re: #344 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Again, that novel was not a political manifesto: Heinlein was describing the aftermath of WWIII, which ended when the warring nations simply collapsed. Soldiers and POWs were stranded wherever they were, and constituted the only organized authority to deal with the ensuing chaos that ensued.

“Service guarantees citizenship” evolved out of that.

And do recall, especially after Iraq and Afghanistan, the US Armed forces were ready to take nearly anybody without a felony criminal record out of need for warm bodies to fill the boots on the ground.

And Heinlein was as realistic as he could be about that government. The teacher asks the students why the current form of government was doing so well, and the answer he gave was that it hadn’t failed yet. Not something grandiose sounding about how it was the greatest form of government. It just hadn’t failed yet.