"Robert A. Heinlein - Take back your Government" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT!

By Robert A Heinlein
Copyright(c) 1992, by Mrs. Virginia Heinlein



INTRODUCTION
Jerry Pournelle
This is a book for every American who wants to reclaim the political
process. Are you mad as Hell and not going to take it any more? Have you
tried to participate in the traditional political process only to discover that the
traditional political parties have no place for you, won't listen, and don't much
matter anyway? Have you turned to the Perot movement as a remedy? Do
you want to see a fundamental change in the American political system?
If so, you need this book.
If you have never thought about politics, and hate the whole idea, you
really need this book. As Pericles of Athens was fond of observing, because
you take no interest in politics is no guarantee that politics will not take an
interest in you.
If you look to H. Ross Perot to lead the nation to salvation, you particularly
need this book.
I say this in full knowledge that much of die book- indeed its very heart -
seems to be badly out of date. Ironically, being "out of date" is one of die
book's major values. This book was written in a very different era of American
politics; in a time when ordinary people could and did participate effectively in
the political scene. This was a manual to show them how to do that there
were many such manuals. This one was unique m that Robert Heinlein both
had practical experience in politics and was one of the dearest (and most
entertaining) writers of the era. Reading this book will be good for you, but
the good news is that it's fun.
Heinlein offers a number of timeless insights, but many of his details are
seriously out of date. That, however, is not a defect but a feature: because in
describing how to operate in a political world that vanished during the
"reforms" of the '60s and '70s, Heinlein describes a working democracy: not
as a dead world of the past, but as the dynamic living world he knew and
lived in and loved.
It is a world we could reclaim. A world we must reclaim. The United States
went a long way down the wrong road during the Cold War. It is time we
return to more familiar territory. This book can be vial to that return.
Democracy, Robert Heinlein says, "is not an automatic condition resulting
from laws and constitutions. It is a living, dynamic process which must be
worked at by you yourself- or it ceases to be a democracy, even if the shell
and form remain." That was written in 1946, at the close of World War II,
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before the Cold War; before the federalization of much of American life.
When we look around at the disaster area that American politics has
become, it is all too clear that Robert was correct. The shell and form of
American democracy remain, but much of what Robert understood about
American democracy has vanished.