Take Back Your Government!: A Practical Handbook for the Private Citizen Who Wants Democracy to Work [Paperback]

As a Heinlein fan, I thought that I had read all his published work, and was saddened to think that there was nothing left. So I was delighted to find this book on Amazon, immediately ordered it, and just finished reading it.

As a book of practical advice, instead of entertainment, it will probably never achieve the popularity of any of his fictional works. However, if you have enjoyed these, not just for their plots and scope, but also for their philosophical and political musings; if you have been inspired by his optimism and his faith in the basic decency of his fellow men; and most of all, if you would like to apply that optimism to the world around you, then this book is by all means for you.

However.

If you can find a copy without Pournelle's introduction and notes, buy that instead. If you must buy this version, try not to let his views get you down. Before reading this book, I had nothing against Jerry Pournelle- in fact, I had read, and quite enjoyed, some of his SF work. So I was very dissappointed to find that here, not only does Pournelle fill his comments with his own political views, something Heinlein is meticulously careful to aviod throughout the book, but he also contradicts the entire message of the book. Heinlein cries "Take Back Your Government!"; Pournelle tells us that this is obsolete, that things have changed, that it's too hard, it's no good to bother. At first I thought that Pournelle was one of the cynics that Heinlein was arguing against. But rereading his comments, I found that I was being too harsh. Pournelle genuinely likes, and supports, what Heinlein said- he just doesn't think that it would work. Not today, at least. Ironically, on pages 175-176, Heinlein describes this attitude, calling it that of the "tired liberal":

"[The tired liberal], like Mrs. Much-Married, has been there so often the thrill is gone. He knows the frailty of human nature -- and that's all he knows. He would like to see you win -- but you won't, you know."

And what does Heinlein advise when confronted with such a character?

"Use the stamp-licking routine on him. After a bit he will go back to his ivory tower and let the grown-ups get on with the work."

Granted, as Pournelle says, the world has changed a lot in the more than 50 years since Heinlein wrote this. His outdated comments on copy machines are only matched by his outdated comments on women. To his credit, these views changed with the years. But neither of them makes the core of this book obsolete.

Certainly, if Heinlein were writing today, he'd have to adapt his methods. But I think that he would have found computers, the internet, copy machines and the like a wonderful boon to his style of campaigning. Yes, there is more money in politics today than ever, even local politics, but that only increases the need for a book like this.

If you are interested in the world around you and want to do more than just complain about the things that are wrong, if you want to see how you can actually make a difference, then read this book.

And then, if you want to settle back in your chair and start complaining again, you can always read Pournelle's comments and agree with his closing, pessimistic remark that "One could only wish that his [Heinlein's] advice had been taken before we lost control of the political process."

Heinlein wrote Take Back Your Government (originally entitled, How to be a Politician) in the months following the end of World War II, at a time when he felt an urgent need to warn the U.S. populace about the arms race. Heinlein himself referred to that time as his `world saving' phase. Given the tenor of Take Back Your Government, Heinlein might have felt concern over the way the Truman administration was handling any number of situations in the wake of the war (this was written as everyone was witnessing radical and sometimes painful postbellum changes: housing shortages, spiraling inflation, epidemic labor strikes, Taft-Hartley, the Marshall Plan and other outlays of foreign aid, the National Security Act, the creation of the United Nations and many other things). And perhaps Heinlein had a little more faith in the wisdom of ordinary citizens acting in their enlightened self interest during this period of gearing down from World War II and ratchetting up to a new Cold War footing. To this end, he penned what amounts to a manual for citizens who wished to get involved in politics at the precinct level.

Although we all know Robert Heinlein best as one of the truly great authors of speculative fiction, it is in the pages of Take Back Your Government that he shares with us his considerable know-how in the field of politics. In the 1930's, before he became a professional writer, Heinlein got thoroughly involved in California politics (as a Democrat!), both turning out copy for Sinclair Lewis' gubernatorial bid and himself running for a seat in the state legislature. Lewis and Heinlein both lost, but in the process, Heinlein learned a lot about the art and science of politics, from building coalitions to canvassing neighborhoods to dispensing patronage to working with machine pols, and he shares it all in this manual. His style is friendly and politically impartial, forsaking his opinions to concentrate ! totally on the civic processes that constitute the science of politics, and on the human niceties which constitute the art.

One might wonder why a book written in 1946 about a style of politics that mass media and PACs have largely killed should be trotted out for publication in 1992. What possible relevance could it have in 1990s America, where money and Madison Avenue put officials in office and a vast portion of the electorate is effectively disenfranchised? In the election year of 1992, a lot of people felt a need to enfranchise themselves again and manifested their will by giving Ross Perot the largest percentage of the popular vote of any third-party presidential candidate since Teddy Roosevelt ran as a Bull Moose in 1912. Though Take Back Your Government hardly advocates the top-down approach that the Perotistas took, it does assure the ordinary citizen that he can, with a bit of dedication, make his will be felt.

Fellow SF author Jerry Pournelle wrote the introduction, as well as a number of footnotes to the text. I feel that his hastily written material is more knuckleheaded than helpful, but I agree with him on one major point about Take Back Your Government, and that is that its chief value is its obsolescence. How starkly it contrasts the long-gone days of precinct politics with the system that only pretends to serve the ordinary citizen today. Unlike the Perotistas, Heinlein is not screaming `Throw the bums out!' but rather, `Get out your vote!' and the professional politician of Heinlein's manual is not a "rascal," a corrupt puppet of big business, but rather an honorable, self-sacrificing citizen doing his best to get out his own vote--in the finest American tradition. Wouldn't it be nice to have that sort of politician back in the majority? Possibly in that same period (though the date of writing is not known), Heinlein wrote a fascinating non-SF story about local campaign! politics entitled, "A Bathroom of her Own," and it can be found in the anthology Expanded Universe.

Many have noted Heinlein's strong political statements that suffuse many of his books, from The Moon is a Harsh Mistress to Starship Troopers. Few, however, seem to note the knowledge of the political process that he displays in many of these works, or worse, think his portrayal of such processes is incorrect or not founded in reality. Here in this book of practical advice we can see from what point Heinlein got this knowledge, without much in the way of Heinlein's own political philosophy, though with some very strong opinions about various `types' of people who help shape the political process.

Heinlein was, at one point, associated with Sinclair Lewis and his EPIC (End Poverty in California) program, and ran for the California legislature in 1938 on the Democratic (!) ticket. He didn't win, but his experience from that time is the base material from which this book is derived. Written in 1946, just after the close of WWII, this book was part of several items he wrote at that time both as a method for breaking out of the `pulp' markets and because he felt that he could offer advice and warnings to America that were (in his mind) desperately needed. Most of the material from this period did not find a publishing market, and this work wasn't published until 1992, not because they were poorly written, but because there was little interest in such material then.

Heinlein looks at (American) politics from the most basic level, that of the individual voter. Grabbing this voter's attention and vote is the prime focus of this work. Chapters are spent on how to do door-to-door canvassing, setting up local meetings, organizing the associated office work, recruiting workers, funding, and most especially the reasons why you, as an individual, should not only get involved in this process, but what impact a single person can make. Some may object that this model of how to run an election campaign has been outmoded by today's technological communication methods, PACs, and national organizations directing even the smallest local elections, but a close look at the actions Heinlein is advocating will show that almost all of them are still applicable today, or would need only small modification to take advantage of today's technology. Viewed this way, the advice this book offers can be invaluable.

For the reader who has no intention of becoming politically active in the fashion of this book, though, this book still has something that makes it a worthwhile read: Heinlein's comments about various types of people (from senior citizens to the `reform' politician), the value of participation in the process in terms of maintaining a healthy government, the relative merits of different types of governments, `reactionary' groups (such as the American Communist Party), and the role women should play. This last item is definitely colored by the cultural attitude of the time this was written, that women are mainly only good as homemakers (though he does present at least one case of a woman working successfully at a high level in a political campaign).

The forward and various notes to this book by Jerry Pournelle need to taken with a grain of salt, as Jerry was definitely promoting his own agenda with these, but they do provide a more modern perspective from which to view this.

The language of this book is typical Heinlein, somewhat folksy, American colloquial, certainly a long way from all too many other books that deal with this area that have a somewhat strained academic approach and language. Overall, this is an easy read that will probably bring forth a few grins, perhaps a few violent disagreements with some of the expressed opinions, and a greater knowledge of just how the political process works.

--- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)

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