Well, lad, there's the most visible difference between thee and me. I read ST at thirteen and found it seminal. I've lived my life through an understanding of The Heinlein Lecture. The guy's thinking is libertarian, you know... check out Tramp Royale sometime for his views on visas, passports, and general ID paperwork and paper shuffling.

The other most visible difference between thee and me, were I to post a barechested pic like you did, is I've got more hair on my chest and less on my head -- unless you count the part around my jaws. :p

I read it at twelve (and thrice since then, and actually at this very moment reading it again) and thought it was a damn good read, but not a damn good political philosophy.

Mmm, this may be. It certainly hasn't been tried out in the form laid out in the book, but that's true of most social science fiction. The particular clue that it's a libertarian global societal setting is that line of Rico senior's: "Laws are few."

In ST Heinlein glorifies militarism in an almost apostolic way. Truth is that war is dirty and there's nothing apostolic about it. But then again it's (Science) Fiction, no real blood running, no dismembered bodies, no teared up skulls with scattered brains.

I can imagine that one loves the book at the age of 13, but with the years wisdom and reality should replace idealism and fantasy. I'm afraid you got stuck at that age.

South America, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Mogadishu, Iraq, Afghanistan show how reality is.

And I've said it before, the White House foreign politics have nothing to do with Starship Trooper mentality, but everything with influence and energy sources. So, dream on Professor, dream on...

Where do you get those death figures?

Too lazy to find yourself? Like here..

Hip, you might need a better link than that one. Even Wiki has a warning on that one.

Hippikos, running through everything Heinlein wrote is what might be called The Heinlein Lecture, as evident in ST as in anything else. I respond to the wisdom in The Heinlein Lecture very well. If you can't... well, I can't help you. God couldn't help you.

Having both read Starship Troopers and served two hitches in the military, I find what Heinlein has to say about military service to be quite real, and quite wise -- they compare well. Yattering about "glorifying" the military is mere dronespeak, of nil value. People who've done military, thus committing a portion (or even the entirety) of their lives to the protection of their societies, do not speak as you do, Hippikos.

There are the people who get Heinlein, and there are the groundlings. All I can suggest is more exposure. You'll still be you, Hipp, and not become me -- you'll just be smarter or wiser, is all.

~2,000,000 to 4,000,000 Killed (The Vietnam's Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs released figures on April 3, 1995 claimed that nearly 2 million civilians in the north and 2 million in the south were killed between 1954 and 1975.

Yeah these people are well know for telling the truth....Haaaaaa....Haaaaa...

Yeah, and you believe McNamara, Kissinger, Nixon, Westmoreland?

Like in Iraq, the US knows exactly how many US soldiers died in Vietnam, but Vietnamese casualties never have been fully archived, 1,5, 2 or 4 Mio, who knows, who carez...

Yep...the North Vietnamese were always truthful...like keeping their bargains from the Paris Peace Talks?

The difference between Vietnam and Iraq
 

Hey, in Vietnam the Communists committed many atrocities. In and out of the cities.

This is only news, or seems news, to certain people.

In Vietnam, America was actually fighting against someone instead of sitting in the middle...

I've read everything he published... it took me a very long time to find it all and read it. Changed me. ST is a great story, there are several more with a similar theme, some more poetic and subtle.
I too felt that places like Portugal have it right... two years compensatory service should be the way, end of story. Freedom is not free.
Don't want to kill? Conscientious objectors get to be in support jobs, there are plenty of them.
BTW, I tried to serve, arthritis kept me out.

I have also read all of Louis L'Amour's work. Another great American Storyteller.