Robert A Heinlein - Take back your Government

TAKE BACK YOUR GOVERNMENT!

By Robert A 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seems to be badly out of date. Ironically, being "out of date" is one of die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seriously out of date.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.

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.

It was all true in those days. Some politicians might have been motivated

by greed, or a lust for power, but most thought of themselves as, and were

seen by their constituents to be, public servants, sacrificing some of their

productive years to the political process. Today things are different. However

the professional politicians see themselves, poll after poll shows that the

American people think they are a self-perpetuating elite motivated mostly by

the desire to retain power.

Since Heinlein wrote this book, most states have changed from a part-

time amateur legislature of citizens who approved laws they would have to

live with and make a living under, to full-time paid professionals who spend

most of their time in the state capital rather than in their home districts,

exempt themselves from the laws and regulations they impose on others,

and who, far from making a living under the laws they make, are paid by the

state and sometimes prevented by conflict-of-interest laws from outside work.

(A noted exception is, of course, lawyers, who have been allowed to retain

their partnerships in law firms even if the firm does business with the

government. They did that in Heinlein's day too.) Their idea of making a living

is not yours.

It's doubly true of the Congress of the United States, which has multiplied

its perks while invariably exempting itself from such laws as the Civil Rights

Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Wage/Hours Act, most of the

reporting laws, and nearly all federal regulations. Far from a largely citizen

body, the Congress has become a governing elite with high job security.

Since this book was written, Congress went from an assembly of the people

to an institution with 98 percent incumbency-a lower turnover than Britain's

2

hereditary House of Lords. While private industry loses jobs, Congress

multiplies its staff: there are over 30,000 "Hill Rats," as congressional staff

are called in Washington. They serve 535 senators and representatives. Do

you have nearly 50 people to mind details and run errands for you? Each of

your legislators in Washington does, all paid with your taxes. Think about that

before you contemplate running for office. Each congressman commands a

political patronage machine that the old ward bosses would have envied.

Other things have changed. The budget has grown enormously.

Government (federal, state, and local) now spends nearly half the money

generated in this country. The national debt went from an irritation to an

impending disaster. The civil service at all levels has grown well beyond

anyone's ability to predict in 1946. Government, in a word, has become very

big business indeed, while what we used to fear as "the big business interest"

has faded into the background. I could multiply examples endlessly, but

surely the point is made. Somewhere between 1946 and the present the

American democracy as Heinlein knew it disappeared, to be replaced with

our present system in which our local affairs are governed by Washington - a

city that can't govern itself, but has no qualms about telling the rest of us how

we should live.

The Opportunity

We have a new situation in this year of grace 1992 and of the

independence of these United States the 216th. To say that the American

people have come to distrust their government is a silly understatement. The

polls show that they hate our present political system. They're mad as Hell

and they aren't going to take it any more. There is a movement to take back

control, and it may work. For the first time in our lifetimes there is an

alternative. Millions of Americans, disgusted with politics as usual, have

turned to a man who, as I write this, is still legally only an "undeclared

candidate for President" - but who, as I write this, is the likely winner of the

Presidency. In the state of New Jersey both houses of the legislature went

from a majority by one party to a veto-proof majority of the other. As I write

this we can predict that there will be at least 100 new faces among the 435

members of the House of Representatives; and it is entirely possible that

there will be many more, perhaps even a majority of new faces.

There will be equally profound changes at the state and local level.

Everywhere there is an opportunity to, in the words of the old political rallying

cry, turn the Rascals Out. We can change the system. We very likely will.

With what, then, shall we replace the system of professional politicians?

It's no good "reforming" die system only to abandon it to a new crew of

professional politicians. That cure could easily be worse than the disease.

We must Turn die Rascals Out, but we must rebuild our system of citizen-

controlled government.

That, I submit, is the great value of this book. It's all in here. In this book,

Robert Heinlein describes, lovingly and in great detail, the system of

3

government which worked for this republic for nearly two hundred years. This

isn't a blueprint, and it's not a treatise on political science. We will need those

and they will come; but this is a love story.

Jerry Pournelle Hollywood, California July 1992

Robert A. Heinlein

Preface

(In which the defendant pleads guilty to the charge of being a politician but

offers a statement in his defense.)

This is intended to be a practical manual of instruction for the American

layman who has taken no regular part in politics, has no personal political

ambitions, and no desire to make money out of politics, but who,

nevertheless, would like to do something to make his chosen form of

government work better. If you have a gnawing, uneasy feeling that you

should be doing something to preserve our freedoms and to protect and

improve our way of life but have been held back by lack of time, lack of

money, or die helpless feeling that you individually could not do enough to

make the effort worthwhile, then this book was written for you.

The individual, unpaid and inexperienced volunteer citizen in politics, who

is short on both time and money, can take this country away from the

machine politicians and run it to suit himself- if he knows how to go about it.

This book is a discussion of how to go about it, with no reference to

particular political issues. I have my own set of political opinions and some of

them are almost bitter in their intensity, but, still more strongly, I have an

abiding faith in the good sense and decency of the American people. Many

are urging you daily as to what you should do politically; I hope only to show

some of the details of how you can do it-the mechanics of the art

There are thousands of books for the citizen interested in public affairs,

books on city planning, economics, political history, civics, Washington

gossip, foreign affairs, sociology, political science, and the like. There are

many books by or about major figures in public life, such as James A.

Parley's instructive and interesting autobiography, or that inspiring life of Mr.

Justice Holmes, the Yankee from Olympus. I have even seen a clever,

sardonic book about machine politicians called How to Take a Bribe. But I

have never seen a book intended to show a private citizen, with limited time

and money, how he can be a major force in politics.

This book is the result of my own mistakes and sad experiences and is

written in the hope that you may thereby be saved some of them. If it

accomplishes that purpose, I hope that you will be tolerant of its

shortcomings. A decent respect for your opinions requires that I show my

credentials for writing this book. A plumber has his license; a doctor hangs up

his diploma; a politician can only cite his record - I have done the things I

discuss.

4

I have been a precinct worker, punching doorbells for my ticket. I have

organized political clubs, managed campaigns, run for office, been a county

committeeman, a state committeeman, attended conventions including

national conventions, been a county organizer, published political

newspapers, made speeches, posted signs, raised campaign funds, licked

stamps, dispensed patronage, run headquarters, cluttered up "smoke-filled

rooms," and have had my telephone tapped.

I suppose that makes me a politician. I do know that it has proved to me

that a single citizen, possessed of the right to speak and the right to vote, can

make himself felt whenever he takes the trouble to exercise those twin rights.

- Robert A. Heinlein April, 1946

Chapter I

Why Touch the Dirty Business?

"He that toucheth pitch shall be defiled therewith - "- Ecclesiastes XI11: l

And the Pharisees asked Jesus: "Why do you eat and drink with the

publicans and sinners'?"- Luke V: 30

This book is on the mechanics and techniques of practical politics, and is

based on the idea that democracy is worth the trouble and can be made to

work by ordinary people.

If you can go along with me on that I don't care what party you belong to. I

am registered in one of the two major parties, so chances are at least fifty-

fifty that you can guess my affiliation, but any party bias I let creep into this

book will be an oversight. The techniques of politicking are not the property of

any party.

From politics I have come to believe the following:

(1) Most people are basically honest, kind, and decent.

(2) The American people are wise enough to run their own affairs. They

do not need Fuehrers, Strong Men, Technocrats, Commissars, Silver Shirts,

Theocrats, or any other sort of dictator.

(3) Americans have a compatible community of ambitions. Most of them

don't want to be rich but do want enough economic security to permit them to

raise families in decent comfort without fear of the future. They want the least

government necessary to this purpose and don't greatly mind what the other

fellow does as long as it does not interfere with them living their own lives. As

a people we are neither money mad nor prying; we are easy-going and

anarchistic. We may want to keep up with the Joneses - but not with the

Vanderbilts. We don't like cops.

(4) Democracy 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 democracy, even if the shell and form remain.

5

(5) One way or another, any government which remains in power is a

representative government. If your city government is a crooked machine,

then it is because you and your neighbours prefer it that way - prefer it to the

effort of running your own affairs. Hitler's government was a popular

government; the vast majority of Germans preferred the rule of gangsters to

the effort of thinking and doing for themselves. They abdicated their

franchise.

(6) Democracy is the most efficient form of government ever invented by

the human race. On the record, it has worked better in peace and in war than

fascism, communism, or any other form of dictatorship. As for the mythical

yardstick of "benevolent" monarchy or dictatorship - there ain't no such

animal!

(7) A single citizen, with no political connections and no money, can be

extremely effective in politics.

I left the most important proposition to the last, on purpose. It is contrary

to the beliefs of many but it happens to be true. You yourself can be a strong

political force at less cost per evening spent in politics than spending that

same evening at the movies and at less effort than it takes to be a

scoutmaster, a good bridge player, or a radio hobbyist- about the effort it

takes to be a Sunday School teacher, an active ETA member, or stamp

collector.

You may possibly think me unrealistic in some of the opinions expressed

above. I may be self-deluded but I got those opinions from active politics

through many campaigns. If your own experience in politics is really

extensive you are certainly entitled to contradict me - but I don't think you will!

If active politics is fairly new to you - if, let us say, you have taken part in

no more than one or two campaigns and have been left disheartened thereby

- I ask that you suspend judgment for the time being.

I am puzzled by persons who take exception to the first proposition and

seem to believe that crookedness is commoner than honesty. I can see how

a citizen too long exposed to a corrupt machine might come to think the

whole world is dishonest, but I am afraid that when I hear a man complain

that everybody is crooked it makes me suspect that he himself is dishonest,

especially if he complains that an honest man can't make a living in his line of

business. I have met crooks, of course, but for every dishonest man I have

met dozens, scores, of men so honest it hurt, both in and out of politics.

Any banker can confirm this. Ask your banker how many good checks

come into the bank for every bad check. The figures will give you a warm

glow of pleasure.

However, the occasional crook will band together with his kind and take

your government away from you if you let him. It is very soothing to the

conscience to tell yourself that, after all, you can't do anything to change the

sorry state of things. It is much easier to sit in your living room, skim the

headlines, and then make bitter remarks about those no-good crooks in the

6

city hall, or the state capital, or Washington, and to complain about how they

pay no attention to the welfare of the ordinary citizen (meaning yourself) than

it is to put on your hat, go out in your neighbourhood, and round up a few

votes.

What do you expect for free? Chimes? If you wanted to round up a big

order of yard goods, you wouldn't expect to accomplish it with your feet on

your desk. This is just as important. Or have you forgotten that income tax

form you made out? And your nephew who died at Okinawa because you let

some senile congressman stay in office rather than bother with politics?

Why should the average citizen bother with politics? Why touch the dirty

business? Isn't politics loaded up with crooks you wouldn't want to eat with

and crackpots you wouldn't want to have in your house? "Loaded" is hardly

the word, but you will find plenty of each and they will almost drive you nuts.

Besides that, and worse, your respectable friends - people who wouldn't be

caught dead in a political club - will assume that you are in it for what you can

get out of it They will be very sure of it, for that is the only reason their peanut

heads can imagine!

Then why bother? Why expose yourself to bad companions and snide

remarks simply to make a single-handed attempt to clean the Augean

stables, to bail the ocean, to clear the forest?

Because you are needed. Because the task is not hopeless.

Democracy is normally in perpetual crisis. It requires the same constant,

alert attention to keep it from going to pot that an automobile does when

driven through downtown traffic. If you do not yourself pay attention to the

driving, year in and year out, the crooks, or scoundrels, or nincompoops will

take over the wheel and drive it in a direction you don't fancy, or wreck it

completely.

When you pick yourself up out of the wreckage, you and your wife and

your kids, don't talk about what "They" did to you. You did it, compatriot,

because you preferred to sit in the back seat and snooze. Because you

thought your taxes bought you a bus ticket and a guaranteed safe arrival,

when all your taxes bought you was a part ownership in a joint enterprise, on

a share-the-cost and share-the-driving plan.

But the crisis is more than usually acute this year, the traffic is thicker, the

curves more blind, the traffic signals less reliable, and there are a lot of

places where the pavement is out which have not been marked on any map.

More than ever your own welfare demands that you be alert and responsible.

Do you favour peacetime conscriptions? How did your congressman vote

on it? Have you got any sons under twenty-one? Should the budget be

balanced on a pay-as-you-go plan? If so, are you willing to vote to raise your

own taxes? Or would you rather cut the budget for the army, the navy, and

for veterans' benefits? Is there some other way to do it?

Should coal miners be forbidden to strike? Can you mine coal with

bayonets? What would your rent be in a free market? Or are you still sleeping

7

on a borrowed couch? When will a home be built for you and your kids? Can

you afford it when it is built, if ever? Does your town have a building code

which prevents the use of new materials and new construction methods?

How do you feel about a loan to Great Britain? To France? To Russia? Are

you willing to go on rationing to keep Germans from starving? How long

should the occupation of Japan continue? Why? How did your congressman

vote on FEPC? Do you know what FEPC is? How does it affect you?

The Filipinos become independent this year - should we let Philippine

sugar in duty free? Do you live in the Colorado sugar beet country? Is a

Senate filibuster a legitimate defense of states' rights, or a piece of tyranny?

Should an oil man be in charge of military and naval oil reserves? Was

Secretary Fall an oil operator? Does it make any difference?

Should we insist that Russia give us free access and uncensored news

reports so that we will know what she is up to? Is it worth fighting about? How

about the Big Five Veto power? Does it make for peace or war?

Should Russia get out of Iran? Should Britain get out of Egypt? Should we

get out of Korea? Are the three cases parallel? Or very different? Is a

Manchurian communist the same thing as a Brooklyn communist? Why? Why

not? Should a sharecropper be a Republican or a Democrat? Should a

stockholder be a Democrat or a Republican? What is the American Way of

Life? Does it mean the same thing on the Main Line as it does on Skid Row?

Are you sure about that last answer? Aren't we all in the same boat? Will

an atomic bomb discriminate between bank account-or party labels?

Now we are getting down to cases. All the other problems were of the

simple, easy sort that we have blundered our way through, not too badly, for

the past hundred and seventy years.

We have a double-edged crisis this year, more acute on both its edges

than any we have ever faced before, more acute, even, than Pearl Harbor, or

the terrible War Between the States.

The first crisis is political and economic. Our way of life is being

challenged by a revolutionary upsurge in all corners of the globe. We can

meet it with hysteria, persecution, and a new isolationism, or we can define

our way of life in action and defend it by practical accomplishment. An

American who is well housed, well fed, and holding a good job is poor

pickings for an agitator. But let him miss seven meals -

The second crisis is amorphous but of even more deadly danger. We

have entered the Atomic Era - but we are not yet used to the idea.

Have you read the Smyth Report?3

Do you know what the Smyth Report is? It is the War

Department's report on the atom bomb and is titled Atomic Energy for

Military Purposes by H.D. Smyth. It is available in any bookstore and most

newsstands at $1.25. It is dull reading but quite understandable and is easily

the most important document to the human race since the Sermon on the

Mount.

8

I won't try to tell you what it should mean to you. That's up to you. You are

a free American citizen, for a while yet, at least. With good luck you should

live another five or ten years. Whether or not you and your kids live longer

than that depends on how you interpret the Smyth Report. But you must

interpret it for yourself- no guardian angel will help you.

Get it and read it. Then get a copy of your own precinct list and start

investigating this year's crop of candidates. If your interpretation of the Smyth

Report and the world events behind it is correct, there is still a chance that

the Star-Spangled Banner will continue to wave o'er the land of the free and

the home of the brave.

Just a chance - that's all. But get busy, neighbour. _ There's work to be

done.

CHAPTER II

How to Start

"Put down your bucket where you are!"

The late Booker T Washington,4 in his life-long attempts to advise his

people on how to help themselves, had a favorite anecdote about a sailing

ship, becalmed and out of fresh water off the coast of South America. After

many days they sighted another ship, a steam ship, and signalled, "Bring us

water. We are dying of thirst." The other ship sent back this message, "Put

down your bucket where you are!"

They were in the broad mouth of the Amazon, afloat in millions of gallons

of fresh water - and did not know it!

Here is how to start in politics:

Get your telephone book. Look up the party of your registration - or, if you

are not registered in a party, the party which most nearly fits your views. I

don't care what party it is, but let us suppose for illustration that it is the

Republican Party. You will find a listing something like Republican County

Committee, Associated Republican Clubs, Republican Assembly, or perhaps

several such. Telephone one of them.

Say, "My name is Joseph Q. (or Josephine W.) Ivory tower. I am a

registered voter at 903 Farflung Avenue. Can you put me in touch with my

local club?"

The voice at the other end will say, 'Just a minute. Do you know what

ward you are in?"

You say no. (It's at least even money that you don't know, if you are a

normal American!)

The voice mutters, "Fairview, Farwest, Farflung - " The owner of the voice

is checking a file or a map. Then you hear, in an aside, "Say, Marjorie,

gimme the folder on the 13th ward."

9

"What do you want to know?" says Marjorie. She knows them by heart;

she typed them. She is a political secretary and belongs to one of two

extreme classes. Either she is a patriot and absolutely incorruptible, or she

can be bought and sold like cattle. Either way she knows who the field worker

in the 13th ward is.

After a couple of minutes of this backing and filling you are supplied with a

name, an address, and a telephone number of a local politician who is

probably the secretary of the local club. You may also be supplied with the

address and times and dates of meetings of the local club, if it is strong

enough to have permanent headquarters. The local club may vary anywhere

from a dub in permanent possession of a store frontage on a busy street,

with a full time secretary on the premises and a complete ward, precinct, and

block organization, to a club which exists largely in the imagination of the

secretary and which meets only during campaigns in the homes of the

members.

Your next job is to telephone the secretary. This is probably not

necessary. If the local organization is any good at all, the secretary of the

local club will callow, probably the same day. Marjorie will have called him

and said, "Get a pencil and paper, Jim. I've got a new sucker for you." Or, if

she is not cynical, she may call you a new prospect.

She will have added you to a card file and set the wheels in motion to

have your registration checked and to have you placed on several mailing

lists. Presently you will start receiving one or more political newspapers -

free, despite the subscription price posted on the masthead - and, in due

course, you will receive campaign literature from candidates who have the

proper connections at headquarters. Your political education will have begun,

even if you never bother to become active.

Note that it has not cost you anything so far. The costs need never

exceed nickels, dimes, and quarters, even if you become very active. The

costs can run as high as you wish, of course. The citizen who is willing to

reach for his checkbook to back up his beliefs is always welcome in politics.

But such action is not necessary and is not as rare as the citizen who is

willing to punch doorbells and lick stamps. Some of the most valuable and

respected politicians I have ever known had to be provided with lunch money

to permit them to do a full day's volunteer work in any area more than a few

blocks from their respective homes.

I know of one case, a retired minister with a microscopic pension just

sufficient to buy groceries for himself and his bedridden wife, who became

county chairman and leader-in-fact of the party in power in a metropolitan

area of more than three million people. He was so poor that he could not

afford to attend political breakfasts or dinner. He could never afford to

contribute to party funds, nor, on the other hand, was he ever on the party

payroll - he never made a thin dime out of politics.

10

Robert A Heinlein - Take back your Government

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