Glenn Reynolds posts this still-timely political advice from my favorite author, Robert Heinlein:
Your object… is to win elections, not arguments. If you will always remember that, you can’t go far wrong.
The second thing to remember is that elections are won with votes; those votes are out in the precincts, not down in the politico-financial district, not in political clubs, not at political rallies.
The third thing to remember is that a vote for your side never becomes a reality unless you see to it that the holder thereof gets down to the polls and casts it. This should be printed in red ink and set off with flashing lights.
The fourth thing to remember is not to waste time arguing with a hard case. In the years I have spent in politics I cannot honestly say that I recall ever having persuaded anyone to change his mind about how he was going to vote on an issue or for a candidate if he had already made up his mind when I approached him. Yet I know that I have influenced and sometimes changed the outcome of elections through my own efforts.
As Reynolds notes, “It’s good advice, and his book, Take Back Your Government, is still pretty good. The technology is obsolete — though not as much as you might think — but the basic approach is still good.”
Though my favorite Heinlein quote is still, “The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war’s desolation.”
“Your object… is to win elections, not arguments. If you will always remember that, you can’t go far wrong.”
How stupid is that quote? Shouldn’t the job be to SOLVE ISSUES AT HAND?!
Steve, may I suggest you take up your argument with Heinlein? Go get a copy of the book, a red pen and read the thing critically. If the comment strikes you as unreasonable and yet folks who’ve rwad it in context suggest it is not, perhaps getting a copy of the book and reading it will resolve your problem with it. A short blogpost cannot do that for you.
I certainly will.
It will be hard to be convinced that “your object is to win elections” in any context.
This is one of our many issues – politicians out to win elections, not solve problems.
Steve that actually is the critical point.
Politicians these days care about one thing first and foremost — winning elections and staying in power.
Every thing else is secondary to them.
And that, in a nutshell is what’s wrong with the entire incumbency sitting up on Capitol Hill right now.
Heinlein’s point is made in the context of advice to political novices who want to affect political change in government. As such, they MUST concentrate on winning elections to increase their political influence on policy making. One of the rubs for me in his advice is his emphasis on making compromise–within your own limited political sphere. Compromise has of late come to mean a one-way street in favor of one side of any debate, instead ofstanding fiorm for principles but being willing to negotiate fairly as to means, as I take Heinlein to (for the most part) articulate.
But yes, reading the book for yourself–with eyes wide open, realizing he wrote it in 1946 and, as Pournelle said in his 1992 introduction to the book,
As an historical glimpse into the mind of a political operator back in the day when we still pretty much did have a republic, it’s a very good read. As a primer for local political organization, well, here in America’s Third World County (just recently dragged kicking and screaming into the 20th Century *heh*), it’s pretty much priceless. In other locales it may have a varied degree of direct applicability. The principles outlined, though, should be useful to any common Joe or Josephine seeking to effect change on the political landscape.
*sigh* First sentence: “affect” should be “effect” as later used. Oh, well. Olde Pharte’s Disease.