I recently finished reading the entire Foundation series by Isaac Asimov, all fifteen novels. It has been several decades since I last read these masterpieces of Science Fiction. When I read them previously I enjoyed them. This time around I rather despised the entire lot.
The writing is great and the science fiction is first rate, as good as I remembered it to be. In the intervening decades since I last read these novels my political views evolved radically. After reading several hundred books on politics and government I became a Libertarian.
Unfortunately Isaac Asimov chose to cram the entire Foundation series full of the worst kind of collectivist refuse imaginable. Collectivism was the central theme of the series. Continuously Asimov denigrated individualism and praised collectivism. At the climax of the final novel one character alone chooses a path that transforms the entire galaxy, and every one of the four quadrillion humans, into a single hive organism.
Ever since I was in high school I have been a huge fan of the author Robert Heinlein. As my political awakening progressed my appreciation for Heinlein increased. It is now an obsession. That is because Robert Heinlein was a Libertarian in the truest sense of the world. A love for individualism and a hatred for collectivism is woven throughout most of his novels. This began with the short story Lifeline, which was the first thing he wrote, and continued through his last novel, To Sail Beyond the Stars.
Robert Heinlein was an exceptionally talented writer who wrote superb science fiction, with an emphasis on hardcore science. His works are so great they can be read over and over again.
The United States is such a mess because progressives have transformed this nation from a Constitutional Republic based on individualism into a collectivist hell. Heinlein warned us about the evils of collectivism while Asimov praised collectivism.
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