For the past few days I've been working on an op-ed piece focusing on the current race for mayor in New York City. And narrowing that focus down on Zohran Mandani - the radical Islamic communist who is among other things threatening to raise taxes on white people - in particular.
I first read Heinlein's classic novel Starship Troopers in the winter of 2000. It was a pretty brutal few months, at one point there were severe winter storms every other day. A lot of people couldn't get out for very long, the roads were so treacherous. Cabin fever was setting in. During one daring venture out into the larger world I wound up at Barnes & Noble in Greensboro. I felt like some old-school science fiction was something I needed. Something I hadn't read yet. I spotted Starship Troopers and bought it, partly because I had seen the movie and had heard the book was much better.
I've wound up with bits and pieces of material worth making at least two essays of. There is soooo much that I am feeling led to say about this race. About how the people of the Big Apple are poised to make the biggest mistake they have ever collectively done as a community. About how most of them have blinded themselves because of party loyalty.
Recently I heard someone describe "democracy" as "the political theory that the common people know what they want and that they deserve to get it good and hard." Well, that's what the citizens of New York City are about to get. And they'll only have themselves to blame. Let us hope that President Trump renders no aid to them. Sometimes the only way a people can learn something is if they go through utter hardship. It's called "tough love". It'll make real men and women out of them.
So in weighing the situation in New York City and what led to the coming to the brink, once again I am finding myself musing if Robert A. Heinlein had the right idea about what it should be to be a proper citizen.
Starship Troopers became one of the more influential books that I've read. It sucked me in hard and wouldn't let go. Especially the extended segments where Heinlein detailed this future society. Those made a tremendous impact on me and the cumulative effect was that ever since I've never cast a vote at the ballot box without heavily considering the weight of my actions as a citizen. Because citizenship has meaning behind it.
Or it should have meaning.
Watching all those fools in New York City now, and not just them but also the people who thought that Kamala Harris really could be worthy of being President of the United States and all the history and tradition that comes with that... well, so help me but it's hard thinking of those as being people who put the best interests of their nation above their own.
On the night of my Eagle Scout board of review, a very dear friend told me something that I've never forgot. He said that people had told him that I had an interest in politics. I said that he was right. Doc told me that I could have a future in politics, if I wanted that. "But don't be a politician!", he said. A politician is someone who puts his or her desires above those of the good of the people. Instead, Doc urged me, "Be a STATESMAN!" A statesman - or stateswoman - is a person who serves others and places their needs above his own. It was a powerful admonition, and ever since I've tried to live up to those words. To be a statesman, even though I may never hold elected office.
Naïve young man that I was, I thought that on some level everyone could be a statesman. But that was more than thirty years and many tragedies ago. And though I like to believe that I've maintained some childlike qualities which have persisted, I sadly must confess to have become rather jaded in other aspects.
Let's get to the point: America is plagued by people who have no idea whatsoever about what it is to be a citizen, and those many are destroying this country in more ways than can be counted. Right now they're poised to destroy what some still consider to be our greatest city. And after that, well... where will it stop?
I think Heinlein, in Starship Troopers, had a wonderful idea. One that we should at least meditate upon.
Robert Heinlein's proposal was this: that citizenship only be granted to individuals who have served in the military for a period of time (if I'm recalling the novel right, it was a minimum of two years). If someone wanted to be a citizen, he or she enlisted in the services, committed to and fulfilled their time, and came out with all the rights ands responsibilities that come with being a full-bore citizen. Which means the rights to vote, to run for and hold office, and to have top-tier government jobs.
It should be borne in mind that in Heinlein's book, citizenship was an opportunity available to everyone. No matter your age or your sex or having a physical or mental handicap, federal service was going to be an option. The government was going to find something meaningful that you could do for two years.
Imagine if we had that kind of a system in the United States.
The caliber of elected officials would be exceptional. They would have to be, if they were drawn from a citizenry that understood and appreciated and respected what it truly meant to be responsible participants in their town and state and country. No more slick con artists doing their damndest to play to people's itching ears, enticing them to vote their appetites.
The cult of celebrity would be far less influential. Media giants like Oprah would have no choice but to direct notice to a candidate like Winsome Earle-Sears (say, why isn't a successful black woman like Earle-Sears being given more attention by the media and celebrities? It's not because she's a *GASP!* conservative, is it?!?).
The mutated monstrosity that is what became of the modern welfare state would be slashed to pieces. I think that there would still be help available for people... who truly warranted that aid. As I write these words, the federal government's funding of SNAP benefits is going to expire four days from now. There will be no more "food stamps", which over forty million people in America use whether they really need it or not (hint: lobster is NOT a staple foodstuff). Millions of people across the fruited plane are looking at starvation beginning within a week. Things didn't have to get this way. They could have and should have been avoided. But it's too late now. We are beholding the inherent weaknesses of a system that demands obeisance to government provision, about to be made magnificently manifest. Some of us have known that this was coming. It can't be stopped. Maybe held off for a little while, but that's only delaying the inevitable. And this time it really might be the breaking point at last.
It would be a nation of free people. It would not be the militaristic fascist state that Paul Verhoeven's movie adaptation of Starship Troopers made it out to be. In Heinlein's vision, there were citizens, there were civilians, and there was the military. The armed forces didn't establish policy or impanel leadership. That was for the citizens.
Well, this is getting long for a blog post. But it's just something I've been musing in the past few days. How much better things would be if citizenship in America was earned, and not freely bestowed upon people who only see being an American as a means of getting "free stuff" from the government. The "gibsmedats" have been sucking on the public tit for generations, and we're seeing the result of that.
It's time to consider bold measures to make sure that we never again find ourselves in the dire straits that we are in.
