the entry isn't too bad. He is said to have been the model for Prof. Bernardo de la Paz in Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. Also, my friend Carl Watner wrote a biography of Bob that you should read. I didn't agree 100% with Bob—among other things, he was a pacifist—but he taught me a very great deal about history and human nature.

In the end, I think Bob believed that the various divisions between human beings—communists vs. fascists vs. loyal American patriots—we have lived with all our lives are less important, less fundamental, than the basic one that Heinlein identified: "The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." Call the first group authoritarians or feudalists and the second, generic libertarians.

The first time, in the history of Western Civilization, that this became an issue, was the Renaissance/Reformation. Information suddenly came flooding, unbidden, into Europe, from North Africa, through Galileo's telescope, out of Gutenberg's printing press, and a dozen other undesirable, unlicensed, and deplorable sources. It must have been a nightmare for the aristocrats who considered themselves to be in charge, the kings and barons and bishops and bullies.