I believe that Santorum believes what he says about social and defense policy, given his record. I’m more bearish when it comes to his fiscal conservatism (again, given his record).

Romney I don’t find sincere at all.

Do you deny that the popular negative image of conservatives is exactly that, much as the popular negative image of liberals is of free-spending naifs who don’t understand the world and who exhibit Stockholm syndrome on every issue?

TBH, I don’t see Santorum as conservative so much as a social democrat with strong convictions about social issues which he put a lot of emphasis on, and some strong, inflexible convictions on foreign policy which follow from the aforementioned convictions. That doesn’t make him a bad person — it doesn’t even make him a dumb one — but it does make him unsuitable for governance. He definitely has foot-in-mouth disease — I probably remember many of the same gaffes as you do from the Bush years — but mostly his problem from my perspective is that he doesn’t have strong principles on appropriate size and scope of government.

I do see where you’re coming from, though — overall, I’d agree with your profile of Santorum. I would give Romney the edge over Santorum on the “electability” count: he’s so boring and blase that he might win purely out of spite for Obama and discouragement at Obama’s handling of the economy. Santorum and Newt, I feel, are both crippled by foot-in-mouth disease which will make the election about their gaffes or unpopular statements rather than Obama’s weaknesses, a la Sarah Palin after the Couric interview.

Heinlein definitely went from soft (his juveniles, which were quite good) to hard sci-fi, back to soft (Lazarus Long and Stranger in a Strange Land). I always loved the juveniles and his middle period, but it took me a while to appreciate Heinlein’s later stuff. I’m still not in at the Philip K Dick level of airy, sociological sci-fi, thank goodness, but I can appreciate softer sci-fi on its own merits. Funny thing is, I read all genres: I just don’t like them blending into one another (i.e., science fantasy). It takes real skill to write a work between two genres that wouldn’t have been better in just one of those genres (again, see most science fantasy works).

Do you have a link?

Chesterton’s Father Brown short stories are very approachable. I find all of his works very readable, but some of them have to do with subjects that are hard to approach in a simple or readily available way — certainly, some of his works require more investment than others. Put another way, Chesterton may write complexly about complex ideas, but he doesn’t write complexly or pretentiously about simple ideas — that’s something every writer should have as a basic criteria (esp non-fiction writers), and I appreciate that about Chesterton.

The book is radically different from the movie (two completely different stories, almost opposite themes). It explores the idea of a government with rights, freedoms, etc. operated on the premise that only those who served in the military could vote. The book did this by following the character of Johnny Rico through his training and military career. It was an interesting exploration of what military service really means, and how it should relate to rights, government, and the moral ethic.

The movie is somewhat amusing in a campy way, but is portraying an essentially fascist dictatorship with (un)healthy doses of blind military worship. For better or for worse, the book is completely different from the movie.