Why, oh why didn't I write about "Stranger in a Strange Land" when I had actually just finished reading it? It's been at least a year (two?), and although I know it moved me and changed me and set me on a new path, I feel as if I can only talk about its points in relation to what other people are saying about it. Because I didn't capture those personal responses to the work immediately. I'm going to regret that forever, I know, because you can never re-read a book for the first time.

I know that it changed me in two ways: it returned some of my hope about life and humanity, and it put me on a new path that has reinforced that hope time and again. This book set me on the path to devour all things Heinlein. And with very few exceptions, each of his works has brought me to that place of "Oh my god, yes!" again and again. I don't think I'll ever be able to adequately describe the effect that Robert A. Heinlein has had on my life, or my great sorrow that I've only discovered him so long after his death.

This book moved me because it expressed so well my core beliefs about myself and humanity, beliefs that I have never been able to properly name, beliefs so slippery and elusive that I forget about them and have to be reminded. What does it say about me that I have to be reminded of a personal belief in hope?

Something that has bubbling to the surface over the years, the same something that caused me to start a new blog, was momentarily brought to the surface and shown in a shining light. A connection with and hope for humanity. The realization that yes, it may be paradoxical, but it's time to face the truth that although I am an atheist-leaning agnostic, I seek out and yearn for and suspect there is meaning to life. There is enlightenment to be had, if only we can let ourselves open up to it. Life can be chaotic and random, but somehow serendipity and fate can still occur. Without some overlord or god or grand designer. I can't explain it any better than that, maybe because I haven't been enlightened. I suspect it is merely the journey to enlightenment that *is* enlightenment.

But I was going to talk about this book, about Valentine Michael Smith, the human raised by Martians who became a sort of messiah. As I said, because it's been so long, I can't remember the details well enough and have to describe my reactions to the book as a response to what others have said.

I'm going to attempt to respond to the GoodReads review written by "Christy".

1. She has a strong response to the ugliness of the word "grok". I can sympathize with this, truly. I definitely feel like there are words that sound or feel "ugly", and "grok" is definitely one of them. But at some point I got over that, possibly at the point that I actually figured out the true meaning of the word. Something I suspsect that Christy has defined in a slightly different way than I have, which could explain a few things.

2. She sees a bit of hypocrisy in Heinlein's critique of religion and his use of religion to get his point across, saying that using religion as manipulation is too cynical for her taste and goes against the "Thou art God" philosophy. This is where I begin to suspect she has a different definition of the word "grok", as well as the concept of "thou art god", but I want to get to that later, as it's the meat of everything.

3. "The sexism of the text, which is inseparable from its heteronormativity and even homophobia." Yep, she's got me there. I still can't get over that line, "Nine times out of ten, if a girl gets raped, it's partly her fault". shudders But it's easier for me to give him a pass on the sexism than it is for homophobia. I just don't understand where the homophobia comes from. It is so very much against everything that I've come to love about Heinlein as I've read more and more of his work. Which makes me wonder about it. A comment on Christy's review by "Stew" suggests much of the book's offenses are contrived to be offensive, as their own commentary on things wrong with society. Speaking of the sexism, I don't think so. But the homophobia? Maybe. I can't recall much, if any, homophobia in any of the other works that I've read by him. I just don't know what to do with these sentiments. They will probably always be the most disturbing thing to me about Heinlein.

Why is it less disturbing when confronted with the sexism? Mostly because it's pretty much in all of his books. It's difficult to stomach, but you eventually have to roll your eyes and move on. Because at some point you have to remember that no one is perfect, and it's ok to recognize someone's contributions without letting their faults overshadow their good works. Do you point it out? Hell. Yes. Do you ruminate and question and let it frustrate you? Yes. Then you set it aside and move on. One does not judge the Constitution by the way it sets up how to count slaves. Critique it, yes, but don't throw it out. It being a living document, in fact you work to change it, while keeping the historical records as a remembrance of how times have changed.

One does not ban Huckleberry Finn for its use of the "N-word", but instead focuses on its message that black people are human. One does not judge the sermons of Martin Luther King Jr. for its heteronormatism or religious content, but for the message of overall equality. One does not throw out the contributions of Margaret Sanger for access to birth control because she support eugenics. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that Christy has done this. No, this is me explaining part of my reasoning for giving Heinlein a slap on the wrist rather than a beating for his sexism.

All of that aside, I have a more slippery reason. I think it's part of Heinlein's sexuality. Yes, I will go so far as to say that I think Heinlein himself was sexist. Time and again, Heinlein's male characters physically dominate the strong women they are drawn to. The scenes are like an eroticized breaking of a horse: the two fight for dominance, the man uses physical force to still the woman into true submission until she stops fighting and listens, he tells the woman how maddeningly feisty she is and how she is never to do "x" again and by the way she is the most amazing woman ever and so beautiful and intelligent and awesome and lets have babies now, she melts into his arms and their relationship is instantly transformed into one of loving hen-pecking and hot sex and adoration and baby making. The man and woman instantly understand everything about each other and all the conflicts from before this moment become silly endearments. The woman can be as "uppity" as she likes until the man raises an eyebrow, then she instantly knows she has crossed a line and with contrition she acknowledges that of course it is her duty to defer to his judgement in the matter.

Bleck. But... I can't ignore how very much this sounds like the relationship between a true Submissive and his/her Dominant partner. Yes, I'm talking about "BDSM" culture. I'm talking about a very real, valid, and contemporary (as in it's not just 1950s prudish patriarchy) form of sexuality.

Feminism is still divided strongly between sex-positive and sex-negative views. I am strongly a pro-sex feminist. Some of the anti-pornography and anti-dominance arguments I can understand, even occasionally agree with. But overall, I see sex as a positive human endeavor, pornography as a way to enjoy it, and submission/dominance relations as valid forms of sexuality. In light of that, I strongly suspect these scenes are exactly in-line with Heinlein's personal views. His work is filled with social commentary, much of it along liberal lines, but by no means is he a "flower-child". The man is pro-military and anti-democracy for crying out loud. These are just facets of his world view that we must accept as part of Heinlein, and move on from there.

Also, I am very frustrated with the entire second paragraph in the 3rd point of Christy's review. I don't see the problem with Jill's leap to the conclusion that appreciating poronography makes sense. It about sums up how I feel on the matter: it's ok to want to be looked at and it's ok to look. Pornography as an industry may have issues of power, and I have a big problem with the everyday objectifying of women as sexual objects in order to sell products, but I don't think pornography itself is wrong or anti-feminist, nor do I feel that seeing a person as a sexual object is wrong. The quote about Jill's relief at not having lesbian tendencies is troublesome. Part of me ridiculously holds out hope that we can take the comment at face value - that Jill wasn't ready for that much change, but that it isn't necessarily commentary on homosexuality. But of course, there's all the rest of the anti-homosexual sentiment to quash this. *sigh* But where does Christy get the impressions that Jill thinks "women are the spectacle, never the spectator" and "women's role in sexual behavior is essentially passive"? I find this whole paragraph to be too close to the sex-negative view point for my comfort.

4. Christy's response to the "emphasis on self" is where she completely loses me. She says "but if feeling good and being happy are the primary goals of life, then that opens the door for abuses of others in the name of love or happiness and seems a rather meaningless goal in and of itself. Hedonism alone is not enough for me."

Well damn. Crap on toast, woman, hedonism is basically the core of my entire life view. But for the love of all that is unHoly, how does any of this "open the door" to abuse and make life meaningless? Christy ends her review contrasting Heinlein's view that God is in all of us with Vonnegut's view that there is no god anywhere, saying that she finds Vonnegut more appealing. I've yet to read any Vonnegut, but I can see how someone can believe that view is more realistic or true. But more appealing? She faults Heinlein's finding meaning in the physical as too meaningless, but favors Vonnegut's view that life is meaningless? How can you prefer meaningless but fault someone for being too meaningless? It makes no sense to me. It makes me scratch my head so much, I wonder if I've misunderstood it somehow. (She thinks Mike duping people into knowledge via false religion is "too cynical", but Vonnegut's no god scenario is "appealing"? Huh???)

But this is a good transition back to my feeling that Christy does not define "grok" the way that I do, and that the definition goes to the core of my beliefs.

Christy bemoans "philosophy that believes that YOU are the center of the universe, that everything will work out for the best." She mentions The Secret, something that I haven't read (because I suspect I won't like it and there will be much eye-rolling), so I don't understand her "name-it-and-claim-it" comment. Working out for the best... huh?

As stated, Mike's lesson for humanity isn't religion. Christy doesn't see that although the word "God" is in there, "Thou art God and I am God and all that groks is God" has nothing to do with any "God".

I'm not Heinlein, and I'm not the character Michael or any other Martian, but I have always understood that to "grok" is to understand the existence of something completely and implicitly. And essential to this understanding is that there is no one thing to understand, there is no God or creator or meaning, there is no me and there is no you. Everything just is. Everything is Everything. There is no chair or you or Martians or books or God or... I suspect no love or hate or fear or action or movement or... anything. Because all there is is everything. There is no ONE thing. There is just EVERYthing, which is one thing. To grok is to understand this. To use Michael's mind powers, one simply taps into Everything, to be One with the All. It's that simple. This isn't religion. It is fact. The meaning of life is that life and unlife and existence is... existence.

Everything is Everything.

It's not cynical to dupe people with religion. It's using religion to bring them closer so you can whisper to them that there is no religion, there just is. The lesson is not religion. The lesson is that we are all part of a single existence. It's easy to say "single entity" here, but I don't think that's right either.

I was in tears when Michael told the ant "Thou art God", not because the ant is part of God and so is Michael and therefore everything will be ok in the end. No, "God" is merely a human name for something unnameable. "God" is the name for the realization that everyone and everything that ever was and is and will be is All. He was saying hello and goodbye to himself. He was acknowledging there is no death. I believe the only reason he uses the word "God" at all is because it is the closest word in the English language that comes anywhere close to covering it.

And this is as close to something that I can believe in as I've felt since I realized I didn't believe in God when I was 18. It's how I can be an atheist and say there is meaning to life. Do I believe that if I can truly transcend, to somehow actually BE the concept of everything is ONE, that I could then manipulate the things around me? Make my own reality? No. Maybe. It would explain some of the unexplainable phenomenon. It would explain afterlife and quantum physics and ghosts and non-linear time. Because there is no time either. There just IS. Psychic phenomenon*, all of it. Because everything just IS.

Maybe when I die, all of me will just BE everything else, and everything will sigh in relief that everything is finally one Evertyhing again, and I will know that it's all ok. I'll know how it all ends, I'll know the meaning of life and the universe and god, because I always will be and always have been Everything. Or maybe not. Probably not. But I like this idea better than anything I have ever heard. And it sounds much more probable than anything else too.

*Heinlein's book "Beyond This Horizon" and Arthur C. Clarke's "Childhood's End" both imply the psychic phenomenon can be explained by the fact that time is non-linear. If there is no time, or if everything that happened/is happening/will happen all happens at the same time, then having fore-knowledge of something is just that person having tapped into non-linear time.

I am attempting to pull something elusive out from the ether that has been percolating in my brain. It is about the juxtaposition of the current American sense of of individualism and the basic human need for companionship.

I recently discovered the This I Believe radio series via Audible.com and, while it took awhile for the slower pace to grow on me, I am now a firm believer in listening. We would all be a lot happier if we slowed down and listened to others now and then, and this is a great jumping off point.

Two essays had content that jumped out at me, stayed with me, and are partially responsible for my current percolation. Albert Einstein and Robert A. Heinlein. How many of us are aware of the human side of Einstein? The title of the piece alone is illuminating, An Ideal of Service to Our Fellow Man. Here I will quote a snippet:

The individual feels more than ever dependent on society, but he feels this dependence not in the positive sense — cradled, connected as part of an organic. He sees it as a threat to his natural rights and even his economic existence. His position in society, then, is such that that which drives his ego is encouraged and developed, and that which would drive him toward other men (a weak impulse to begin with) is left to atrophy.

Couple that vision of 1950's American individualism with Heinlein's observations of community in the same decade. His essay, titled Our Noble, Essential Decency, brought tears to my ears just from hearing someone so important to me expressing feelings of hope for humanity. Here is a snippet:

I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.

Take Father Michael, down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and loving kindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him. My next door neighbor's a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat—no fee, no prospect of a fee. I believe in Doc.

I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town, say "I'm hungry," and you'll be fed. Our town is no exception. I found the same ready charity everywhere. For the one who says, "The heck with you, I've got mine," there are a hundred, a thousand, who will say, "Sure pal, sit down."

So what has been percolating for me, is this question of what happened to Heinlein's vision of his fellow Americans. What has happened to the notion of doing good for one another? How have we gone even further into Einstein's example, of Man avoiding Man, afraid of asking for help, afraid of needing anything or anyone at all?

So with those thoughts setting up my frame of mind, I have been dwelling on my loneliness and my depression. A recent conversation brought up, again, the concept that if I don't go out and find people, I will continue to be lonely. And I have gone out. I've gone out of my way to break through all of my blockages due to depression and anxiety, and the end result was very close to nil*. Zip, zilch, nothing. So I am back in my hole at home, nursing the wounds of extending myself without reciprocation.

[*No, not zero. No, not everyone's fault but mine. There was some reciprocation. There were near misses. There were huge failures on my part. In the end, I think nothing really panned out purely because of my inadequacies.]

I started thinking about all of the "checkpoints" to make sure that new mother's don't get lost in the depths of post-partum depression. How every single health worker I encountered during my daughter's first year of life asked me to talk about myself, how was I doing, who did I have to talk to and share my burdens. How both of my PEPS groups set aside blocks of time to talk about PPD and the need to reach out to those in need. How I revealed to both of my PEPS groups that I had depression.

And a completely new thought came to me.

Healthcare workers know they need to reach out to people at risk. They quiz me, the listen, some of them even sought me up for follow-up. So why is it that normal, everyday people around you don't know this? Or if they do know it, why aren't they acting on it?

I am a person very vocal about my depression. I am a first-time mother to a toddler who spends almost all of her time alone at home. Where is the line of people knocking on my door to make sure that I'm ok?

This thought shocked me. It is so self-righteous. People can't be expected to just drop everything and cater to me just because I'm sad and lonely.

Oh, but I'm not just sad and lonely. I have a disease. A disease with known symptoms of suicide, child abandonment, child abuse, and infanticide.

Long ago I discovered that I need medications for my depression the exact same way that a diabetic needs insulin: I need it to live.

Depression is like all diseases: there are things that help, and things that make it worse. So why not treat it like a disease? If I have Type 2 or 3 Diabetes, would you be inclined to sign me up for a Dessert of The Month or simply inquire about my health, my well being, and ask if I need help with anything? If I have a cancer and I'm taking chemotherapy, are you going to invite me to a rave complete with a hit of Ecstasy, or are you going to stop by for a visit, bring some chicken soup, and tidy up the dishes in the sink?

I'm guessing most people would enact any of those scenarios. Most people would just stay home and live their lives, maybe drop a line on Facebook or make a phone call now and then.

But while Diabetes is helped by insulin and cancer is helped by chemotherapy, depression is helped by companionship.

You are my medicine. I've asked for a regular dosage. So where are you?

I know it's difficult to get out of your comfort zone. Believe me, I've got a very small one and I stay socked in there constantly, so I know how hard it is to stand up, shake the dust of the rut off, and take the plunge into foreign waters. But I'm worth it, aren't I?

Maybe it's a tangent, maybe it's not, but I have to rant here. I am literally sick of hearing about "baggage" and how loathsome it is. The sentiment makes my blood boil. You've got baggage, I've got baggage, the freaking Pope has baggage, I assure you. I am not less of a person, I am not less worthy of respect and love and affection, because bad things happened to me in the past. When was the last time you looked in your closet and were surprised people still like you? That's what I thought. So can this sentiment about baggage making people less. Stop this sentiment that broken people aren't worth you time. Can we please halt this sentiment that someone is unworthy of you? I am all for girlpower, but who coined the phrases "You're better than him" and "He doesn't deserve you"? Those things sound nice when your heart has been stomped on, and they absolutely apply if your man beats you, but other than that... should you really be encouraging people to believe that they are better than others? That some people are beneath them?

That's about all I've got, folks. I said it was something percolating. I didn't say it was coherent. I have no solution. I have no Magic Wand of Fxing. I just have thoughts and hopes. And lately I'm hoping that we can find our way back to a sense of humanity where we're not afraid of each other or ourselves. I'm hoping we can all live in Heinlein's little town where all we have to do is ask for help and it will be given, no question asked. We're all hungry for something, and we all deserve to eat.

Finally, a disclaimer: This is not a cry for help. This is not a guilt trip. This is not about you. It's not really about me, except that these are my thoughts. My thoughts on humanity. People in general.

This one is for Dave.

So I'm on this Heinlein kick. The man is teaching me so much about so much, by just making me think about things I already knew but I wasn't really aware of. Each of his books seems to have some theme (or 2 or 12) within that resonates with me. I've just finished "For Us, The Living", his very first novel that went unpublished until quite recently, as it was found after his death. Whereas "Stranger in a Strange Land" had my mind reeling over the "man before his time" views on sexuality and religion, this book has me questioning a lot about capitalism I was taking for granting as truth. All this time, I've been convinced that communism is the best way for humanity to coexist in peace but so depressed that we couldn't ever reach a peacefulness that would allow it to work, so I've just been angry at capitalism and frustrated with democracy and livid with anyone afraid of anything that even dares to smell like socialism. But back in 1939, Robert A. Heinlein proposed that capitalism can work, and work beautifully, if we chuck out some silly ideas and drive some new ones into our thick skulls.

The whole thing seems to fly in the face of Ayn Rand, the movie versions of Atlas Shrugged anyway, which coincidentally I found on Netflix and watched just before reading this. That woman is a monster! Oy! Of course, Rand reminds me of Nancy Kress, ever since someone tried to give me a brief synopsis of the book and it sounded eerily similar to "Beggars in Spain", one of my favorite books of all time. And you know what? I'm not the only one seeing the connections. I Googled "Robert Heinlein Ayn Rand Nancy Kress" and found very promising hits on the first page, many of which I have bookmarked for reading AFTER I write this down. Because I didn't want my thoughts to get tainted by what others have to say until I've gotten all of this down.

So I've made my notes to myself, and drawn these conclusions:

On Kress vs. Rand: Nancy Kress rewrote the story of Atlas Shrugged, leaving behind one woman to fight for humanity but mostly just sympathize, and another woman within the enclave to come down from on high to actually do something about it. Except their meddling kinda makes things worse.

On Heinlein vs. Rand: Rand had an idea, Marx had an idea, Heinlein had an idea. Heinlein is pretty much the opposite of Rand. Rand wants Capitalism Deluxe where the dollar is mighty and anyone who doesn't work should be ashamed of themselves and go fuck off and die in a hole somewhere. Heinlein wants Libertarianism Deluxe where living life should be your greatest ambition, but not in a completely hedonistic couch potato way, but rather enjoy yourself, learn, educate, create, better yourself and others through the process.

I have notes on the rest, but that's about the gist of it.

But to really understand the remarkableness of what this book espouses, you have to read it. So I've just spent the past hour transcribing the 2 really important bits. But first, a tiny backstory: guy's car goes over a cliff in 1938, guy wakes up in 2075, guy has adjustment issues to current American culture, guy has interesting conversations with an economic scholar. Everything is quite different, thanks to 2 basic changes: the take over of banks to form one government bank (economic security for everyone follows, once they fight a little war that put the final snuff on the idea of an export-based economy), and the rewriting of the Constitution to ensure the total liberty of all citizens (social liberalism ensues, all thanks to a near-miss of having a wing-nut religious conservative in power).

Here's Heinlein in his own words, on how the only problem with Capitalism is our current allegiance to an export-based economy:

"It had always been the conventional point of view, especially in the economic beliefs of the conservative party, that a prosperous nation required a favorable trade balance or "gold balance" as it was formally called. In simple language, that means that a country is best off when it exports more than it imports. Phrased in that way it sounds silly, for it is surely evident that a country that ships out more than it takes in gets poorer every year in terms of real wealth. Nevertheless, there was an element of truth in it, a very practical truth at that time. The economic life was organized in such a comical fashion, that each year the country produced goods of greater value than the people of the country were able to buy back and use up. This was known as over-production, and many were the esoteric, nonsensical things said about it. But the situation was that simple. The system of necessity produced more than it consumed, of necessity...."

"Do you mean to say, that that was all there was wrong with business in the United States in my day?"

"That was all. And all of your labor troubles and poverty and physical suffering were as unnecessary as they were tragic."

Now here's Heinlein rewriting the Constitution to ensure Liberty for all (sorry, no mention of justice, but that's an interesting topic for later!):

"The members of the new Congress who had been elected on an anti-Scudder ticket were pledged to Constitutional reforms to prevent a recurrence of loss of individual liberty from any cause. In consequence, several hundred amendments were proposed in the first few days of the term. The parliamentary impasses resulted in a clever piece of lawmaking. At a caucus of the Libertarians, it was proposed and agreed to that a small representative committee draft and submit to the caucus an amendment in the form of a new constitution which, if adopted and ratified, would supersede the old Constitution in toto. The Committee consisted of 5 men and one woman, great minds, all of them." ....

"Their report was submitted to the caucus on 2028, April 20, and was debated in Caucus for 3 weeks. But the members of the committee had done their work so well, and in particular had been so skillful in retaining most of the wording of the original document, the new amendment was approved by the caucus without change, and submitted as a single bill signed by every member of the caucus. It's adoption, of course, was a foregone conclusion. It was ratified by the 37th state on 2028, November 12....

"The addition of a new restriction on the power of government. Henceforth, no law was Constitutional that deprived any citizen of any liberty of action, which did not interfere with the equal freedom of action of another citizen. Pardon me, I've stated that badly. These are the words of the new Constitution:

"Every citizen is free to perform any act which does not hamper the equal freedom of another. No law shall forbid the performance of any act which does not damage the physical or economic welfare of any other person. No act shall constitute a violation of a law valid under this provision, unless there is such damage or immediate present danger of such damage resulting from that act.

"Do you see the significance of that last provision? Up to that time, a crime had 2 elements: act of commission, and intent. Now it had a 3rd: harmful effect which must be proved in each case, as well as the act and the intent. The consequences of this change can hardly be exaggerated. It established American individualism forever, by requiring the State in each case to justify its interference with an individual's act. Furthermore, the justification must be based on a tangible damage or potential damage to a person or persons. The person damaged might be a schoolgirl injured or endangered by a reckless driver, or it might be every person in the state endangered by the betrayal of military secrets, or injured by a manipulation of commodity prices. But it must not be some soulless, super person, the state incarnate, or the majesty of the law. It reduced the state to its proper size, an instrument to serve individuals, instead of a god to be worshiped and glorified. Most especially, it ended the possibility of the majority oppressing any minority with that hackneyed, hoary lie that 'the majority is always right.'

"In another place in the Constitution, corporate persons were defined and declared to have no rights of any sort, except wherein they represented rights of real persons. Corporate persons could not be damaged. An act committed against a corporate person must be shown to have damaged a real person in order to constitute an offense. This was intended to clip the wings of the corporate trusts, which threatened to crowd out the man of flesh and blood."

Now, there is a 3rd bit, but I haven't found the relevant section to transcribe. I'm reluctant to put it in here because I don't have the support or even the wording, just the idea as I remember it. But it's just as important as the other 2 bits. So, here goes: when the US Government created the US Bank, they started giving everyone something called "Heritage Checks" to cover their monthly expenses. Where does the money come from? The Bank prints it. They just make it up when they need it. Think that's ridiculous? According to Heinlein, it's exactly what private banks are already doing (or they were in 1939) when they make out new loans. There is no longer a gold standard, so why not print money when you need it? Money only has value because we believe it does. Producing only what America actually consumes keeps pricing down, technology eliminates most menial labor jobs, health care is free.

If you chuck out everything you think you know about today's economy and just start over fresh without a system of overproduction or investment banking, but instead have in place an economy based on a system of simply meeting people's needs bolstered by the dollars handed out by the government each month, couldn't things get simpler and actually work?

The thing about capitalism that bothers me the most is that it seems it's all about getting ahead and being on top, the flip side of which is there's always going to be someone on the bottom getting screwed. Dave's brother, Cliff, likes to demand where all the money is going to come from to pay for all the "welfare" of any move towards socialism. He is convinced the economy is going to collapse, a matter of when and not if. Heinlein answers all of that: capitalism can work without being dog-eat-dog, and there is money to pay for everything because we printed it. There is no debt if you're not borrowing from anyone to print that money. Did I mention the elimination of private banks and the formation of one national bank means no government borrowing from the banks to stay in business? It becomes a trim government, to the extreme. But in this digital age, shouldn't phrases like red tape and paperwork and bureaucracy become obsolete? If government is only there to actually run things, not dicker around with balancing budgets and infighting and passing endless laws against and for things, does it really need such bloated overhead?

So, my question to you, why aren't we doing this? Can this work? Why not?