Thread: "An Armed Society Is A Polite Society"
Retrieved: 07/26/2014

Originally Posted by Arborigine
NOT Bingo! It came from a Sci-Fi story.

"An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life." - Robert A. Heinlein, Beyond This Horizon

Yes. I read that one for the first time when I was 12 or 13 years old. Nice sentiment, but even then I realized the specific society he was describing was seriously ugly. You had an entire society walking around demanding their "respect" in the jailhouse/gangbanger meaning, fighting duels for inconsequential slights, and generally acting like ***holes. Not a nice place to live, or even to visit.

By comparison, the Wild West was as civilized as the court of Imperial Japan.

I've read the book a couple of times since, and I think I nailed it the first time.