"Robert A. Heinlein - Take back your Government" - читать интересную книгу автора (Heinlein Robert A)

always fresh and full of surprises. It will take all of your intelligence and wit
and all that you have ever learned or can learn to play it well. The stakes are
the highest conceivable, the lives and the futures of every living creature on
this planet. How well you play it can make the difference between freedom or
a firing squad, civilization or atomic conflagration. For this is the day of
decision, the hour of the knife, and none but yourself can choose for you the
correct path in the maze.
Over and above the joy of playing for high stakes is the greatest and most
adult joy of all, the continuous and sustaining knowledge that you have
broken with childish ways and come at last into your full heritage as a free
citizen, integrated into the life of the land of your birth or your choice, and
carrying your share of adult responsibility for the future thereof!


CHAPTER III
"It Ain't Necessarily So!"
This chapter will be devoted to smearing a few cherished illusions.
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 I do not suppose that you are suffering from all of the misapprehensions
listed herein; however, if you are typically American and have not had
extensive political experience, it is likely that you are subject to one or more
of them. Before we go ahead with detailed discussion of the practical art of
politics it is well to correct the record with respect to many items in the Great
American Credo - items which happen to be wrong and which have to do with
politics. It will save your time and mine in later discussion.
With the possible exceptions of love and religion probably more guff is
talked and believed about politics than about any other subject. I am going to
discuss some of that guff and try to puncture it. Most of the items I have
chosen because I myself have had to change my opinions through bitter
experience in politics.
My present opinions are subject to human error. However, they are based
on the scientific method of observation of facts; they are not armchair
speculation. If you don't believe me, go take a look - several looks! - for
yourself. But I suggest that you will save yourself a lot of the mistakes I made
if you assume that what I say is true until through your own experience you
reach a different opinion.
Warning! Every generalization I make about groups of people is subject to
exceptions. You must meet each citizen with an open mind. For example,
there is no natural law which prevents club women from being intelligent and
quite a few of them are.
Now let's let our hair down and speak plainly. We are going to discuss a
lot of sacred cows and then kick them in the slats. We are going to mention a
lot of unmentionable subjects, using everything but Anglo-Saxon
monosyllables. We are going to discuss Catholics and Communists and Jews
and Negroes, women in politics, reformers, school teachers, the nobility of
the Irish, civil service vs. patronage, and whether Father was right. I will try to
tell the truth as I have seen it. I hope I won't splash any mud in your direction
but I may.
"One should never consider a man's religion in connection with politics."
This is a fine credo, based on the American ideal of freedom of religion. It