Читать онлайн «Take Back Your Government»

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 inyou.

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I say this in full knowledge that much of die book- indeed its very heart - seems to be badly out of date. Ironically, being "out of date" is one of die book's major values.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 diem 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Heinlein offers a number of timeless insights, but many of his details are seriously out of date.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.

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, 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.

When Heinlein wrote, the typical professional politician was what was then known as a political boss. Most local, district, and county party leaders were unpaid volunteers. Professional political managers were distrusted. While some state legislators and congressmen were returned to office year after year, most were not, and those who were, though powerful through the seniority system, were often the butts of political jokes - and were quite aware that they could easily be turned out of office, either in a primary or a general election. It was a government by amateurs in a true sense, in that everyone had to live under the laws they passed. They worked hard, too. Heinlein could (and does) complain that members of Congress, and of die State Legislature, were underpaid and had too few perks of office; and offer the opinion that the main reason people went to their city council, or state capital, or Washington, and endured die hardships of public office, was patriotism.