Commercial airlines see private pilots as obstacles to their own business, so
they will consistently lobby in favor of airlines and against private pilots.
Over time, inevitably, private flight will wither and die.

"Commercial airlines" is a redundancy. All commercial pilots started
as private pilots, and private pilots are a revenue source for
instructors, the FAA, mechanics, manufacturers and the rest of the
industry... Oshkosh being the best evidence. I'm sitting at a towered
airport right now looking at a privately-owned King Air next to about
two dozen private aircraft, from jets all the way to a humble
Traumahawk and an Ercoupe.

Times are tough, but a FedEx pilot I've been flying with said the
airlines are calling back furloughed pilots, hiring new ones, and
started to get nervous about an upcoming pilot shortage. You can't
get to the airlines without a lot of time and the best way to build
time short of instruction is to own and fly your own airplane.

It's the general public we have to worry about, who believes that
aviation serves an elite few.

As you observe, flying for fun already involves red tape and expense that
effectively reserves it to a very highly motivated and/or wealthy elite.

Truth. However, as an instructor I find that a high degree of
motivation is characteristic of anybody who can afford to fly, and
I've discovered that the "wealthy elite" are most often self-made
entrepreneurs and businessmen with a prodigious work ethic. Not
necessarily great pilots, but, if you spend a half hour with *most* of
them you come to understand how they've earned what they
have. ...financial/investment manager types, not so much.

I left my sysadmin career to live in near-poverty as a CFI (haven't
looked back) and have found my view of the average "rich person" to be
far less cynical than before. I definitely prefer the "very highly
motivated" to the trustafarian "wealthy elite" although the latter are
the best cash cow because if daddy or the taxpayers are paying for
flight school, they take forever to finish whereas if they're paying
their own way, they're done in half the time.

Gloomy economic times for general aviation, to be sure, and the
increased regulations, FCC nonsense and red tape certainly don't help.
The person who died nearby in his experimental recently went through
at least two instructors here who wouldn't sign his flight review, so,
he wasn't flying legally. Regulation didn't accomplish anything.

-chris
CFI