First I want to wish each of you a very Happy Thanksgiving. With all the problems we face in America at home and abroad, this is still the greatest nation on earth. We truly have much for which to be thankful.
My Thanksgiving tribute this year centers on our forebears at Plymouth. Most of us are very familiar with the story of the first Thanksgiving, when the Pilgrims gathered with their newly-formed Indian friends to give thanks to God for not only sparing their lives but giving them the blessing of abundance after nearly failing to survive their first winter in New England.
What you might NOT know, however, is the story behind the story. Thanksgiving is a testament to the triumph of capitalism over socialism, and this is one of the reasons collectivists in politics, the news media, and Hollywood all but ignore the holiday, referring to it instead as 'Turkey Day,' a name which, by the way, I loathe.
Not only do the collectivists hate the purely religious significance of the holiday, but they hate the story behind it and had just as soon keep you from knowing it.
When the Pilgrims first landed at Plymouth they embarked on an experiment the world had never seen. The brave new world that they forged was laden with mistakes early on that were later corrected. Had they not been corrected, they probably would not have survived.
The society that the first band of Pilgrims forged was collectivist in nature. They lived commune style, sharing everything with each other. Property was held in common. It is understandable that they would do such a thing, being alone in a strange land with strange natives. They felt they had to be collectivist to survive and to foster a sense of inter-dependence on each other.
The result, however, was less than desirable. There was no incentive to prosper, no personal pride in private ownership of property, no real motivation to excel and to do the things necessary not only to survive but thrive. Thus, when winter came they were ill-prepared to face the harsh realities of the climate. Over half of them died that winter alone.
All of these factors taught the Puritans a valuable lesson. What they were doing was not working. And, being the resilient lot that they were, they adjusted course. First of all, they ditched the socialistic model of living that nearly brought them to extinction. A capitalistic system was introduced that stressed individual responsibility and initiative, personal freedom, free trade, and private property. They made friends with their Indian neighbors who taught them how to plant corn. In turn, the Pilgrims helped the Indians, thus initiating that hallmark practice of capitalism--free trade. Goods were traded between the Pilgrims and the Indians. The colony began to thrive. Children were born. Plymouth grew. Prosperity began to replace abject poverty and illness.
By the following Autumn, the colony had flourished so much that they wanted to express their thanks to God for the bountiful plenty. They invited their Indian friends and trade partners to join them in sharing a meal during which they remembered that all blessings flow from the One above who loves His children.
However, God did not simply send a smile their way down from heaven and then swoop down to do all this for them. These hearty souls had sense enough to know that faith does not mean God does everything for us, but gives us the strength to do what WE must do. The Pilgrims discovered the path to prosperity and survival, and it was NOT socialism. When they implemented the capitalistic model of free trade and private ownership, their lot changed drastically for the better.
And THAT is the story behind the story of Thanksgiving.
You will not hear this story in our government-run schools nor in most of the hallowed halls of higher learning in America, which have succumbed to the scourge of socialism. You actually have to go back to the early part of the 20th century to find textbooks that tell this entire story, the whole truth. The 2nd half of the 20th century marked the beginning of the real censorship, and it was perpetrated by the Left. These facts as I just presented them have been banned from schools, ripped out of textbooks, and buried--tucked away on the back shelves of some historical library. The socialistic system of education in this country for the past 50 years has brainwashed generations of students into believing something entirely different about Thanksgiving than the truth.
But the truth is still the truth.
I truly hope that all of you reading this today will have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I hope you gather with friends or family, or both, to share a meal. I hope you will give thanks to God for your blessings. And I hope you will take time to pause to remember what our forebears had in mind when they came to this land.
May their vision of liberty never vanish from the earth!
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