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Weather: Mostly sunny. A slight chance of showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. Highs in the upper 80s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 20 percent. Tuesday Night: Partly cloudy. Lows in the upper 60s. Southeast winds 5 to 10 mph, becoming south after midnight.
Today at a Glance:
The Flagler County School Board meets at 3 p.m. in workshop to go over the items on its upcoming school board meeting two weeks hence. The board meets in the training room on the third floor of the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. Board meeting documents are available here.
Flagler Beach’s Planning and Architectural Review Board meets at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall, 105 S 2nd Street. For agendas and minutes, go here.
The Palm Coast City Council meets at 6 p.m. at City Hall. For agendas, minutes, and audio access to the meetings, go here. For meeting agendas, audio and video, go here. See the full agenda here.
The Bunnell Planning, Zoning and Appeals Board meets at 6 p.m. at the Government Services Building, 1769 East Moody Boulevard, Bunnell. The board consists of Carl Lilavois, Chair; Manuel Madaleno, Nealon Joseph, Gary Masten and Lyn Lafferty.
In Coming Days:
Flagler Pride Weekend is on June 10-11 in Palm Coast’s Central Park: All applications (Vendor, Sponsor, Volunteer, Speaker, Entertainment) for Flagler Pride Weekend are now open until midnight on May 20th, 2023. No late applications will be accepted or considered. Vendors, apply here. Flagler Pride weekend is scheduled for June 10-12, at Palm Coast’s Central Park.
Notably: In honor of the men and women of June 6, 1944 at Omaha, Utah, Gold, Sword and Juno, here’s Pointe du Hoc, between Omaha and Utah, in Calvados. Ronald Reagan gave it a bit of extra fame with his rather good Boys of Pointe Du Hoc speech many years ago. I took this shot 10 years ago, on an appropriately gray day. I’m not too sure about the sculpture. It is no less moving, whether you are standing there hearing the ocean crash below or looking at this, or any picture, knowing what this spit of earth meant and means still. It calls for a glass of Calvados.
—P.T.
Now this:
Flagler Beach Webcam:
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
May 2026
Flagler Beach Farmers Market
Coffee With Flagler Beach Commission Chair Scott Spradley
Palm Coast Spring Arts Festival
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Second Saturday Plant Sale at Washington Oaks Gardens State Park
Caleb Hathaway on Antebellum Flagler: A Palm Coast Historical Society Lecture
American Association of University Women (AAUW) Meeting
Gamble Jam at Gamble Rogers Memorial State Recreation Area
‘The Curious Savage” at Daytona Playhouse
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
‘The Curious Savage” at Daytona Playhouse
Al-Anon Family Groups
For the full calendar, go here.
And we have seen growing evidence that the dangers to our country can come not only across borders, but from violence that gathers within. There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home. But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit. And it is our continuing duty to confront them. […] A malign force seems at work in our common life that turns every disagreement into an argument, and every argument into a clash of cultures. So much of our politics has become a naked appeal to anger, fear, and resentment. That leaves us worried about our nation and our future together.
–George W. Bush in a speech at the Flight 93 National memorial in Shanksville, Penn., Sept. 11, 2021.
Ray W. says
Once again, thank you, Mr. Tristam.
We, the people (the “common life”, as W put it), are not pissed off. Individuals passing themselves of as the collective people are pissed off. A “malign force” does seem to be at work in our nation, to the detriment of us all.
I really began commenting in earnest after reading in FlaglerLive of the local Republican figure who took to the airwaves to ask when people should begin beheading Democrats. If that local Republican is not a “malign force”, then what qualifies?
Laurel says
Ray W.: The current Republican Party are not conservatives, are they? People should know that.
hint
Ray W. says
Okay, I take the hint.
At the time of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the religious debate over whether God was the ship’s captain or the ship’s builder was in its infancy. For just under 900 years, after one of King Charlemagne’s ministers had published a document that added the principal that God had created kings to protect the people, not just to rule them, the belief had been that God was the ship’s captain. As captain, God had made kings to rule and protect the people. For the people to rise up and overthrow a king was, therefore, a religiously perilous enterprise, but on several occasions, the people had tried to define the right to rebel against kings.
In 1215, when the baron’s forced King John to sign the Magna Carta, several of its paragraphs detailed a right to rebel against the Crown to correct a wrong, and defined how the rebellion was to be conducted, but when the wrong had been corrected and costs of the rebellion had been recouped, the barons agreed to again swear allegiance to the Crown. After all, God was the ship’s captain and men had to be governed and protected by kings. The Magna Carta, among many other things, established a remedy against a king who failed to protect his people.
In 1581, 17 Dutch provinces declared independence from their Spanish king and his hated governor, the Duke of Alva, by publishing the Act of Abjuration. The Dutch introduced a new idea. If a king failed to protect his people or listen to their grievances, then that king had not been made by God. Such a person was not a king; he was a tyrant. Since God was the ship’s captain, the Dutch still needed a king, so they selected the Prince of Anjou as their new royal ruler.
In the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Parlaiment rebelled against the Catholic King James II. King James II tried to establish royal primacy over all of the proceedings of Parliament. God was still the ship’s captain, so after Parlaiment forced King James II into exile, it passed a law disestablishing the Catholic royal line of succession and establishing a new Protestant line of kings, with the Hanoverian King George I as the first true king in that new line of succession. Before King George I took the crown, it was agreed that the Crown held certain powers and Parlaiment held other powers and that neither would intrude on the other’s powers. Parlaiment then passed a Bill of Rights, establishing 13 rights, which I will paraphrase.
1. The Crown shall not suspend or execute laws without consent of Parlaiment.
2. The Crown shall not continue its recent practice of dispensing of executing laws.
3. It shall be illegal to establish any institution of the Catholic Church.
4. It shall be illegal for the Crown to impose any tax without the consent of Parlaiment.
5. Any citizen may petition the Crown without fear of repercussion.
6. It shall be illegal to establish a standing peacetime army without consent of Parlaiment.
7. All Protestants may bear arms for self-defense.
8. Members of Parlaiment shall be freely elected.
9. All members of Parlaiment shall enjoy freedom of speech during debate, which speech shall not be questioned outside of Parlaiment.
10. It shall be illegal to set excessive bail or excessive fines, or to establish cruel and unusual punishments.
11. All trials shall be by jury. All trials for high treason shall be by land-owning jurors.
12. It shall be illegal to impose fines or seize property prior to conviction. All previous illegal fines or seizures are void.
13. Parlaiment shall meet frequently.
During the 18th century, the debate intensified over whether God was the ship’s captain or the ship’s builder. To those American colonists who held to the belief that God made kings to rule and protect men, the Revolution violated God’s will. Many of these colonists called themselves Tories. To other American colonists, those who adopted the belief that God had built the ship, and also the belief that men could captain that ship, while God did make kings to rule and protect men, if a king did not listen to his people’s grievances and did not protect them, the people could consider that king a tyrant, just as the Dutch considered King Philip II of Spain a tyrant. Unlike the Dutch, however, the American rebels did not throw off their old king and choose a new king. They believed that God had given the people the gift of reason and that the people could captain their own ship through use of that gift of reason. Men still had to be governed, so the issue to our founding fathers was what was to best way to be governed. The Articles of Confederation had too many shortcomings, so the members of what we now call the Constitutional Convention scrapped the existing weak central government form of political thought and produced in its proposed Constitution a much stronger central government of limited powers.
In summary, true conservatism began with the Glorious Revolution. The Crown had its powers. Parlaiment had its powers. A Bill of Rights controlled the exercise of those powers. True American conservatism is based on the separation of powers, individual rights, the rule of law, the exercise of God’s gift of reason, and a liberal democratic Constitutional republic. Obedience to any king or tyrant is a violation of true conservatism.
Each branch of government must zealously protect its limited gift of powers and always oppose the attempt by any other branch of government to expand its own separate limited gift of powers. Congress must always oppose the Executive, and vice-versa. The judicial branch has its own set of limitations. True conservatism never bows to the autocrat, the executive, the crown. This is what David Brooks, the New York Times leading conservative editorial writer, meant when he wrote that when then-President Trump stated that he alone could fix things, that was the least conservative thing anyone could say. The people are to zealously oppose the taking of any of their reserved powers, but accept that when they ratified the Constitution, they gave away certain other limited powers. Once given to the various branches of government, those gifted limited powers no longer belong to the people. If the people want certain gifted powers back, there is a constitutional process to regain such powers, but such actions are never by mob rule or autocratic fiat.
I am not arguing that true conservatism is inflexible. The gift of reason posits otherwise. But it is never obedient, never submissive, never secondary to any individual ruler. Conservatives do not worship kings; they limit them.
Laurel says
Ray W.: I was going to look for what you wrote before, thanks for posting it. I’m printing it out to study.
Flagler Live: Can’t we front page this as an article? I think it is so important to know this history, especially now. I would so love to see the comments, which will not show up this at this later date.
The dude says
When will MAGA move away from thin skinned, little men?
Or is that really what the essence of MAGA is all about? Being thin skinned, vindictive little snowflakes?
Kind of like the dude who fears the rainbow flag, but loves it when he sees the “FUCK BIDEN” flags flying.
Pogo says
@P.T. c/o FlaglerLive
“…It calls for a glass of Calvados.”
I’d love a snifter, but would never toast Peggy Noonan, or the vastly over-rated glad handing soap salesman.
I toast you, and your spare eloquence about the time and place — and their meaning and significance.