I just tracked into this John Scalzi's Whatever Column column asking the immortal question, if you are a libertarian who would you rather have as a parent Ayn Rand or Robert Heinlein. This column is kind of ironic for two reasons.

First, although he may be a big noise in Blogville today, I remember Scalzi as the Fresno Bee movie critic from a few years ago. [He was a good one, too.]

Second, back when I was active in Libertarian college and law school circles, I noticed and would observe that Libertarians had either been influenced by Ayn Rand or Robert Heinlein. One or the other, not both. The Randites were typically physics or math majors. For them, political philosophy was cut and dry. Start with the initial premise of A=A and work everything else out from there.

Those of us from the Robert Heinlein school didn't think anyone had all the answers. [Definitely, including the Randites.] The universe is too complicated for that. Start with obvious axioms and apply incontrovertable logic and you end up thinking that the internal angles of a triangle add up to 180 degrees, which they don't at relativistic distances. Logic's a thin thread to hang your life on. Competence is what really counts, and competence is something that one acquires through experience. If you read Heinlein, you knew that the axiomatic truths of the life were few and number and boiled down to "TANSTAAFL," which meant really that there were no shortcuts or quick and easy answers. Heinlein made it very difficult to become a True Believer.