Robert Heinlein and the Election of 2012

The presidential election of 2012 is a key event in history, which will fundamentally change the United States for the next 100 years.   The winner of the 2012 presidential election is….Nehemiah Scudder.

This election occurs in Robert Heinlein’s “Future History” series of novels, mostly written between 1939 and 1950.   Scudder is a televangelist, backed by extremely wealthy interests, political connections and a wickedly effective propaganda campaign.  In Heinlein’s future history, Scudder establishes a conservative religious theocracy.   The next election does not occur for 100 years. 

The following is an excerpt of an interview with Robert Heinlein, from October 1952.   

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"As for the idea that we could lose our freedom by succumbing to a wave of religious hysteria, I am sorry to say that I consider it possible.  I hope that it is not probable.  But there is a latent deep strain of religious fanaticism in this, our culture; it is rooted in our history and it has broken out many times in the past.  It is with us now; there has been a sharp rise in strongly evangelical sects in this country in recent years, some of which hold beliefs theocratic in the extreme, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific, and anti-libertarian. 

It is a truism that almost any sect, cult or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.  This is equally true whether the faith is Communism or Holy-Rollerism; indeed it is the bounden duty of the faithful to do so.  The custodians of the True Faith cannot logically admit tolerance of heresy to be a virtue.

Nevertheless this business of legislating religious beliefs into law has never been more than sporadically successful in this country—Sunday closing laws here and there, birth control legislation in spots, the Prohibition experiment, temporary enclaves of theocracy such as Voliva’s Zion, Smith’s Nauvoo, a few others.  The country is split up into such a variety of faiths and sects that a degree of uneasy tolerance now exists from expedient oppositions against each other.

Could it be otherwise here?  Could any one sect obtain a working majority at the polls and take over the country?  Perhaps not—but a combination of a dynamic evangelist, television, enough money, and modern techniques of advertising and propaganda might make Billy Sunday’s efforts look like a corner store compared to Sears Roebuck.  Throw in a depression for good measure, promise a material heaven here on earth, add a dash of anti-Semitism, anti-Catholicism, anti-Negroism, and a good large dose of anti-“furriners” [anti-foreigners] in general and anti-intellectuals here at home and the result might be something quite frightening—particularly when one recalls that our voting system is such that a minority distributed as pluralities in enough states can constitute a working majority in Washington. "

Robert Heinlein (1907 - 1988)--------
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Addendum 1)

Mitt Romney expressed his views on Mormonism and abortion in this radio interview, available on YouTube:  Romney dispels any illusions that he actually held "pro-choice" views in the past, or would govern from a "pro-choice" point of view.   His belief in the literal prophecies of his church is also clear.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TxMD02zU9SE

Addendum 2) 
The modern relevance of Heinlein's interview is seen in the following speech by Paul Broun, a high-ranking Republican member of the U.S. House Committee on Space, Science and Technology:

“God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution, embryology, Big Bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of hell. It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who are taught that from understanding that they need a savior. There’s a lot of scientific data that I found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I believe that the Earth is about 9,000 years old. I believe that it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says. And what I’ve come to learn is that it’s the manufacturer’s handbook, is what I call it. It teaches us how to run our lives individually. How to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all our public policy and everything in society.  And that’s the reason, as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions to me of how I vote in Washington, D.C., and I’ll continue to do that.”

Representative Paul Broun (R., Georgia), Sept. 27, 2012

Emphasis is mine.  Heinlein could not have written better dialog for one of his characters, but it seems that Representative Broun thought of these words all by himself.  

Addendum 3)

I find Heinlein’s fears similar in many ways to the sentiments of David Souter, retired Supreme Court Justice, in an interview on September 17, 2012.   Souter is concerned about the "pervasive civic ignorance" of today.

"What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed, people will not know who is responsible.  And when the problems get bad enough - another serious terrorist attack, another financial meltdown - some one person will come forward and say, 'Give me total power, and I will solve this problem.' That is how the Roman Republic fell....That is how democracy dies.  And if something is not done to improve the level of civic knowledge, that is what you should worry about at night….I am not a pessimist, but I am not an optimist about the future of American democracy.”

See my earlier post:  http://debatablypolitical.blogspot.com/2012/09/rome-didnt-fall-in-day.html.
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References:
The interview with Robert Heinlein was published in a volume containing the novellas "Revolt in 2100" and "Methuselah's Children", published by Baen Publishing Enterprises, PO Box 1403, NY, NY in 1999.

Paul Broun speech:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/06/paul-broun-evolution-big-bang_n_1944808.html

An Opinion about Abortion Rights

A long time ago, my wife and I sat on the carpet with another young married couple to play a game.  The game was called “Scruples”.   The game posed challenging hypothetical ethical situations for the players to answer.  Our answers were sometimes simple and direct, sometimes with embarrassed laughter, and sometimes after considerable squirming.

I remember one question very well.  I drew my card, and the question read “If you knew that a pregnancy would result in a highly disabled child, would you have an abortion?”    My answer was simple and direct.   

I would not knowingly bring a highly disabled child into the world.

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About two years later, the hypothetical question became an anguished reality.  A sonogram of my wife’s growing belly showed a cyst developing in the brain of the fetus.  Water pressure was building up in the brain.  The pressure was slowly splitting the brain apart from within.  

We had three options.   The first option: do nothing.  Let nature take its course, and allow the pregnancy to go to term.  The second option: attempt an experimental, invasive brain surgery on the fetus in utero, to install a stent to release the fluid pressure.  Third: end the pregnancy by abortion.

We chose the abortion.   The pregnancy was still early, before the formation of the higher functions of the brain.  We had certainty that we were doing the right thing.  After a few years, we tried again for a baby, and had a healthy, normal girl.

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A few years earlier, I had seen the results of the first option.  A baby with such a condition, left untreated, is doomed at birth.   I saw grief-stricken young parents holding a baby whose head was the size of a small melon, filled with fluid.  I cannot image the pain of having the brain torn apart from within.  The baby died within hours.

Years later, I read a review of the stent procedure.  The procedure proved ineffective, and resulted only in severely disabled children.  The value of such a life is debatable.  I know that some disabled individuals lead rewarding lives.   But some disabled children suffer greatly and die young, and others live long, empty and lonely lives.   I have seen both, and known those who cared for both.

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In modern medicine we define death as the cessation of higher brain functions.   When such a death occurs, we often take organs from the deceased to give life and health to the living.   Responsible people carry donor cards to give the gift of their bodies when they die.  The higher function of the brain is accepted as the definition of human life, and its cessation is accepted as death.  

So, to me, a fetus cannot be considered a living person before the brain is fully formed.  There can be no higher brain function without the higher parts of the brain.  Beyond that, after the physical form of the brain is complete, it seems to me that humanity does not exist until the brain is illuminated by the experience of living. 
We cannot have a different definition of human death and human life. 

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The Religious Right holds that life begins at conception, that the human soul is formed at the moment sperm meets egg.   I do not know by what authority they make such a claim.  It is certainly not through word of the Scripture. 

The Republican Party would outlaw all abortions.  The 2012 Republican Platform calls for a ban on all abortions, regardless of rape, incest, or threat to the life of the mother.  They are attempting to move the center of the debate, so that by compromise on these issues, most abortions in the USA will become illegal.  The landmark Supreme Court ruling “Roe v. Wade”, which granted the right to abortion nationwide, is in danger of being repealed, and hangs by a single vote in the Supreme Court.  If the Republicans win the presidency in 2012, the right to choose abortion in the United States will disappear, probably for decades.  

If such a ban had been in place 23 years ago, my wife and I would have been faced with the choice of carrying a doomed baby for nine months, or to undergo ineffective brain surgery on the fetus, resulting in a severely disabled child.   Instead, today we have our healthy daughter.   She is now a college student.  She laughs, she talks (and talks, and talks), gets grouchy, loves deeply, and lives a fulfilling and normal life.

I agree that abortion should be avoided.  There are many reasons for abortion.  The health of the baby, or the health of the mother; perhaps a mother is unable to care for a baby; perhaps a couple is not ready for a baby.  Every abortion is a possibility for life that has gone wrong.  But not every possibility can or should be realized.

In my opinion, in a free society, the choice to carry a pregnancy, or have an abortion belongs to the woman carrying the child and her husband or partner, after consultation with their doctor and spiritual advisor.

The decision to have a child should not be dictated by the government.