An armed society is not a polite society!

[RevStPatrick]

16. Robert Heinlein was a science fiction writer.

He coined that phrase in the 1942 novel Beyond This Horizon.

The full quote is:

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life".

And really, what the fuck did he know?

I've always loved Heinlein's novels, and even sort of lived a version of Stranger in a Strange Land for a while. However, he was one of those brainy Libertarians who conjured rules for how society should function from his imagination. Much of what these types think have no relation to reality, and to how humans actually behave. The man lived in the United States during its Golden Age, and spent most of his life behind a typewriter so that he wouldn't have to go out and get a real job. What did he know about "an armed society"? I respect a lot of what his imagination brought forth, but I've always thought that was a particularly dumb line.