What a fun observation

Suddenly from out of the woodwork we have people saying “We knew Musk was a shyster all along…” “Tesla lives off of subsidies…” “He’s never actually invented anything…” and so on. I saw some ‘progressive scientist’ (sic) saying exactly this the other day.

Well yes, people like us, on here, have been saying that for years, but no one listened when Elon was the liberals’ darling.

ps It’s not necessarily what one invents, but what use one makes of an invention. As an early sceptic, I now think SpaceX is really cool.

P.s. is anyone else enjoying the spectacle of the bbc tieing itself in knots in order to justify its refusal to play the possible Christmas Number One song “Freezing this Christmas” by Sir Starmer and the Granny Harmers?

“He’s never actually invented anything…”

Elsewhere I’ve read comments saying the same thing about Thomas Edison. He often took other people’s inventions and made them into commercial successes. I suspect that, without Edison’s financial backing and business acumen, the inventions in question might never have seen the light of day and might have been lost forever.

Thanks, Interested, excellent post.

@John It is amusing. I suspect that if the song was called “Eff The Tory Scum” the BBC wouldn’t be quite as shy about playing it.

I reckon Musk will be able to outsmart the regulations somehow, no matter how they change them.

The ability & willingness of the old media to flaunt their lack of principles or standards other than supporting whatever is beneficial to the political left at this moment is quite amazing.

Bezos buys the WaPo and it’s a fascinating development, Elon buys Twitter & it’s (wait for it) “a threat to democracy”.

Orwell might even be shocked.

OT topic. Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr getting back together. From the fotos they look like two different generations. Yet Starr is two years older than McCartney. Just shows how a good solid period of alcoholism can be beneficial. And how vegetarianism & marrying one legged women should be avoided at all cost.

This is vintage stuff

Is Elon Musk a threat to democracy? It’s a question that needs to be asked for one very simple reason, and that is I think he might be.

I am reminded of the immortal words of Roger Daltrey – ‘Well tell me who the f%^& are you?’

Let me look at two examples that suggest that he is a threat to democracy. One is happening in the USA right now.

The US House of Representatives, which is the lower House of Congress, the equivalent of the House of Commons in the UK, has a Bill before it right now, as we approach Christmas, that has to be passed to authorise the spending of the federal government in 2025.

Now, what the federal government spends is pretty important to the US people. It covers things like the armed forces, air traffic control and Medicare, which is the equivalent of the NHS for those who are in real need in the USA, and some social security. And it pays the interest on the US national debt. So having that Bill passed, it’s pretty important.

US Politics 102 – an idiots guide to the Federal Government’s funding

But, Musk, using his social media platform – call it Twitter, call it X, call it what you will – has mobilised opposition to that bill because he claims it is going to be the antithesis of what he is going to be asked to do by President Trump, who has asked him to slash US federal expenditure. So, he is encouraging the House of Representatives to reject this Bill, where a bipartisan agreement between the Republicans and the Democrats looked as though it had been pulled together to ensure that the spending could continue.

Of course legions of Hard Leftists used X to back endless expansions in US Federal Government expenditure, to the extent that the country is basically bankrupt and faces existential collapse in the next two decades. But when Musk uses the platform to offer a counterpoint its ‘anti-democratic?’

The consequence of the failure of that bill is pretty significant.

US armed forces will, for example, not be paid. There won’t be any legal basis to pay them.

Nor will US air traffic controllers be paid.

Nor will Medicare bills be paid. And half of U. S. children are dependent on Medicare for their healthcare support.

This is really existential stuff when it comes to the maintenance of the federal government in the USA.

The notion he could give a fig about the US military is risible. As for Air Traffic controllers he has already said under his regime all flying of any type will be banned so again utter rubbish.

But Musk is standing up against it. He’s using the power that he has obtained as a financial oligarch – and I think that’s a fair word to use in his case, so wealthy is he – to actually mobilise opinion against the forces in the House of Representatives who were, despite their differences of opinion across the Republican and Democrat benches, coming together to try to authorise that spending so that federal government could continue.

Now, if that isn’t a personal threat to democracy from a very powerful person, I’m not sure what is. And it worries me, because this is the use of power by somebody with immense wealth, who has already used that wealth to influence the election of Donald Trump by, we believe, expending something like $270 million to support Trump’s campaign.

George Soros and others, as already pointed out spent way in excess of that – the WEF spends billions to support potential lockdowns before we even start with government backing the unholy trinity of Die, Big Trans and Net Zero which, being intrinsically satanic, are infinitely more damaging to the world and the US than any shutdown Musk might bring about

But it’s the use of that wealth to actually influence outcomes within democracy in a way that might be severely contrary to the wellbeing of the employees of the federal government, including the US armed forces, but also the people of the USA. So, there is a direct conflict here.

A conflict that if he were advocating MMT would not be one you would even consider, despite that being the root cause of almost every issue we face as a planet.

And now let’s come to the UK. What we know is that Nigel Farage, the leader of the Reform Party, is seeing Musk and is asking him for financial support for his party. He’s not hiding this fact. He’s completely brazen about it, and pictures have been taken at Mar-a-Lago, which is, of course, Donald Trump’s place in Florida, where it seems the centre of power now is in the USA.

And the request that Farage is making is simple and straightforward. He wants Musk to provide him with substantial funds – a figure of a hundred million, I’m not sure whether it’s dollars or pounds, it doesn’t make a lot of difference which one it is – has been requested to fund Reform to win the 2029 general election.

That is out of all proportion to any funding ever previously supplied by anyone to a UK political party. It would swamp Reform with money and change the nature of UK democracy as a consequence because no other party could stand up to the pressure that would be brought to bear by Reform in that case through advertising on social media, in the media, in direct mailing, and everything else. This is an attempt to take over democracy by spending.

Excellent – hopefully a counterbalance to the EU, Trade Unions, the Public Sector and anyone else who backed the current government, widely accepted as the worst in human history after only 6 months.

Now, of course, it may not happen. Let’s be clear: Musk might entertain Farage, but he might see through him and decide he doesn’t want to part with his money for this reason.

But equally, messages have come out which have implied that he might. And if he did, the nature of UK democracy would at the very least change altogether forever, and it might simply cease to exist because I cannot see another source of funding that could in any way match that which Musk – as the wealthiest, or if not the wealthiest, one of the most wealthy men in the world – can supply.

Super, smashing, great – the sooner we can make a start on removing Left wing influences from Universities and the Public Sector the better.

And legally he’s able to do this. Although he’s not a British citizen and therefore is not able to make a direct donation to a UK political party, because he has businesses that operate in the UK, he can donate through them. And that is, of course, where the weak underbelly in his plan is.

If we are to preserve democracy, which is based upon the idea that one person has one vote, and that each person stands equal, then we have to exclude the likes of Musk from influence within British politics.

Then we should eliminate Trade Unions and others who use their funding, often extracted through menaces to influence politics.

We also have to exclude the likes of quite a lot of other people who have undoubtedly been trying to influence politics in their favour for some time by making significant donations to, in particular, the Conservative Party, but also to Labour and, to a lesser degree, to other parties. We would need to clean up British political party funding.

Who is this ‘we’? – if Musk can get the advocates of DIE, Big Trans and Net Zero on to the back foot more power to him

We might also need to change our electoral system to defend ourselves against the possibility that one party, with an enormous amount of money to spend, could secure an overwhelming majority in Parliament without having mass support in the population – a bit like Labour has now, to be totally honest, which is as unacceptable to me as it would be if Reform won on the same basis in 2029 because neither represents the people of this country.

So, we need to keep dirty money, in the sense that it is trying to buy influence, out of British politics.

And replace it with money extorted from taxpayers, already crushed under a yoke of the largest tax bill in UK history, levied by as already mentioned the worst government in human history – Thanks but no thanks.

And we need to make British politics representative of us all by being based upon proportional representation.

If we outlaw the SNP, Labour and The Greens (basically any party that advocates stealing money from people to fund a bloated public sector) then you can have PR – otherwise no.

That would curiously increase Reform’s representation in Parliament. And I would be happy with that. I could live with that because people in this country do support Reform. And their voices should be heard as a result. But what it would prevent is the corruption – because we could not find someone like Musk funding a party in the UK to take control with a minority of votes.

Corruption is absolutely endemic in the public sector – Musk is small beer compared with an organization riven with it like the NHS or local government

And this is key. We must preserve democracy, shallow as it is at present, because without it, we get an alternative. We get oligarchy. We get what The Economist calls kakistocracy, which is rule by the most unfit – those who want power, but who are not suited to manage it. Whatever we end up with. is going to be very much worse than the democracy we have, inadequate as it is.

And therefore, this is a time for democratic renewal in the UK, heeding the threats, the challenges, and the impossibilities that are arising in the USA – which we thought would never happen, but which are, and which could so easily be replicated here unless, Labour now realises the threat to our future that the likes of Musk, even if not Musk himself, present to this country.

They must act. They must stop that sort of money coming into British politics. And most of all, they must change our electoral system so that it is truly representative. Then we have a chance of democracy surviving. And everything else that we cherish depends upon that.

This is the worst government I have ever seen, so I am in favour of reforming the system to prevent anything like it obtaining power but the long -term goal is to get the Left out of British politics in their entirety. No compromise. Musk seems to offer a chance of that happening so more power to him.

From the Telegraph:

Vijay Rangarajan, chief executive of the elections watchdog, told the Guardian the “system needs strengthening”.

“We have been calling for changes to the law since 2013, to protect the electoral system from foreign interference,” he said.

Ummm…

The biggest fun about all this is, that the Media are falling all over each other to denounce Musk when he is doing exactly what the “Progressives” tried to do with their aid for years…

“Critics on Twitter” was gold-plated ex-cathedra Truth to them, and was leveraged hard to “put the Narrative out there.”
We’ve had many a Graun, etc. article doing exactly that pass review and receive scorn here over the past years.

Musk just dropped the ultimate “Twitter Bomb”, managing what they never could.
The Salt…. It is very Tasty….

@philip
It will cost nothing during the blackouts.

Only because the energy suppliers are to be forced to offer tariffs without a standing charge.

P.s. is anyone else enjoying the spectacle of the bbc tieing itself in knots in order to justify its refusal to play the possible Christmas Number One song “Freezing this Christmas” by Sir Starmer and the Granny Harmers?

Well that’s one way to deal with it. Completely ignore the song which is No.1 in the iTunes download chart and pretend it doesn’t exist let alone crack the BBC’s top 40.

“the Dems outspent the Reps by what was it, two or three to one”

We’ve seen this a number of times. If you have generic party candidates, then spending will more or less correspond to votes.
But if you have a generic candidate against someone who actually has articulable policies and positions, then the generic candidate loses even after spending 10x the non-generic.
The reason more candidates don’t have those positions is that it’s really hard to fake. It’s all on you. While most candidates want to be elected as “I’m one of (party x)” because then you can blame stuff on the party.

As is Soros. “But it’s different when we do it!”