As I mentioned in a post yesterday, I’ve been rereading The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress the last few days. I ran across this description of a Loonie liberal. (Loonie being what the residents of the Moon call themselves.)
Must be a yearning deep in human heart to stop other people from doing as they please. Rules, laws–always for other fellow. A murky part of us, something we had before we came down out of trees, and failed to shuck when we stood up. Because not one of those people said: “Please pass this so that I won’t be able to do something I know I should stop.” Nyet, tovarishchee, was always something they hated to see neighbors doing. Stop them “for their own good”–not because speaker claimed to be harmed by it. (161)
Work Cited: Heinlein, Robert A. The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1966.
