From Lazarus Long.*
The Basics…
"If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for . . but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong. If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires."
On the proper frame of mind…
"What are the facts? Again and again and again -- what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" -- what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!"
And why? Because…
"Natural laws have no pity."
And because…
"A generation which ignores history has no past -- and no future."
On sitting it out because everything’s rigged, dude, and all failed past predictions simply point to even Larger and Darker Conspiracies than the ones I was touting a year ago!
"Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win."
And…
"You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting."
On voting for a candidate because that’s what the nice man with the Borealis Hair told me Sweet Baby Jebus would want…
"Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proved innocent."
On listening to the fucking pundits...
"If 'everybody knows' such-and-such, then it ain't so, by at least ten thousand to one."
On answering pollster's questions...
"'Go to hell!' or other direct insult is all the answer a snoopy question rates."
On a the cold, unsentimental criteria by which the performance of our elected hired help – any hired help – should be assessed…
"A whore should be judged by the same criteria as other professionals offering services for pay -- such as dentists, lawyers, hairdressers, physicians, plumbers, etc. Is she professionally competent? Does she give good measure? Is she honest with her clients? It is possible that the percentage of honest and competent whores is higher than that of plumbers and much higher than that of lawyers. And enormously higher than that of professors."
Get some sleep. Eat a good breakfast. Write shit down and take it with you if you have to.
And speaking only for myself, I really do try always to take a deliberate moment and say "Thanks" and remember that good people died for my right to walk into a voting booth, cast my ballot unmolested, and then have a beer and bitch loudly and incredulously about what fucking idiots everyone else is who didn’t vote for my candidates.
Selah and Good Voting, citizen!
*(Actually from “The Notebooks Of Lazarus Long” by Robert Heinlein.)
TheNotebooksOfLazarusLong
17 comments:
I think I'll commit that last paragraph to memory. Thanks.
As for the "bitch loudly and incredulously about what fucking idiots everyone else is who didn’t vote for my candidates," bit, some folks here and there on various blogs would do well to remember that this is a key component of the whole process.
But so's the beer. So make the world a better place and buy a round for one of those fucking idiots.
"And enormously higher than that of professors."
Hey, woah! What's up with that shit!?
I'm not voting in the primary, because I truly cannot drum up any relative preference for one or the other of Obama and Clinton. I'll let my fellow Democrats pick one, and then I'll strongly support whoever it is in the general.
GObama!
Thanks Drifty, you always have something completely and refreshingly different. You're a box of chocolates.
Love, Scout
God i love reading you.
Across from my house is city hall where everyone votes, and down the street is the county elections office where unmarked white vans carry ballots from all over the county and sit counting until very late at night with news camerss and a police escort, and sometimes I drive by in the wee hours thinking, look at this fragile beautiful vibrant thing, this democracy! And it gives me chills. but then I drink a beer and complain about stupid people too
thanks for stellar work, again.
That section about judging whores is particularly pertinent in regards to American politics.
Here in Alabam' we get to vote and then get drunk with Mardi Gras as our excuse. King Cake for everybody!...and if you get the teeny tiny plastic baby Geebus doll in your slice you get to wear Judith Giuliani's tiara for a whole day, but you also have to bring the cake next week, so there's that.
I will sit down gingerly at the voting table at First Christian Church tomorrow (not making that up that is where I vote and how) and bow my head before I vote, Drifty. Thanks for the reminder.
Tell me about your relationship with your mother.
Quoting Heinlein in a political discussion is tricky. Most young wingnuts believe themselves to be a modern combination of Lazarus Long and John Galt.
Drifty, please don't forget the best advice of all from The Notebooks of Lazarus Long:
Rub her feet.
CMike said...
Tell me about your relationship with your mother.
Gollee, CMike, I'd be pretty interested in reading that myself.
Cmike were you talking to me or Drifty? I have no "relationship" with my mother. Everytime I call her, I ask her how she is she replies "well, your father..." and talks about him or my sisters or the strange man at the grocery store for 37 minutes. Then I say I love you Mom and we hang up.
I don't know why my discussion of king cakes and baby jeebus would lead you to question my freudian mental health, though, Cmike, or what Robert Heinlein's mother has to do with voting and gratitude.
I think "Drifty's mom" sounds like a kick-ass name for a blog, though.
It's a standard question for any Lazurus Long fan.
I believe the correct counter-sign is, "What's up with All You Zombies?" :-)
Heinlein would approve!
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. With the latter making better neighbors.
He also writ:
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. The 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 remains.
(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 neighbors 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.
Source: Take Back Your Government - A Practical Handbook for the private citizen who wants democracy to work.
By Robert A. Heinlein
Robert A. Heinlein
Hey, woah! What's up with that shit!?
Tee hee. The Old Man hit a nerve, methinks.
Tell me about your relationship with your mother.
Now there's a Heinlein reader! :)
I believe the correct counter-sign is, "What's up with All You Zombies?" :-)
I thought it was "They do look like orchids, don't they?"
I do wonder if Heinlein, were he alive today, would have come to the point of openly denouncing the official story of 9/11 as a lie from start to finish.
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