Recently, Elon Musk spoke at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, wherein he advocated for both the first and second amendments to the constitution, and Colion Noir took note and posted a video showing that segment of Musk’s speech and his own commentary, which is included below.
But first, I wanted to share a few of my own thoughts:
Natural Rights, Not “Constitutional Rights”
First of all, there is no such thing as constitutional rights; for the constitution does not grant us our rights. Rather, we have natural rights, which are inherent in our humanity. The constitution was meant to (and failed, I might add—and I’ve written more about that later in this article) to protect those rights from the government.
So what we actually have are constitutionally-protected rights.
The Purpose of the Second Amendment
The second amendment—protecting the (natural) right to own (keep) and carry (bear) arms devoid of government intervention—isn’t about hunting; it’s not even about self-defense; rather, it’s about keeping the government in check. That’s why the text includes “being necessary to the security of a free State”. And there’s even a school of thought that the “well regulated militia” is supposed to be funded by the federal government, and even that the U.S. army is unconstitutional, as the U.S. isn’t supposed to have a standing army except upon declaration of war, and then only for two years (the founders feared the government would ultimately use such an army offensively, instead of strictly defensively…you don’t say?). Instead, the armed American people, and a trained militia, are supposed be the army that defends the nation from attack.
So the second amendment provides for individual ownership of arms, as well as a citizen militia for defense—I would say from all enemies, foreign or domestic.
And as for the second amendment keeping the government in check, I recently saw someone say—I believe it was Spike Cohen, though I’m not sure, and unfortunately have not been able to re-locate the video I saw—something to the effect of (paraphrasing):
“During COVID, the government violated every one of the Bill of Rights, except for the second amendment—and many believe that’s only because we HAVE a second amendment.”
(Except I question that speculation in an earlier article (How COVID Changed My Life), after witnessing the largely unchallenging compliance of the American people, even while suffering massive loss in their lives due to the tyrannical overreach, and feeling perplexed because after all, this is precisely what the 2nd Amendment was intended to remedy: to keep the politicians in check when the law doesn’t…but I digress…)
Anyway, all this talk about the importance of the second amendment reminded me of a couple of graphics I created a while back, illustrating the point:
Elon Musk Speaks at Trump Rally
As aforementioned, below is a clip of Elon Musk’s advocacy of the first and second amendments which he expressed during a Trump rally in Pennsylvania, along with Colion Noir‘s commentary, which reinforces what I wrote above concerning the purpose of the second amendment.
In the video, Musk says:
“Free speech is the bedrock of democracy. . .that’s why it’s the first amendment. And the second amendment is there to insure that we have the first amendment.”
Which is then followed up by commentary from Colion Noir, including a few salient points I’ve listed below:
“It’s really a sad day in hell when the biggest advocate for free speech in a country known for its freedom of speech is someone who wasn’t even born in this country. That should tell you something about the state of the country right now.”
“For years, the gun community has tried to tell the people in the middle the second amendment protects the first amendment. Without the second, you don’t have the first.”
“The second amendment is the muscle that protects all of [our] other rights.”
“The second amendment serves as a deterrent against tyranny. . .it’s about making the cost of becoming tyrannical exceedingly high, so that those in power think twice before overstepping.”
“The second amendment was meant to give us the ability to fight back, just as the founders did.”
“During events like COVID, those challenging the government narrative were silences, black-listed, or had their platforms taken away.”
“No single constitutional right is more important than another; they each have different roles. Specifically, the second amendment is the guardian for all other constitutional rights, because it gives us the power to fight back.”
Worth a watch:
(For those interested, you can watch Elon Musk’s full speech here.)
RELATED NOTE: Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) has introduced H.R. 9534, the National Constitutional Carry Act, which will ensure Americans’ second amendment-protected right to carry firearms in public is protected throughout the country…
DISCLAIMERS:
As I’ve done in other recent articles, I felt the need to add a disclaimer: this article should not be construed as a political endorsement. INSIGHTS subscribers should know by now that I don’t participate in our political system, because I believe that government is institutionalized violence and therefore immoral, a violation of my principles, and certainly incompatible with the teachings of Jesus, and thus I consider any voluntary support or participation to be as well.
So this is NOT an endorsement of Trump (or anyone else)—rather simply an exposition of the importance of the second amendment.
In fact, as an anarchist (or my preferred term autarchist, which I broadly characterize as ethical anarchy), and potentially even moving toward holarchy (wherein sovereign individuals voluntarily cooperate within a collective network or hierarchy), I’ve gone so far as to delete my voter registration altogether (I registered back in 2012 so I could vote for Ron Paul), mostly to try to curb all the annoying political junk mail flooding my mailbox.
So no, I don’t support any of the candidates, because I don’t support any government that is predicated on coercion, force, and/or violence.
And about the “democracy” that everyone keeps touting, including Musk in the above video…I’m not a big fan of that, either. Democracy means majority rule, the majority meaning the masses, and a society wherein the rights of the individual are not protected will quickly collapse due to the tyranny of the masses.
And I also hold that given the circumstances and opportunity, the masses will willingly elect a dictatorship. Consider the words of Brazilian Archbishop Hélder Câmara, from his book Spiral of Violence:
“Who does not remember that even peoples of a high cultural level have sunk into a dictatorship at a troubled moment in their national life?”
And further, it is not the masses that advance humanity, bring about progress; rather, it is the genius individuals, the independent thinkers, the visionaries. And unfortunately, those individuals make up a very small portion of the populace, and are often persecuted by the masses, especially if they are not protected from them—or from the government itself, for that matter.
Consider the salient words of the venerable Butler Shaffer:
“Civilizations are created by individuals; they are destroyed by collectives.”
And here in the U.S., the individual is no longer protected, or barely, if at all; our rights, liberty, property, wealth, etc. are all up for grabs by the masses via our democratically-elected government. Hell, it’s gotten to the point that we’re even losing our freedom of speech to the will of the masses, and our right to defend ourselves may be next—which brings us back to the point of this article: the importance of the second amendment!
So no, you can keep your failing democracy—and even your supposedly constitutionally-limited, supposedly representative republic, which has also failed—and I’ll continue to advocate for individual rights and liberty within a free, stateless society, for the advancement of humanity.
Why Government Doesn’t Work (Abridged Version)
And finally, as mentioned above, I’ll explain why the U.S. constitution, or the “American Experiment” has ultimately failed: it’s because government, regardless of how it’s structured, doesn’t work.
Why? Simple: government fails to keep human nature in check.
Human beings are naturally corruptible; we all tend to act in our own best interest. And in a free market, there are inherent incentives—both social and financial—for us to act in the interest of others, and not just crap all over everyone else for our own gain. Because if we do, we soon find ourselves outcast from social circles, be it family, job, community, whatever, and unable to support ourselves because nobody wants to do business with us or hire us or help us in any way because of the shithead we are. So we have plenty of incentive to keep ourselves in line, if we want to participate and/or succeed in the world.
And the same is true for institutions or organizations; human nature will tempt the institution to begin acting in its own best interest rather than the interest of those it was created to serve, be they customers, or members, or the community, or whomever. And within the institution, individuals do the same, as they’ve become dependent on the institution, the job and the paycheck for their mortgage, car payment, putting their kids through college, health insurance, etc. So they also begin acting in the best interest of the institution, instead of those that it was created to serve.
But free market forces such as competition, innovation, accountability, etc. enable institutions that have become corrupt to go out of business, when the customers/members/patrons/community decide they no longer like how they’re operating and elect to take their business elsewhere. Once this exodus begins, if the corrupted institution doesn’t get it’s act together and reset its priorities, it eventually loses its support base and collapses.
So as you can see, our corruptible nature—both individually and collectively—is kept in check by free market forces.
But unfortunately, this doesn’t happen with governments, because governments are largely insulated from free market forces. They take by force, not by voluntary exchange. We have no choice. And we have no options, because there is no competition (what are we gonna do? Go to the other government?). And there is no innovation, and little to no accountability. They just take and take and take and force and force and force until the people are forced to fight a bloody revolution to expel the corrupt government (enter the second amendment!), or until the economy collapses into militarized authoritarianism.
This is why government doesn’t work. It’s a failed ideology. Ultimately, the only solution is a free and open marketplace within a stateless society.
(For more on institutionalized corruption, I highly recommend The Wizards of Ozymandias: Reflections on the Decline & Fall by Butler Shaffer, which is also available for free download here.
And again to quote Spike Cohen, this time at the 2024 Libertarian National Convention:
A Final Thought
And finally, when considering the current debilitated president, and vacuous vice president running for president, and the incessant failure of every national government agency during natural disasters or man-made emergencies, the endless wars, the endless debt (“we just need more money”), their destruction of the currency, the food industry, the health care industry, both public schools and higher education, the housing industry, the vehicle industry, and every other industry they’ve taken over (as the old saying goes, put the government in charge of the desert, and pretty soon you’d run out of sand”)—especially at the cost of trillions per year—how can anyone, at this point, honestly believe that we need them for anything? 🤔
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