I'll re-read the circle sharing thing and get back to you... I saw this go by and didn't want to miss it...

I'll re-read the circle sharing thing and get back to you... I saw this go by and didn't want to miss it...

Originally shared by Amy McLeod

In the comments on the original post David Brin said.

"Re Heinlein: Summary. read Beyond This Horizon (ignoring the silly gun stuff he wrote for Campbell.) Heinlein could clearly see: Competition is the great driver of creativity in nature and society and individuals. It is the thing that libertarianism should be about preserving... in creative realms. Like art or enterprise.

But competition depends on maximizing the number of skilled, knowing, confident competitors! Hayek and Adam Smith proclaimed this, demanding public education & health. So did Heinlein, who wanted total socialism in ensuring all kids - children - are cared for and educated and prepared to then be competitive adults. Any hungry kid who has to go to the emergency room for a problem that could have been prevented earlier is a devastating indictment of the Randian madness that has taken over libertarianism.

Heinlein despised it.

Any movement that fundamentally believes in the creative power of competition, but lets itself be talked into defending oligarchy, is just too dumb to live."

And I can't help but concur, if you want to read a real libertarian author, read Heinlein, maybe we could start a project to surreptitiously remove the dust jacket from Atlas Shrugged in school libraries and put it on one of the better Heinlein novels instead, so adolescent boys directed to read that turgid crap that seems to last through their twenties for to many, might instead get their libertarian start with a real Author and a real libertarian.

Why are you throwing in your lot with the religious right in their quest to keep people stupid libertarians? Food, housing, healthcare, education .. the start that everyone should have so they can lift themselves up by their bootstraps, because you can't bloody lift yourself by your bootstraps when your face is being ground into the dirt.

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David Brin originally shared this post.

Heinlein was a libertarian. All creative matters should be competitive! Butin his prescriptive utopia BEYOND THIS HORIZON - "Of course food is free!" The most basic needs (food, simple shelter & a chance to self-uplift) aren't left to "charity" or whim (as they were in 6000 years of failure).For moral reasons AND in to maximize the number of savvy competitors (the liberal/libertarian overlap). A society that won't provide the basics is unworthy of the name"civilization." Says Heinlein!

http://www.heinleinsociety.org/

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http://www.heinleinsociety.org/