alt Hacker News>Some authors seem to think that readers may only read Heinlein if they are prepared to join the army the next day or renounce their citizenship.
I am kinda tired of those [expletive]. Paul Verhoeven the first in line.
Heinlein's thesis was that power unearned is power abused. And since voting is gifted power - people abuse it. Heinlein's idea that the only way to earn the franchise is to first serve the society may be wrong, but no one engages with its bigger idea - that the franchise must be earned. And it is true - people will gladly vote hitler and hamas into power. They will vote on tribal, ethnic, cultural and religious lines. They will vote to troll.
What people rarely vote for is the best interests of themselves or their nation.
I mean, exploring how people make irresponsible voting decisions in sci-fi contexts might be an interesting, but Starship Troopers is actually a story about how a structure of power dedicated to conflict with faceless aliens seeks to perpetuate itself by only permitting those who have had obedience to it literally beaten into them to vote, and Heinlein (at least 1950s Red Scare Heinlein) isn't exactly critical of it or even ambivalent about it.
It doesn't have a lot to say about not voting on tribal, ethnic, cultural or religious lines or voting for candidates to troll, but does have an awful lot to say about the virtues of militarism.