Re: Atheist sues Army for discrimination

On Jul 15, 7:16 pm, "Dan Drake" <d...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jul 2008 07:07:24 UTC, j.wilki...@xxxxxxxxx (John Wilkins)
wrote:>
tension_on_the_wire <tension_at_h...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Earle, one of the most interesting things I read in Robert Heinlein's
book was his thesis that doing a tour of military duty was almost
essential, in his mind, to creating a citizen who would naturally take
his civic duty extremely seriously.  So much so, that in the
futuristic world of his novel, only people who had completed such a
tour were entitled to earn "citizen" status and vote and take place in
public life, politics etc.  A bit of a stretch, I know, but it
certainly did, as I say, give me a new perspective on the mental
experience a soldier goes through after he has run the gauntlet, so to
speak.  It is a fascinating book.

Sounds to me like a recipe for producing Sparta, not Athens.

Oh, but you don't understand; they had a rigorous proof, by *symbolic
logic* and how could you argue with that, that if a foreign country kills
one of your citizens, it is necessary to make war on them.

I may have the wording a bit inexact, it being about 40 years since I read
it, and you don't expect me to look up the thing after all, but the
symbolic logic was there, and that was how they knew how to conduct
policy. BTW it's Starship Soldier (not Trooper, I am sure) and was the
supposed base for that movie of a few years ago.

I'm looking at my copy right now and it is "Starship Troopers", Robert
A. Heinlein. c1959.
My print is from 1987, but there is no mention in the copyright page
of the title ever being changed or anything different.
I double-checked just in case the book title was changed after the
popularity of the movie, which occasionally but rarely happens.

--tension

.

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