Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! Last year I posted the real story of Thanksgiving (as told by Rush Limbaugh) and I'll do so again.

On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail. It carried a total of 102 passengers, including forty Pilgrims led by William Bradford... But this was no pleasure cruise, friends. The journey to the New World was a long and arduous one. And when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found, according to Bradford's detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness... And the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims -- including Bradford's own wife -- died of either starvation, sickness, or exposure.

When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! This is important to understand because this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments. Here is the part that has been omitted: The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well. They were collectivists! Now, Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action.

Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace... Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism. And what happened? It didn't work! Surprise, surprise, huh? What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation! But while most of the rest of the world has been experimenting with socialism for well over a hundred years -- trying to refine it, perfect it, and re-invent it -- the Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every schoolchild's history lesson. If it were, we might prevent much needless suffering in the future. Here's what he wrote: 'For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that was thought injustice.' That was thought injustice. Do you hear what he was saying, ladies and gentlemen? The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's community try next? They unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. And what was the result? 'This had very good success,' wrote Bradford, 'for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been'... In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves... So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians.

The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London. And the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the 'Great Puritan Migration'.

6 comments:

Tom and Stacia said...

Yet, we also need to consider the impact of this upon the Native Americans -- another piece also left out of the Thanksgiving story.

Tom and Stacia said...

Yet, we also need to consider the impact of this upon the Native Americans -- another piece also left out of the Thanksgiving story . . .
Have a great weekend Jon,
Stacia

Kyle Hommes said...

I'm not sure "real story" and Rush Limbaugh belong in the same sentence.

Jon Vander Plas said...

For a long time in American history, the Native American experience was neglected, no doubt. Now, I wonder if the pendulum has swung in the other direction and kids are not taught about the values of the Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers. Let's not white wash history, forgetting about racism, etc., but let's not forget what made this country great. This country was founded on the belief that our rights are endowed by our creator and that government exists to protect these rights.

Kyle, I am a frequent Rush listener - he's entertaining and informative, although I consider myself more of a National Review conservative than a Rush Limbaugh conservative. While I don't always agree with him, he is a very important check on the liberal media. I think most of the vitriol directed at Rush is due to comments taken out of context by liberal groups like Media Matters and a failure to understand conservative principles. Rush is mainly concerned with advancing individual liberty. I think we need more people like him.

Kyle Hommes said...

I have listened to him a couple times, but stopped when I heard him say that feminism happened so that ugly chicks could succeed as well.

Jon Vander Plas said...

He is over the top sometimes. However, his view of what feminism is might be different from yours. In his view, feminism is not a civil rights movement, pushing for equal pay for equal work, etc. Feminism as Rush sees it, goes beyond that to include abortion on demand, the rejection of the nuclear family, and the rejection of house wife and mother as an acceptable occupation for women. Feminism has no tolerance for traditional values or conservatism (notice how Sarah Palin was not exactly embraced by feminists). He throws in a little male chauvinism (in jest) to go along with it by insinuating that good looking women have always done fine, it's the not so good looking ones that needed feminism. Un-PC no doubt and over the top (I would never say such a thing), but it probably has a kernel of truth. Just like the truth that Planned Parenthood was founded to kill as many black babies as possible. It doesn't sound nice, but it's true.