Paul Verhoeven's film Starship Troopers is on target for depicting Robert Heinlein's novel as a "fascist utopia." Did that get your attention, Heinlein fans?

Now, before you track me down and send me hate mail, yes, I have read the book.

"A lot of casual readers of the novel have a vague militaristic, fascist idea. It's not supported by the book," says James Gifford, a writer and publisher of numerous works about Heinlein.

Bill Patterson, editor of the Heinlein Journal, agrees, saying that "it's hard to find anything in the book that tends in the direction of fascism."

People hear the word "fascism" and get angry. It conjures images of an oppressive police state that's out to conquer the world -- Hitler, Mussolini, eugenics, the cult of the nation, 1984.

What do the dictionaries say?

"A totalitarian government led by a dictator and which emphasizes aggressive nationalism and often racism." (Random House).

"A system of government with a total dictator, socioeconomic controls, suppression of opposition and usually a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism." (American Heritage).

Aggressive, racist and belligerent. What I found most alarming -- and fascinating -- about Heinlein's novel was how he imagined a fascist society that incorporated these awful ideas, but worked all the same.

Heinlein showed me an intensely nationalistic, aggressively militaristic, totalitarian and racist ("speciesist?") society, and in spite of everything I believe in, I liked what I saw. When Verhoeven's film demonstrated the same traits in the source material, fans rejected it.

Let's go point by point. Novel first.

Heinlein's Federation is clearly militaristic. Even casual Heinlein fans know that to become a voting citizen of the Federation, you have to serve at least two years in the military.

The core of Heinlein's novel is why you have to serve to vote -- a thesis found first in Rico's high school History and Moral Philosophy class.

Rico's teacher, Mr. DuBois, asks "'What is the moral difference, if any, between the soldier and the civilian?"

"The difference,'" Rico answers, "lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not" (Starship Troopers, page 26).

While it takes Rico some time -- and a stay on the evolutionarily stagnant planet Sanctuary -- to believe this himself, Heinlein is more sure in his editorializing.

"[C]an you tell us why our system works better than any of out ancestors? (...) [Because u]nder our system every voter and officeholder is a man who has demonstrated through voluntary and difficult service that he places the welfare of the group ahead of personal advantage" (page 182).

Heinlein scholar Gifford agrees that "the main point is that the duty to the body social is best executed by those who have put their own ass on the line."

Even though it scares me, this idea makes some sense. I like the fact that the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military is a civilian, but all the corruption in our government, gets me thinking, "Hmmm ... maybe I would trust my president more if he had risked his life for our country to earn his right to hold office."

Heinlein's militarism goes deeper than the service-for-citizenship requirement. A militaristic society bases itself around being ready to fight at any time. Heinlein's Federation bases itself -- prides itself -- on its military readiness, and it's all for the most pragmatic of reasons: sometimes an efficient society needs a war.

"Let's assume," Rico writes in officer training school, "that the human race manages to balance birth and death, just right to fit its own planets, and thereby becomes peaceful. What happens? Soon (about next Wednesday) the Bugs move in, kill off the breed which 'ain'ta gonna study war no more' and the universe forgets us" (page 185).

As our guide to the Federation's ideology, Rico reveals his society's dedication to militarism and contempt for those who would run a government without an active military ("ain'ta gonna war no more").

I'll start my look at the Federation's totalitarianism with a concession: the Federation is firmly democratic, a decidedly un-fascist trait -- citizens enjoy "democracy unlimited by race, color, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction" (page 183).

But, again, only those who have served in the military can vote. Yes, it's a democracy for those few, but everyone else floats in a disenfranchised void. If the U.S. government were to suddenly limit the vote only to veterans, kick Clinton out of the White House and replace him with a man in epaulets and ribbons, would we civilians still call it a democracy?

Further, Heinlein's Federation is totalitarian in that only one group of people -- the veterans -- have control of the government. And for one group to keep control, they must suppress the opposition, as the American Heritage definition of "fascism" says.

As Rico learns in officer training, one of the Federation's biggest advantages is that its very nature suppresses opposition, rendering it impossible.

"One of the older cadets took a crack at it. 'Sir, revolution is impossible . . . because revolution --armed uprising -- requires not only dissatisfaction but aggressiveness. ... If you separate the aggressive ones and make them the sheep dogs, the sheep will never give you trouble" (page 184).

Ah! "Aggressive"! Coincidentally, one of Heinlein's own characters calls the guys who run the Federation "aggressive," another defining characteristic of fascism.

Rico further supports this premise, albeit slightly more eloquently.

"Either we spread and wipe out the Bugs or they spread and wipe us out," he says, "because both races are tough and smart and want the same real estate" (pages 185-186).

This quote dovetails with my claim that Heinlein's Federation is an overtly racist society.

Now, you may point to the passage about how the Federation is a "democracy unlimited by race, color, creed, birth, wealth, sex, or conviction," and how people of all different nationalities (Rico, Zim, Rasczak, Jenkins, Mahmud, Shujumi) populate it as equal partners under the military banner.

But what about the Bugs?

Not only does the nickname "Bugs" for the arachnids of Klendathu sounds too much like a racial slur -- think the derogatory use of the word "Jew" -- but Heinlein's characters unswervingly believe that humans are superior to Bugs, and that humans are destined to spread across the galaxy.

Rico takes pride in being human and fighting for "our own race." And most importantly, the Federation plans to "wipe out" the Bugs. They want to exterminate an entire species, to commit genocide.

Now, obviously, it's easier, even justifiable, to hate a race of giant killer insects instead of a small ethnic group of humans because "they attacked us first," but it's a matter of degree, and Hitler also argued from a platform of self-defense.

The fact remains that Heinlein's characters want to destroy this entire race because they are different from humans -- because we have a "right" to spread across the universe and acquire lebensraum, if you will, and it's better us than them.

"Man is what he is, a wild animal with the will to survive and (so far) the ability, against all competition," Rico says. "Unless one accepts that, anything one says about morals, war, politics you name it is nonsense. Correct morals arise from knowing what Man is -- not what do-gooders and well-meaning old Aunt Nellies would like him to be."

"The universe will let us know later whether or not Man has any 'right' to expand through it."

"In the meantime the M.I. will be in there, on the bounce and swinging, on the side of our own race." (page 186).

Nationalism courses through the citizens (or potential citizens) of Heinlein's Federation, as Rico says when he considers going career.

"Had I ever cared about voting?" he asks himself. "No, it was the prestige, the pride, the status ... of being a citizen" (page 162).

Rico focuses his developing pride in his own arm of the Federation's state apparatus, the Mobile Infantry.

Right after he signs up, he threatens a guy who insults the M.I. with a "mouthful of knuckles," and the book closes with one last capsule drop, where the pilot of their ship plays the service's "sweet" beacon song, "To the Everlasting Glory of the Infantry".

Militarism, totalitarianism, aggressiveness, nationalism, plus a racist doctrine. By these definitions, Heinlein's Federation is a fascist government -- seductively, perhaps compellingly portrayed.