Robert Heinlein - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress

Was most sensible remark all afternoon.

Another time they argued "time." Sure, Greenwich time bears no relation to lunar. But why should it when we live Underground? Show me a Loonie who can sleep two weeks and work two weeks; lunars don't fit our metabolism. What was urged was to make a lunar exactly equal to twenty-eight days (instead of 29 days, 12 hours, 44 minutes, 2.78 seconds) and do this by making days longer--and hours, minutes, and seconds, thus making each semi-lunar exactly two weeks.

Sure, lunar is necessary for many purposes. Controls when we go up on surface, why we go, and how long we stay. But, aside from throwing us out of gear with our only neighbor, had that wordy vacuum skull thought what this would do to every critical figure in science and engineering? As an electronics man I shuddered. Throw away every book, table, instrument, and start over? I know that some of my ancestors did that in switching from old English units to MKS--but they did it to make things easier. Fourteen inches to a foot and some odd number of feet to a mile. Ounces and pounds. Oh, Bog!

Made sense to change that--but why go out of your way to create confusion?

Somebody wanted a committee to determine exactly what Loonie language is, then fine everybody who talked Earthside English or other language. Oh, my people!

I read tax proposals in Lunatic--four sorts of "SingleTaxers"--a cubic tax that would penalize a man if he extended tunnels, a head tax (everybody pay same), income tax (like to see anyone figure income of Davis Family or try to get information out of Mum!), and an "air tax" which was not fees we paid then but something else.

Hadn't realized "Free Luna" was going to have taxes. Hadn't had any before and got along. You paid for what you got. Tanstaafl. How else?

Another time some pompous choom proposed that bad breath and body odors be made an elimination offense. Could almost sympathize, having been stuck on occasion in a capsule with such stinks. But doesn't happen often and tends to be self-correcting; chronic offenders, or unfortunates who can't correct, aren't likely to reproduce, seeing how choosy women are.

One female (most were men, but women made up for it in silliness) had a long list she wanted made permanent laws--about private matters. No more plural marriage of any sort. No divorces. No "fornication"--had to look that one up. No drinks stronger than 4% beer. Church services only on Saturdays and all else to stop that day. (Air and temperature and pressure engineering, lady? Phones and capsules?) A long list of drugs to be prohibited and a shorter list dispensed only by licensed physicians. (What is a "licensed physician"? Healer I go to has a sign reading "practical doctor"--makcs book on side, which is why I go to him. Look, lady, aren't any medical schools in Luna!) (Then, I mean.) She even wanted to make gambling illegal. If a Loonie couldn't roll double or nothing, he would go to a shop that would, even if dice were loaded.

Thing that got me was not her list of things she hated, since she was obviously crazy as a Cyborg, but fact that always somebody agreed with her prohibitions. Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws--always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: "Please pass this so that I won't be able to do something I know I should stop." Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them "for their own good"--not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it.

Listening to that session I was almost sorry we got rid of Mort the Wart. He stayed holed up with his women and didn't tell us how to run private lives.

But Prof didn't get excited; he went on smiling. "Manuel, do you really think that mob of retarded children can pass any laws?"

"You told them to. Urged them to."

"My dear Manuel, I was simply putting all my nuts in one basket. I know those nuts; I've listened to them for years. I was very careful in selecting their committees; they all have built-in confusion, they will quarrel. The chairman I forced on them while letting them elect him is a ditherer who could not unravel a piece of string--thinks every subject needs 'more study.' I almost needn't have bothered; more than six people cannot agree on anything, three is better--and one is perfect for a job that one can do. This is why parliamentary bodies all through history, when they accomplished anything, owed it to a few strong men who dominated the rest. Never fear, son, this Ad-Hoc Congress will do nothing... or if they pass something through sheer fatigue, it will be so loaded with contradictions that it will have to be thrown out. In the meantime they are out of our hair. Besides, there is something we need them for, later."

"Thought you said they could do nothing."

"They won't do this. One man will write it--a dead man--and late at night when they are very tired, they'll pass it by acclamation."

"Who's this dead man? You don't mean Mike?"

"No, no! Mike is far more alive than those yammerheads. The dead man is Thomas Jefferson--first of the rational anarchists, my boy, and one who once almost managed to slip over his non-system through the most beautiful rhetoric ever written. But they caught him at it, which I hope to avoid. I cannot improve on his phrasing; I shall merely adapt it to Luna and the twenty-first century."

"Heard of him, Freed slaves, nyet?"

"One might say he tried but failed. Never mind. How are the defenses progressing? I don't see how we can keep up the pretense past the arrival date of this next ship."

"Can't be ready then."

"Mike says we must be."

We weren't but ship never arrived. Those scientists outsmarted me and Loonies I had told to watch them. Was a rig at focal point of biggest reflector and Loonie assistants believed doubletalk about astronomical purpose--a new wrinkle in radiotelescopes.

I suppose it was. Was ultramicrowave and stuff was bounced at reflector by a wave guide and thus left scope lined up nicely by mirror. Remarkably like early radar. And metal latticework and foil heat shield of barrel stopped stray radiation, thus "ears" I had staked out heard nothing.

They put message across, their version and in detail. First we heard was demand from Authority to Warden to deny this hoax, find hoaxer, put stop to it.

So instead we gave them a Declaration of Independence.

"In Congress assembled, July Fourth, Twenty-Seventy-Six--"

Was beautiful.

Signing of Declaration of Independence went as Prof said it would. He sprang it on them at end of long day, announced a special session after dinner at which Adam Selene would speak. Adam read aloud, discussing each sentence, then read it without stopping, making music of sonorous phrases. People wept. Wyoh, seated by me, was one, and I felt like it even though had read it earlier.

Then Adam looked at them and said, "The future is waiting. Mark well what you do," and turned meeting over to Prof rather than usual chairman.

Was twenty-two hundred and fight began. Sure, they were in favor of it; news all day had been jammed with what bad boys we were, how we were to be punished, taught a lesson, so forth. Not necessary to spice it up; stuff up from Earthside was nasty--Mike merely left out on-other-hand opinions. If ever was a day when Luna felt unified it was probably second of July 2076.

So they were going to pass it; Prof knew that before he offered it.

But not as written--"Honorable Chairman, in second paragraph, that word 'unalienable,' is no such word; should be 'inalienable'--and anyhow wouldn't it be more dignified to say 'sacred rights' rather than 'inalienable rights'? I'd like to hear discussion on this."