the_ed_dawg's Journal: Starship Troopers

Okay, I'll admit it. More often than not, I would rather watch a movie than take a long time reading a book because time is not something that I have in abundance. I own the movie Starship Troopers and think it is one of the better guy movies out there: guns, hot chicks, and really goofy propaganda videos.

That said, I went out to my local bookstore and picked up Robert Heinlein's book of the same title, just because. I have to say, it is one of the best books I've ever read. I think it's amusing the way Heinlein pokes holes in democracy and communism alike in ways that weren't an issue when he wrote the book in 1959. It also has some really good lines:

(On the practice of incarcerating juvenile delinquents and later punishing them as adults, rather than adminstrative punishment in the first place) "Suppose you merely scolded your puppy, never punished him, let him go on making messes in the house... and occasionally locked him up in an outbuilding but soon let him back into the house with a warning not to do it again. Then, one day you notice that he is now a grown dog and still not housebroken -- whereupon you whip out a gun and shoot him dead." -- J. V. Dubois

"'Peace' is a condition in which no civilian pays any attention to military casualties which do not achieve page-one, lead-story promenience -- unless that civilian is a close relative of one of the casualties. But, if there ever was a time in history when 'peace' meant that there was no fighting going on, I have been unable to find out about it." -- Johnnie