I have long argued that Heinlein's political thinking was highly influenced by the Founding Fathers, not the least of which is his extensive similarities to Jefferson's classical liberalism (excepting Jefferson's hostility to the military).

But I ran across this quote from John Adams in my new AP history text, and it seemed so strikingly familiar to Heinlein's warnings about democracy from the fifties on that I have to wonder if this isn't something he read himself when he was younger. Adams was afraid that the democracy which Pennsylvania had installed as its state government during the Revolution was highly dangerous, not the least of which was the unicameral legislature, and lack of an executive branch: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself."

Adams was afraid that "If you give [democrats] the command or preponderance in the....legislature, they will vote all property out of the hands of the aristocrats."

I recall Heinlein's fear that the US had discovered it could vote for anything it wanted to in the fifties, and the resulting argument in Starship Troopers about how democracies would consume themselves.

Jim, I didn't say he was RIGHT to have those fears...only that the causation between Adams and Heinlein may exist.

Ah, true. Pardon the digression; I am hip-deep in an arena filled with people bitching about sensible but individually inconvenient California regulations. If one more person tells me about how Nort' Cahlanha doesn't have such requirements...

I don't think any argument can be made against your basic contention. Heinlein's political viewpoints go back to the earliest roots of democracy, American style and don't seem to have much influence from later interpretations. Admirable, perhaps, but questionable as to practicality.

Adams and Jefferson rarely agreed on anything, once they were in power.

But Adams had a deep and abiding belief in republics, but only when they were based on the separation of powers, and checks and balances. His books became one of the primary influences on the rewriting of state constitutions away from the overly democratic first tries, and the Constitutional Convention was highly influenced by his thinking as well, even though he was not there.

Adams believed that the House had a place, but that it had to be reined in by an upper house full of the rich, and an executive with veto power (he was the main reason governors were eventually granted that right, and why presidents got it too).

McCullough's book on Adams is woefully inadequate; whereas his book on Truman was masterful, in the Adams, he simply doesn't know enough colonial history to understand the contexts of Adams' life and career.

Of course, our 230 year Republic is a brief flash in the pan historically speaking.

The Roman Republic, if I recall lasted about 200 years, too, before it became the Empire.

And Ben Franklin was the one who answered the man who asked "Dr. Franklin what kind of government have you given us?" (referring to the Consititutional Convention, which was a CLOSED Session) with "We have given you a Republic, IF YOU CAN KEEP IT."

I would truely like to think we have got a model that will make democracy work "forever", but NOTHING lasts forever, though we keep hoping.

I remember the absolute shock when I came across the little side mention in Double Star about brainwahsing.... something like "the Communists invented it ... and when there were no more Communists the Bands of Brothers polished it up because you can't have sweet Brotherhood if a subborn man wants to keep his secrets...". This was around 1960 and the Red Menace was moving closer and closer, with Cuba being the latest conquest 90 miles south of Florida, and the IDEA that Communism could simply collapse, or otherwise end, was just aa mind boggling to a boy raised in the 1950s as the idea of a kid resenting sending his ear rings home from boot cam because such jewelry "wasn't allowed" in uniform (ST).

Bob ALWAYS loved pulling our chains, especially when he buried it in the tiny details of the story, not the main part!