[radius]

Originally Posted by EatingPie

Again, this comes straight from my college science fiction class.

I knew you were a computer geek but had no idea that you are a literary criticism geek too

A (very politically minded) friend of mine loves to cite Heinlein's philosophy that only those who served in the military could vote or (I believe) hold office. You had to earn it, to prove your mettle, or to prove you cared.

But that wasn't the important part. The part he wanted to teach, the military theory, that is what was important, and that's what we see in much of the book's classroom time.

Its possible that I am mis-remembering the book, but I believe that in Starship Troopers, any government service was enough to qualify someone for citizenship. It didn't need to be military service. Juan and his friends enlisted in the military, but there were other options. In fact, if you were unfit for service, the government was not allowed to refuse you the opportunity enter public service and would find some other kind of difficult job for you.

I think you could definitely argue that RAH felt you should participate in society in order to be allowed a say in it (was it RAH or Jerry Pournelle that wrote a story where Taxpayer was a separate class from Citizen?) but that is different from saying that only the military should be allowed a voice in government.

Actually, in Starship Troopers, the fact that the vote expanded from vets only to public service in general might show that RAH recognized you can't have government ruled only by military veterans.

As for the other part of his message (which I didn't quote above) that "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori", it isn't surprising that Johnny would be exposed to this a great deal in the novel because otherwise, what reason is there for a soldier to fight? Why put yourself in danger for the benefit of people you have never even met and who will likely never thank you? To me, this is the theme of the book, and Dennis already covered it, so I won't add anything more here.

Johnny's civics class isn't only about how only veterans are worthy of the vote. Its is called History and Moral Philosophy, and the teacher, Colonel Dubois, stresses that we may have peaceful ideals, but history shows that we must be ready to fight (ie: take the world as it is...) and uses examples to show that TANSTAAFL. I don't have a copy of the book with me, but I think that Dubois says morality must come from what Man is, not what we want Him to be. Now that I think of it, Starship Troopers seems very Hobbesian to me, more than anything.

To my mind, the fact that gaining citizenship must be difficult is another example of TANSTAAFL and not some kind of military propaganda.

Edit: I want to add that I can't imagine anything more horrifying than war and that if the time comes I will probably turn out to be a chicken or have my head in the sand, so don't think that I am defending Starship Troopers because I am some kind of jingo-istic war-monger :P