Able Dog Captured And Maybe Condemned

Claude Hendrickson III spent a hundred thousand dollars of his own money to buy a rare example of a legendary airplane. He found it in France and had it flown home. Now, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stolen it from him.

I don't know what could possibly be more American than this man's impulse to exploit an opportunity like this if he has the means. It's the sort of practical expression of life mastery that should exemplify the American sense of life: desire coupled with ability to manage a project like this, with the added "special interest" (there's a phrase for you, kids) of commemorating history, as he has in mind.

The essential fact of the prevailing American sense of life, now and however, is in the bureaubotic tic that reflexively stomps on something like that. There is no serious sense of outrage over episodes like this, in the mass of the American public. They might note it as a passing moment in their day, and their head-down determination to proceed (who among them knows where?) as if there were no principles in this will survive the distant blow.

I guess one has to be a real kook in order to get it.

(linktrain: Uncle, Redneckin)