"Reggie Bautista" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>Has anyone read Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers recently? His concept
>of a Veteran's Republic is really interesting. For those who haven't read
>it,
>
>(No big spoilers, but I'll put in some spoiler space anyway, for Starship
>Troopers, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and Stranger in a Strange Land)
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>The concept is that only those that have served their government are
>allowed
>to participate in that government.
<snip/>
>Heinlein
>seems to make arguments for the merits of each of these systems in the
>books
>that describe them.
Both my wife's reaction and my own upon reading ST was that Heinlein was
doing a thought experiment on what such a society might be like, possibly
advocating it, in the guise of a "Boy's Life"-type serial novel with guns
and bugs and space ships.
I subsequently heard (somewhere) that Heinlein was attempting to show the
*evils* of such a system and how that must never be allowed to come to pass,
and how easily it would come to be controlled by the military, since the
voters were predominantly those previously part of the military-industrial
complex.
The Starship Troopers movie certainly takes the latter interpretation, right
down to Doogie Howser's Nazi/SS regalia. But then, Verhoeven is delightfully
cynical like that.
Anyone know more concrete details of the motivation behind the book?
Joshua
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