Gods of Flight and the People Rule

AP Photo/Chris Carlson

I want to start today by thanking my coauthors here, especially Audre and Jessica, as most of you know, for years I wrote every word on this blog. You know and I know that the quality of my writing eventually began to suffer, and once we moved into this phase of the election, I was very pleased to drop back to two posts a week, My quality hasn’t completely returned but I’m feeling much better, and since the election has moved into a portion where nothing I can say has any bearing whatsoever on the outcome, I’ve said very little, but like most of you, the last four years have convinced me that Donald Trump is one of our greatest presidents, at least equal to Reagan and perhaps the equal of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, and Coolidge. There is still a chance so Hold the Line and Keep the Faith.

---

You also know that I love the Air Force, and this week we lost one of the greatest of the greatest generation in Brigadier General Chuck Yeager, double ace over the skies of Germany, fought in Korea and Vietnam, and in Tom Wolfe’s words. “the most righteous of all the possessors of the right stuff.”  This is the man who first broke the sound barrier in the Bell X1.

There is an excellent remembrance of him at The American Spectator which I think you should read. This video is featured there.

Still an American hero at age 97, and one that managed to die in his bed. Rest in peace, sir.

---

But there are still American heroes out there, and the spirit that made us Americans in the first place is still out there. More and more, our countrymen are revolting at the arbitrary impositions that that or so-called elect are trying to inflict on us due to the Wuhan Flu. Rick Moran at PJ Media tells us about them.

A diner in Michigan is open for business despite being told to close. A barbershop here, a crafts store there, churches, synagogues, temples — what makes this COVID revolt different is that the businesses that are defying lockdown orders are being swarmed by customers — many coming from miles away — just to support the defiance. It’s the most demonstrative political statement being made today and authorities who would try to enforce their edicts are playing with fire.

Spectator USA:

The short notice taped to the door is addressed ‘to all government officials’. It gives them a warning: ‘You are in violation of your oath of office by trespassing unlawfully on the property of this business establishment and committing an act of terrorism under Section 802 of the Patriot Act.’ Taped up next to it, a longer warning in black and set-off red type, with Title 18 from the United States Code copied out underneath.

The notice appeared on the door of the D&R Daily Grind Café in Portage, Mich., and the owner, Dave Morris, is being rewarded for challenging the government with land-office business. Morris’s story was on a local TV station and the customers have made a point of standing with him in his defiance. […]

In some ways, it shows how freedom threatens those in authority. Since power depends on the consent of the governed, when the people withhold their consent, there’s precious little those in power can do. They can frighten them into obeying — shooting them down in the streets or arresting them and making them “disappear.” Dictators have found those tactics work very well.

But in America, if you start shooting people, they’re likely to start shooting back. That’s “American exceptionalism.”

So the governors, mayors, and other wannabe dictators post their edicts, tell people to obey, and they don’t. Now what? You depend on the army of social media squawkers to “tsk-tsk” and wag their fingers at the rebels. “Shame on you. Are you trying to kill your neighbor?” That may work with some people. It probably worked on a few citizens in 1776. Otherwise, not so much.

Those people became Canadians in 1783.

And that is the ultimate state of the Union, the people remain sovereign and will enforce that. We were the first rebels and we remain rebels still. And that is why when the BBC interviewed a Dutch woman a few years ago about when her town was liberated during the war, she told the interviewer that she knew they were Americans because “they walked like free men”.

Most of you know our national colors are never dipped to any earthly king or potentate, and only one flag is ever flown above them. and that is the church pennant on a naval vessel during church parade. There is only one sovereign above the American people.

May it always be so.