I've had a thing that's been bubbling in the back of my head that's been bothering me, and I finally figured out what it was.
We've got the US military (mostly the Air Force) going after people who are trying to escape the gravity well, using lethal force.
These people are US citizens (at least briefly) and aren't posing a threat to the Constitution (they're leaving, and likely won't be back.) Now, they're breaking a variety of laws, so having the FBI, SWAT Teams, and so forth going after them is reasonable, if perhaps a little excessive, but that's not what's going on. We're intercepting them with USAF assets.
I could credit an administration being anti-wave enough to give the order... and I could credit that you'd have people who would obey it, but you're also going to have officers - a *lot* of officers - who declare that the order is unlawful, immoral, or unethical, and refuse to fly. It's mostly going to *be* pilots that do it, too - and generally the young, unmarried idealistic types. So... what does the administration do *then*?
(mind you, this is not going to be as extreme as it otherwise might be - military leadership is pretty smart about basic psychology of military people, and there will likely be a system where they basically tweak it so that the folks going after the handwavers are volunteers - but it'll happen some. It'll certainly happen more than once, and if the nation is more 60/40 on handwavium than 90/10, it'll happen quite a bit. In our system, 60/40 is still a mandate, and 70/30 is an impressively strong one.)
We've got the US military (mostly the Air Force) going after people who are trying to escape the gravity well, using lethal force.
These people are US citizens (at least briefly) and aren't posing a threat to the Constitution (they're leaving, and likely won't be back.) Now, they're breaking a variety of laws, so having the FBI, SWAT Teams, and so forth going after them is reasonable, if perhaps a little excessive, but that's not what's going on. We're intercepting them with USAF assets.
I could credit an administration being anti-wave enough to give the order... and I could credit that you'd have people who would obey it, but you're also going to have officers - a *lot* of officers - who declare that the order is unlawful, immoral, or unethical, and refuse to fly. It's mostly going to *be* pilots that do it, too - and generally the young, unmarried idealistic types. So... what does the administration do *then*?
(mind you, this is not going to be as extreme as it otherwise might be - military leadership is pretty smart about basic psychology of military people, and there will likely be a system where they basically tweak it so that the folks going after the handwavers are volunteers - but it'll happen some. It'll certainly happen more than once, and if the nation is more 60/40 on handwavium than 90/10, it'll happen quite a bit. In our system, 60/40 is still a mandate, and 70/30 is an impressively strong one.)