Iraq by the Numbers - or how to be dumb.

[DanaC]

Since the conversation has got around to Vietnam, and various people's levels of expertise on that subject. Have any of you heard the tale told by the young woman who survived the mi lai (sp?) massacre? Very interesting. Gives a very different view of that conflict. My ex's dad wrote a play about her experience, having spent several hours interviewing her. "Bodycount" it's called.

People who've done military, thus committing a portion (or even the entirety) of their lives to the protection of their societies, do not speak as you do, Hippikos.

There are the people who get Heinlein, and there are the groundlings. All I can suggest is more exposure. You'll still be you, Hipp, and not become me -- you'll just be smarter or wiser, is all.

Reading and understanding Heinlein is not the sole preserve of those who have military experience. I have read everything Heinlein wrote. I was a huge fan from the age of 12. This is just like your assertion that I aught to read more history in order to come to the same conclusions you have reached. You have your analysis of Heinlein, as do many other people.

There are more ways to serve and protect your community than just military service, fine and noble though that is. I have known utterly selfless people who have dedicated their entire lives to serving their community who have never served in the military.

Your arrogance continues to astound me UG: your assumption that any opinion which runs contrary to yours is the result of a lack of knowledge, education or awareness. It is not. It is merely a difference of opinion, born of a different analysis, often of the same information.

[Aliantha]

Stick that one up your kilt UG!

(well said Dana)

[Clodfobble]

...said Don Quixote to the windmill.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

DanaC, I agree with your point about not absolutely needing military service to get Heinlein -- my point there, however, was that RAH knew whereof he wrote. My other, and really quite separate, point is that there are those who do grok Heinlein in his fullness, and then -- there are the others. Those others tend not to engage my admiring attention.

I've earned my arrogance, thank you, and I believe I'll continue to enjoy it. Would you like to take a guess at how often opinions contrary to mine are visibly the result of lack of knowledge, education, or awareness? I'd take a guess myself but I hardly know where to start. Don't forget intellectual dishonesty, either, whether from fringe politics, neurotic thinking, or perversities less categorizable.

It's not much admitted in print around here, but in much of what we talk about we're all amateurs -- and nearly all of us on reading it are moved to mutter that we're surrounded by morons.

Hippikos, thanks, that does clear things up a bit, and is fairly spoken. You'll recognize Heinlein was trying for what a perfect military might look like. In my service I had plenty of exposure to real-world imperfection too, which is why I only reenlisted once, finishing my last hitch a few years before the Cold War came to its quiet end, the Iron Curtain rusting through and falling down. However, military veterans are going to have an appreciation for ST that I think will go deeper and subtler than anything the purely civilian will know.

And I see tw's dived back into pro-Communist and anti-American slime again. What pointless jeering -- unless the whole point was to turn his naked back to my lash yet again. Not only a nithing, but spectacularly so. Either that, or he's not certain we understand how minimal his wisdom is in the sociopolitical field.

But then, he's never shown wisdom, not to me.

Occasional humor, yeah, since the beginning of this year of our Lord 2007. I encourage that, particularly coming from this otherwise notably humorless poster. It's an improvement.

[JayMcGee]

Although Heinlein was a rather good SF writer, please remember he was only that. I'm pretty sure that he did not bet he could create a religion...... I guess he left that to his fans...... (hi, Ugh, how's it going... btw, just how do you reconcile the hard-right politics of say Farnhams Freehold with 'Stranger in a Strange Land')....

to the end of his years, he somewhat became the 'john wayne' of sci-fi, playing on nationalism and jingoism. For another view of that period, I suggest you read Peter van Greenaways' 'take the war to washington'

[Hippikos]

You'll recognize Heinlein was trying for what a perfect military might look like.

There's no "perfect" military. Probably that's why I prefer writers like Erich Maria Remarque and, to a certain extend, Konsalik. They describe how war really is: a very dirty business mostly ruled by dictators and politican.