Robert Heinlein - Take Back Your Government!

5. (Seepage 13) The world was smaller then, and precinct politics a very great deal more important As late as 1965 it was traditional in political science classes to point out that Hughes lost California by one vote perpretinct

In 1969 when I managed Sam Yorty's successful campaign for a third term, I would cheerfully have given this book to every one of my campaign workers as a practical manual for political operations. By 1973 campaign tactics had changed. Professional managers were much in vogue; and professional managers never did care much for precinct organizations. They would rather hire people. Volunteers tire; boiler room operatives are paid to stay energetic. Volunteers require persuasion; paid operatives can be given orders. Perhaps more to the point, most professional political managers own an advertising agency through which all campaign expenditures are tunneled. They collect a fee, generally 15 percent, of all that money; and of course there is no percentage fee involved with the recruitment and management of political volunteers.

This is not to negate Heinlein's point that your activity matters. It matters a lot. If we are to reclaim the republic from the professional politicians, it will require more, not less, effort by the citizens. The rewards will be correspondingly greater.

6. (Seepage 13) Political clubs hardly exist today. In the early part of dais century clubs like Tammany Hall were part of the governing fabric of American life. They could be again, but they will have to be rebuilt nearly from scratch.

Political clubs failed for two reasons. First, of course, movies, radio, and television provided alternate sources of entertainment: it was no longer necessary to go down to Tammany Hall or some other political clubhouse to meet people, play cards, and otherwise kill time. TV can absorb all the time one has and then some.

The second and more important reason for thedecline of political clubs has been the centralization of politics. When the decisions important to you are made at a local level, it makes sense to have a place to discuss those decisions; but when everything is decided thousands of miles away by people you will never meet, the incentive to be part of politics through a political club tends to vanish.

The reconstruction of some equivalent to the political club - possibly through electronic networks or interactive television - is a matter of some importance if we are to reclaim the republic.

7. (Seepage 15) Local party officials no longer have much for volunteers to do. The success of the Perot movement may change that. Perot's campaign was completely built by volunteers, much as Heinlein describes here. It is likely that the other parties will pay attention to that lesson.

However, it is also likely that the professional politicians will make every effort to gain control of any such movement. You have been warned.

8. (Seepage 17) An important point. There's nothing magic about political parties, and little continuity about what they stand for. Prior to World War II, the Democratic Party regularly had a platform advocating "Tariff for revenue only," i.e., decrying protectionism. The Republicans, on the other hand, wanted tariff to protect American industry. Nowadays the Republicans tend to be for free trade, and the Democrats demand an "industrial policy."

Incidentally, this issue isn't as easily decided on ideological grounds as it used to be. As an example: is it protectionism if the U.S. places a tariff on imported goods which make use of technology developed in U.S. institutions from research subsidized by U.S. tax money? Trade relations will be extremely important over the next few years, and it is not at all clear what the optimum trade policy ought to be.

The Perot phenomenon illustrates another case in point. As I write this, there is no Perot party. It is pretty clear that if the Perot supporters hope to reorganize the national political process they will need a party: either to capture one of the existing parties, or, more likely, to form their own. The United States has historically had little use for parties organized around a single person. De Gaulle disliked parties and politics, and tried to govern France by forming his "rally" rather than a party; but today it looks much like any other French political party. It is likely that the Perot supporters will discover they have no choice but to form a permanent institution which will probably look a lot like a party. Clearly those who get in on that early using the techniques described in this book will have considerable influence over what that institution looks like.

9. (Seepage 20) This would have been impossible in the 1980s; but if we are to reclaim the Republic it must be again. The Perot movement may help.

In the 1960s I went through much the same process that Robert describes, moving from precinct worker to district leader. I then moved from Seattle to San Bernardino, California, where within weeks I became county chairman of a major party, largely because of the connections I had built in Washington state. In those days the position of county chairman carried, if not precisely influence, then certainly access to the influential.

10. (Seepage 21) It used to be said in political science classes that the true governing class in the United States consisted of about 200,000 self-selected political party officials; and it was quite true. Of course in those days government was not as important as now. Alexis de Tocquiville was astonished at how much of what would in Europe be done by government was in the United States done by volunteers in association. That too remained true until the professionalization of politics.

When politics changes the rules so that it becomes the only game in town, it should not be surprising that unscrupulous people will try to get control of the game: meaning that the citizens who want to retain the republic must work even harder.

Regaining control over our lives clearly will be incomparably easier if the centralization process done in wartime and continued during the Cold War is reversed. This not only means devolving as many issues as possible from Washington to the states, and from state capitals to local government, but also divesting government of many activities which aren't properly its business in the first place.

11. (Seepage 22) Again, this is how it used to be. Alas, nowadays the paid political professionals have very great influence, and often end up as appointed officials. It is precisely those who refuse to become professionals (and thus have to earn a living) who find themselves frozen out.

When Heinlein wrote this, most state legislators were underpaid and met only for a few weeks each year. The notion of a full-time paid City Council would have been ludicrous.

Yet Heinlein is right: those with real power don't much care for the hired help. However at the moment they can't do without them. If enough people take Heinlein's advice that could change.

12. (Seepage 27) Heinlein's views on Communism, both foreign and domestic, changed considerably from the time this book was written. Today Communism is no longer armed with ICBMs and H-bombs and thrives mostly in American universities.

13. (See page 27) And Whitaker Chambers went precisely from Communism to Quaker. His book Cold Friday remains one of the most readable accounts of just why Communism had to be taken seriously right up to the moment it fell. Chambers, incidentally, died convinced that he had abandoned the winning side for the losing when he left the Communist Party of the United States.

14. (Seepage 28) As a native of Tennessee I have to say that while the restriction on teaching evolution was in full force all during my high school years there, it had no effect whatever on what was actually taught; we learned modern biology including evolution. Nowadays there may be no law against teaching evolution, but the schools are incomparably worse. Note, however, that most of this section is as valid in 1992 as in 1946; indeed given the proposed Voucher System and the utter failure of public education, that debate couldn't be more timely or important.