“If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!”

—  Robert A. Heinlein

Guest of Honor Speech at the 29th World Science Fiction Convention, Seattle, Washington (1961)
The Quotable Heinlein http://www.quotableheinlein.com/html/home.html
Context: I also think there are prices too high to pay to save the United States. Conscription is one of them. Conscription is slavery, and I don't think that any people or nation has a right to save itself at the price of slavery for anyone, no matter what name it is called. We have had the draft for twenty years now; I think this is shameful. If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing go down the drain!

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "If a country can't save itself through the volunteer service of its own free people, then I say : Let the damned thing …" by Robert A. Heinlein?
Robert A. Heinlein photo
Robert A. Heinlein 557
American science fiction author 1907–1988

Related quotes

Mohamed Nasheed photo

“Well, if I did cooperate with Waheed, this country will go down the drain immediately. The people of this country elected a leader, and that was me. I have been removed forcefully and they want me back. But, I’m saying “Okay, let’s have new elections and see who the people want again”. If I step aside, if I join the Rebel Government, the people of this country will lose faith.”

Mohamed Nasheed (1967) Maldivian politician, 4th president of the Maldives

Quoted in an interview with Stephen Sackur on BBC News, Interview with Mohamed Nasheed: "Mohamed Nasheed: Unity government 'will not happen'" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9696560.stm, February 15, 2012.

Georgia O'Keeffe photo

“I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free.”

Georgia O'Keeffe (1887–1986) American artist
Benjamin Harvey Hill photo

“Who saves his country, saves himself, saves all things, and all things saved do bless him! Who lets his country die, lets all things die, dies himself ignobly, and all things dying curse him!”

Benjamin Harvey Hill (1823–1882) American politician

Reported in Benjamin H. Hill, Jr., Senator Benjamin H. Hill of Georgia; His Life, Speeches and Writings (1893), epigraph, p. 594. From "Notes on the Situation", a series of articles appearing in the Chronicle and Sentinel, Atlanta, Georgia.

Noel Gallagher photo

“And I want to be there when you're coming down / And I want to be there when you hit the ground
Don't go away / Say what you say / Say that you'll stay… because I need more time just to make things right
Damn my education / I can't find the words to say
Me and you, what's going on?/All we seem to know/Is how to show, the feelings that are wrong”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Don't Go Away
Be Here Now (1997)

Jeremy Corbyn photo

“I think the important thing is to stop a no-deal exit and let the people of this country decide their own future.”

Jeremy Corbyn (1949) British Labour Party politician

Brexit: Boris Johnson faces showdown in Parliament https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49560557 BBC News (3 September 2019)
2010s, 2019

Donald J. Trump photo

“We have losers. We have people that don't have it. We have people that are morally corrupt. We have people that are selling this country down the drain.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2015, Presidential Bid Announcement (June 16, 2015)

Wendell Berry photo

“The issue here really is not whether international trade shall be free but whether or not it makes any sense for a country — or, for that matter, a region — to destroy its own capacity to produce its own food. How can a government, entrusted with the safety and health of its people, conscientiously barter away in the name of an economic idea that people’s ability to feed itself? And if people lose their ability to feed themselves, how can they be said to be free?”

Wendell Berry (1934) author

"A Bad Big Idea"
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (1993)

Peter Dutton photo

“It’s going to mean that people who need medical services in Australia are going to be displaced from those services. Because if you bring hundreds and hundreds of people from Nauru and Manus down to our country, they are going to go into the health network, I don’t want to see Australians who are in waiting lines in public hospitals kicked off those waiting lines because people off Nauru and Manus are now going to access those health services.”

Peter Dutton (1970) Australian politician

1 March 2019

https://www.news.com.au/finance/work/leaders/peter-duttons-claim-asylum-seekers-will-clog-up-hospital-system-slammed/news-story/f750ebcf7be5a13793e2def310a50f8d

Shavkat Mirziyoyev photo

“It should be noted first and foremost that any nation, any people with the great goal of building a free and just life of a just society in its country, is going through a difficult, thorny and complex path of development.”

Shavkat Mirziyoyev (1957) President of Uzbekistan (2016-present)

Interview with the Editor-in-Chief of the «Yangi Uzbekiston» https://thediplomaticinsight.com/interview-president-of-the-republic-of-uzbekistan-shavkat-mirziyoyev/ (19 August 2021)

Related topics