Elon Musk, SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla, and the Second Amendment

 

Starshp test five, first booster catch, just before catch occurs October 13, 2024

The future of Elon Musk, SpaceX, Starlink, Tesla and the Second Amendment are inexorably linked together with the future of the United States of America. 

Link to video of Elon Musk supporting the Constitution

This correspondent watched in amazement and awe as the SpaceX Starship performed its fifth test flight. The Starship is made mostly of stainless steel. Starship is the largest spaceship and rocket system ever built. It is designed to take 100-200 tons into orbit at a time. The booster (first stage) is about 400 feet tall. The cost to take a kilogram to orbit, before SpaceX, was about $11,000 to $13,000 per kilogram, or about $5000 to $6000 per pound. The Starship is projected to reduce the price of cost to orbit to $25-$15 per kilogram or $12-$7 per pound, a reduction of 99.8%.

The booster is about the shape of a crayon, but almost 400 feet long and 30 feet wide. To be recovered, it comes down with its motors slowing the descent until it hovers on its exhaust next to the launch tower. Two large arms on the tower, called chopsticks, grab the vehicle and hold it. At that point, the engines cut off.  The first test of the recovery system and the first successful recovery of the reusable booster occurred on October 13, 2024. 

The upper, orbital stage of the Starship came down a little later as part of the test. It successfully came down inside the buoys set for the test. It hovered for a few moments at the surface of the Indian Ocean then dropped into the water. In this test the Starship was not meant to be recovered. It was a complete success.

The incredible success of Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink are only possible in the United States of America. Only in the USA is the rule of law sufficiently established and honored that private projects of the magnitude, vision, genius, and impact as those of Elon Musk are tolerated. Only in the United States would Elon Musk be allowed to put the profits of those projects into new and greater projects. This can only happen if the rule of law is honored, if the rules are not constantly changed by executive fiat, if the government allows men of genius and vision to accomplish great projects which are not subject to the political whims of rulers.

The political fight in the United States is about restoring the Constitutional limits on government, and therefore, the rule of law, to the United States. It is all about restraining the US government, which has escaped the bounds of the Constitution, back to its proper place as serving the people and preserving their rights, including property rights and the safety of their persons.

Restoring Second Amendment rights is at the heart of the process of restoring the limits on government power. The Bill of Rights is in the heart of the rule of law.  Only in America are individuals free to own firearms without government permission and without being on a government registration list. Switzerland had less regulation of firearms than the United States, before 1998. Threats from the European Union pushed the Swiss into installing a regime of firearm and weapons restrictions which are now more restrictive than those of most of the United States.

Elon Musk, as a migrant from South Africa, knows how the descent into tyranny and away from the rule of law works. He saw it happen in Rhodesia, on the border of South Africa, when it became Zimbabwe. He saw it happen in South Africa. He saw it happen in Venezuela. He sees it happening in the United States of America. The Biden administration has been at the forefront of attacking the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and Constitutional limits on government power. The Biden administration and the Democratic Party have directly attacked Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink. They have directly attacked Elon Musk's exemplary defense of the First Amendment through his purchase of Twitter. This election is make or break.

If Kamala Harris becomes president, she has vowed to gain control of the Supreme Court. The policies to do so are already drafted by the Biden administration. Harris' actions show she will continue to attack the Second Amendment (ban "assault weapons") and put in place gun registration ("universal background checks"). Harris and her Vice Presidential candidate, Governor Walz, despise free speech and consider control of the information flow over social media absolutely essential.  They cannot allow Starlink and Twitter to promote free speech and the free flow of information. If they cannot control the flow of information, they lose. Hillary Clinton recently explained, if social media companies do not moderate their content "we lose total control". From thenypost.com:

Clinton told CNN host Michael Smerconish that while there have been some steps taken at the state level to regulate social media, she wants to see more done by the federal government to moderate content.

Moderate content, in this political context, means censorship. The power of the unrestrained government in the United States rests on control of the information flow. When the truth of what the deep state is doing is revealed, they are booted from office. They lose control. 

The pattern of increasing government control is clear. Gain control and/or cow the Supreme Court into compliance with the executive branch. Censor opposition voices and shut down opposition media. Confiscate/regulate large private enterprises until they become mere appendages of the government. Register and confiscate firearms and ammunition, make legal ownership totally dependent on government permission. Arrest, fine, lock up opposition leadership and those who are seen as opposing the regime in power. Control the voting apparatus so that the opposition can never win another meaningful election.

All of those actions are either in process or being called for by influential members of the Democratic Party.  X (formerly twitter) is at risk. Starlink is at risk. Tesla is at risk. SpaceX is at risk. Elon Musk is at risk. Donald Trump is at risk. All supporters of the First and Second Amendments are at risk. We are all in this together.  To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin: Either we stand together and triumph, or fail to fight a common foe and are destroyed piecemeal.

©2024 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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