trouble with lawyers in public life is that most of them don't know anything that really matters.
A Third Party? The emphasis that has been placed herein on the two major parties and the necessity for party regularity and party discipline may lead some to think that I oppose any attempt to form new political parties. If so, I wish to correct the impression.
Party regularity and party discipline are pragmatically necessary and morally correct in any political party if that party is to carry out its responsibilities. This is especially true with respect to unsuccessful candidates in a party primary; no man should offer himself as a candidate in a party primary unless he is prepared to abide by the majority will of the political group he seeks as a sponsor. Running in a primary is a voluntary action, very similar to joining a caucus; it carries with it responsibilities as well as privileges. A candidate need not enter a primary at all; he is always free to run as an independent instead.
In some states the right of a person to participate in a primary may be challenged and he may then be called on to prove his right by taking an oath to support the ticket which results from such primary. Such a procedure is morally correct; if universal it might do much to put a stop to the present eat-your-cake-and-have-h-too attitude of some irresponsible politicians.
Special circumstances arise from time to time when two groups, strongly opposed on basic issues, struggle for the privilege of wearing a party label claimed by
both. In such cases there is usually no pretense that the losing faction will support the winner and there should be none. Consequently no obligation to party regularity exists. But the more usual case is much more like that of the spoiled brat who insists on having his own way in every respect or he won't play.
All of which adds up to this: if you decide to bolt, go whole hog. Leave the party. Join the other party or join a third party. Don't expect either the Republicans or the Democrats to permit you to wield influence if you insist on flirting with the other party whenever the whim seizes you.
The issues involved in forming a third party at this or any time are beyond the scope of this discussion, although it is evident that both parties are now wracked with internal stresses over basic issues which bring each wing of each party closer to the corresponding wing of the other party than are the right and left wings of either party, within the same party. An ideological realignment would appear rational; a third party may be the convenient means to such end.
The practical aspects-our proper business here- depend on whether or not the risk is justified by the objectives. Forming a third party is a highly speculative venture; it fails much more often than it succeeds. But it has been done successfully many times in our history. Mr. Lincoln was elected by third parties for both terms, first by the Republican party and next by the Union party - the latter fact seems to be little known. In 1864 the so-called "Radical" or regular Republicans nominated John C. Fremont, who had been the Republican nominee in 1856. The Union party was a coalition of both Republicans and Democrats.
The Failure of "Reformers": It is a truism in political history that the only thing worse than an officeholder under a corrupt machine is the reformer who replaces him.
Why should this be? Surely most of these reform gentlemen are honestly devoted to the cause of good government and have the best of intentions when they take office. Within my experience practically all of them were, I believe, sincere.
The downfall of some of them can be charged to sheer naivete; they were quite unprepared to cope with the liquor and lady lobbyists, the pressure groups, and the stab in the back. Some of them were cold zealots who could not maintain power because they did not understand what people wanted as well as did the bosses. And some were tragic cases who found themselves unable to live on the miserly stipends which we so frequendy offer as a reward for statesmanship and succumbed to opportunities for graft and bribes.
But the most numerous variety, it seems to me, fail through conceit, from a type of swelled head arising from self-righteousness. I am a "reform" politician myself; this phenomenon is of great interest to me. It surprised and worried me to find out that so many of my ilk were such frail reeds when we got the chance to carry out our intentions.
The life and death of a reformer often runs something like this: He starts out full of enthusiasm and moral indignation. He is determined to have nothing to do with anything resembling what he calls "playing politics." He won't make any promises; he will remain a free agent at all times, devoted to the best interests of all the people.
Presently he finds that he has to makesome promises; a man who isn't committed to anything can't get anywhere in any field, since social living depends on contractual arrangements. Being ignorant he usually makes the wrong promises; they become inconvenient to keep.
Here is where his swelled head ruins him-
He is surrounded (always) by sycophants who tell him what a great guy he is, a new Savonarola no less, and that he is much too big to be bound by bad promises because he has obligations to the whole people which over-ride commitments to individuals, particularly when he was trapped into them (which may be true).
A conscience which tells you that you can break your word for higher, more moral reasons is a very convenient thing to have around. You can get it trained so that it always gives you the answer you want that day. "Mirror, mirror, in my hand, who is the fairest in the land" - and sure enough, it's yourself!
After a succession of such incidents the Machine is back in office.
Political machines, both the fairly decent and the utterly corrupt, have accumulated a great deal of true information about politics. Reformers can't compete unless they know these facts and are prepared to offer all the Machine does and a little more. The two most important facts the reformer must learn from the Machine are these: (a) Promises must be kept, and (b) votes are in the precincts.
You can tear up the rest of the book. Are Democracies Efficient? This used to be a favorite subject for pessimistic pondering during the 'thirties; we seem to have answered it definitively between December 7, 1941, and August 6, 1945. I used to be worried about it myself; I was devoted to the democratic way of life but honestly wondered if it were destined to be engulfed in this "Wave of the Future" which then enjoyed a certain popularity.
My doubts were settled permanently by a refugee from Nazi Germany. A gentile and a very prosperous Berlin businessman, he had preferred ducking over the border and landing in New York penniless and with no prospects to toeing the Nazi line.
I expressed my misgivings to him. He answered, "Don't ever let anyone tell you that any form of dictatorship is more efficient than freedom. Being made up of human beings, both systems make mistakes. The difference is this: In a free country when the mistake begins to show, somebody sets up a howl and presently it is fixed; under a dictator nobody dares to criticize, and the mistake is perpetuated as a permanent, inflexible rule."
To be sure the touchstone he used was free speech, but democracy and free speech are Siamese twins; one can't stay alive without the other.
But Can I Be Effective? Notwithstanding the pretty picture in the last chapter of Muriel Busybody electing Mr. Upright, unseating Mr. Swivelchair, and eventually diereby effecting in at least one instance the whole course of national life you are still entitled to reasonable doubts as to whether or not the case is typical. After all, I wrote the plot; I may have phonied it.
Remember Susie? Susie, the one-woman army? Susie and her kids? (When her oldest was about nine Susie announced die intention of taking them all to the mountains for a week's vacation. The kid was not impressed. "Look here, Mother," she said, "is this really going to be a vacation - or just another convention?") The primary laws of the state in which Susie lives require that delegations to national conventions for the purpose of nominating candidates for president be elected by the people of the party and that the delegates be bound by law to support the candidate under whose name their names appear on the primary ballot, thus giving the people direct voice in the selection of presidential candidates. The law provides further that lists of such delegations may appear on the ballot only as a result of circulation of petitions among the party's voters and such petitions require a great many names to be valid.
Susie had volunteered to obtain for her candidate such a petition, but the Big Politicians downtown told her not to worry. 'Joe Whoosis up north has the whole thing under control," they told her. "He's got the money to take care of it and he is going to use experienced, professional, paid petition circulators." There was a strong implication diat her casual volunteer methods were too sloppy for this Big Time Stuff.
So Susie shut up but she did not put it out of her mind. She watched the newspapers for announcement of the filing of the petition, but failed to find it. With the deadline one week away she telephoned the Big Politician. "How's the petition coming along?"
"Huh? Oh, that - Whoosis is taking care of that. I told you."
"No forms have been filed as yet with the registrar."
"Oh, he'll file 'em up nordi. Don't worry."
On Friday, still seeing no newspaper announcement, Susie decided she would have to find out for herself; she put in a long-distance call to Joe Whoosis. She got his office but not him. Whoosis was sick. The petition? Well, there had been some mix-up about the money, but the secretary thought that it was probably being taken care of, down south.
Susie knew durn well it wasn't being taken care of down soudi; Susie swung into action.
She had a bunch of old petition filing forms thriftily saved from another election; she had her file of 3 x 5 cards; she had a telephone. It was Friday afternoon, beautiful weather, and about half the city had gone away for the weekend - including half her contacts. Never mind.
First she dug up several volunteer typists and put them to work filling out the headings of the petitions. . . . There were more than a thousand such headings to type. This started, she began calling her district leaders, thirty of them, volunteers all, the Muriel Busybodys of die organization.
She located about half of them, told them the house was on fire - get busy! By midnight the last of them had picked up her (or his) petition forms and had left to marshall the forces. The next morning Susie spent digging out secondary leaders in the uncovered districts.
Saturday and Sunday was all die time there was, as all day Monday, Monday night, and Tuesday would be needed to check the forms against the Great Register, cast out the unqualified names (about 40% on any petition) and arrange by precincts the remainder - then file the petitions by four p.m.
A weekend is a poor time to try to circulate a petition at best, but picnics and ball parks and union meetings and crowds pouring out of churches provided places where circulators could make their pitches and fill a form fairly quickly. Susie needed - and got - fifteen thousand names by Monday morning.
The petition was filed with twenty minutes to spare and was eventually qualified as valid. The Big Politicians never got around to submitting a single name.
Now as to the significance of this amazing display of the efficiency of the volunteer fireman-Susie's state is large; it holds about fifty votes in a national convention. It also holds its preferential primary for president much earlier than the primaries or conventions of most other states.
If Susie's state had failed to support her candidate it is quite unlikely that his name would ever have been offered at the national convention ... and without Susie's intervention -bare-handed, no money, no tools save some 3 x 5 file cards - it would have been impossible under die law for her candidate to receive the convention votes of her state. The situation was critical and could have been disastrous - in a fashion directly parallel to what happened to Mr. Willkie's chances in 1944 when the Wisconsin primary went against him.
Since it is not desirable to tie this example to a particular party we will omit the matter of whether or not Susie's candidate was nominated and subsequendy elected president-but I will say diis: On one weekend Susie, middle-class housewife and mother of three, working from her living room telephone, drastically changed the course of state and national politics and left her mark on world affairs and on world history for some generations to come.
Many have done so on a much larger scale and much more prominently - I don't recall ever having seen Susie's picture in die papers. But at dial point she was one of the indispensable factors in die present course of history, like die boy widi his finger in die dike.