Posted by
Dean D. on Tuesday, December 23, 2008 11:44:16 PM
Many of you may be familiar with the title of this post, some of you may not. It is an acronym coined by the great Science Fiction writer Robert Anson Heinlein. I am a great fan of all his work and much of his philosophy. I understand that our fellow TownHall blogger GunnyG is also a Heinlein fan.
TANSTAAFL stands for: "There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch".
Mr. Heinlein coined the term in the 1940s and later used it in his best selling 1966 novel "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Such a simple acronym that truly describes how life really works. Mr. Heinlein understood this and voiced his conservative and libertarian political leanings throughout his writing. He wrote many other essays, many of which were compiled and published posthumously by his request in the book "Grumbles From The Grave" which I highly recommend reading. A most ironic thing for a Science Fiction writer to be a conservative when you think about it.
Our country could use a rather large dose of Mr. Heinlein's philosophy right now. Everywhere you look these days there seems to be a hand stuck out seeking something for nothing. If the people doing this really understood TANSTAAFL they might be less inclined to stick that mitt out there so readily. Somewhere, somehow, we will all pay for these so called "free lunches". To believe otherwise is totally delusional. Higher taxes, a lower quality of life, lowered services and fewer freedoms are all on the list of payment due in our future. We must decline these free lunch offers and demand accountability from our government.
The Democratic battle cry "Change we can believe in" echo's hollowly after their recent victory. Now they will have to produce on their promise. No one seems to know what these changes will entail or if there will actually be any real changes. All we have seen so far is Clinton era Democrats recapturing positions lost when President Bush won in the 2000 election. More of a "Reversion" than a "Change" if you ask me.
I will close this post with a few words of wisdom quoted from Robert Anson Heinlein (1907 - 1988). Rest in Peace good sir, many of us dearly miss your musings.
"Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors... and miss."
"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I
find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I
break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally
responsible for everything I do."
"Political tags - such as royalist, communist,
democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are
never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who
want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once."
"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does
not want merely because you think it would be good for him."
"Does history record any case in which the majority was right?"
*** *** *** *** ***
"The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it
forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed."
"A committee is the only known form of life with a hundred bellies and no brain."
"Rules, laws - always for the other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: Please pass this so that I won't be able to so something I know I should stop. Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them for their own good"
"Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something.
Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides?"
"I don't trust a man who talks about ethics when he is picking my
pocket. But if he is acting in his own self-interest and says so, I
have usually been able to work out some way to do business with him."
"The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of
"loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute
— get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too
late to save that society. It is doomed."
***Edited 12/24/08*** to add a few more quotes appropriate for our time.
I hope you enjoy these quotes as much as I do.