Wouldn’t it be nice if we could learn the easy way?

Everybody knows Top Gun the movie, but maybe only half know that the Navy Fighter Weapons School was created during the Vietnam War. Naval leadership learned that if their pilots had enough combat-level experience before meeting the enemy, their performance and their survival rates could improve dramatically. Red Flag is the Air Force’s way of getting pilots used to fighting bad guys before real battle, as dogfights and attacks are made over the Nevada testing grounds. The more realistic the training and the more frequent the activity, the better the probable outcome in actual warfare.

Much of the same can be said of life. Michael Jordan lost a lot with the Bulls before he and they became unstoppable powerhouses. One would like to learn things the easy way and not the hard way, but sometimes it seems that it is impossible. The only novel I ever read in French, Le Jeux Sont Fait (All Bets Are Placed) had Sartre’s characters failing to meet in their lifetimes, coming back to this world and once again failing to join up before death. His existential view saw events as immutable, unchangeable. Anyone who believes that God has given man free will cannot accept such an outlook on life. Yes, God runs the world, but He gives us choices; the alternative is that we are mindless automatons destined or doomed to a preordained outcome that is inert to our will, desires, and striving. The United States and even Europe do not have to become communist-Islamic hellholes. The US does not have to fall into the pit of socialism to be followed, like day follows night, by communism. We the People have the choice to avoid hell and have to fight our way back to a healthy Republic. It is my hope that we do so. Otherwise, the learning and return to normal will be long and painful.

One has to always recall that demonic dictators like Hitler, Mao, and Lenin/Stalin had some level of popular local........

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