On Thanksgiving Day, we should again reflect on those who first came to America. Last year, my Thanksgiving post brought to light the truth about those brave pilgrims. Thanks to Rush Limbaugh, I learned about William Bradford. My Internet search found a Richard J. Marbary column titled, "The Great Thanksgiving Hoax". The piece concluded:
Thus the real reason for Thanksgiving, deleted from the official story, is: Socialism does not work; the one and only source of abundance is free markets, and we thank God we live in a country where we can have them.
The piece started out with how our children are being mislead by the public schools, and how the MSM are promoting that hoax to us all:
Each year at this time school children all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating.
It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths which divert attention away from Thanksgiving's real meaning.
The truth can be found by reading about William Bradford:
The problem with this official story is that the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves.
In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."
In the harvest feasts of 1621 and 1622, "all had their hungry bellies filled," but only briefly. The prevailing condition during those years was not the abundance the official story claims, it was famine and death. The first "Thanksgiving" was not so much a celebration as it was the last meal of condemned men.
What the lying left does not want us to know is how the Pilgrim's poverty was caused by their experimentation with socialism:
After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop." They began to question their form of economic organization.
This had required that "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed.
This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children." Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate.
Bradford and others solved their problems by abolishing socialism and allowing ‘free’ markets to evolve:
To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.
Many early groups of colonists set up socialist states, all with the same terrible results. At Jamestown, established in 1607, out of every shipload of settlers that arrived, less than half would survive their first twelve months in America. Most of the work was being done by only one-fifth of the men, the other four-fifths choosing to be parasites. In the winter of 1609-10, called "The Starving Time," the population fell from five-hundred to sixty.
Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth. In 1614, Colony Secretary Ralph Hamor wrote that after the switch there was "plenty of food, which every man by his own industry may easily and doth procure." He said that when the socialist system had prevailed, "we reaped not so much corn from the labors of thirty men as three men have done for themselves now."
And thus here is the real Thanksgiving message:
Before these free markets were established, the colonists had nothing for which to be thankful. They were in the same situation as Ethiopians are today, and for the same reasons. But after free markets were established, the resulting abundance was so dramatic that the annual Thanksgiving celebrations became common throughout the colonies, and in 1863, Thanksgiving became a national holiday.
Today we have the Democrats advocating America’s return to socialism. The Democrats and their colleges in the MSM promote redistribution of the money earned by the productive class to those who are impoverished. They believe this is the solution to poverty. But they are wrong. Socialism will only create more poverty. It is part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Walter E Williams has a column that points out that the European socialism and far-left ideology are causing their economies to be falling behind America’s free market capitalism. First Williams points out what the MSM is saying to mislead America on this issue:
Princeton University professor and columnist Paul Krugman deservedly won Forbes.com's "Dunce of the Week" award for his New York Times column "French Family Values" (July 29, 2005). Krugman asks "But are European economies really doing that badly? The answer is no," adding that:
Americans are doing a lot of strutting these days, but a head-to-head comparison between the economies of the United States and Europe – France, in particular – shows that the big difference is in priorities, not performance. We're talking about two highly productive societies that have made a different tradeoff between work and family time.
Krugman's assertion is basically this: The income gap, about 40 percent, is not the result of lower efficiency in Europe. It is the result of Europeans working less than Americans. Not because they can't find work, but because they work fewer hours, preferring to spend more time with their families and on leisure activities.
Williams then points out the truth:
Contrast Krugman's nonsensical argument with New America Foundation senior fellow Joel Kotkin's findings in "America Still Beckons," published by The American Enterprise magazine (October-December 2005). Kotkin says that Europe has weakened considerably.
Since the 1970s, America has created some 57 million new jobs, compared to just 4 million in Europe (with most of those in government). For the last quarter century, the United States has enjoyed consistently higher rates of economic growth and productivity than European countries, and the gap has been widening. The United States is now at the forefront in many critical global industries, particularly finance, technology, and entertainment.
Europe's "portion of world GDP dropped from 34 percent to 20 percent between 1913 and 1998, while the United States held its own at about 22 percent of global GDP."
In the same edition of The American Enterprise, Karl Zinsmeister's article, "Europe Learns the Wrong Lessons," says, "In France, Italy, Germany, and Belgium, approximately a quarter of all workers under 25 are currently unemployed." High minimum wages and employment protection regulations make it nearly impossible to fire people, thereby making it costly to hire them. Europe's stagnation and decline might explain why its best brains are leaving in droves.
Kotkin reports: "Some 400,000 E.U. science and technology graduates currently reside in the United States, and barely one in seven, according to a recent European Commission poll, intend to return." It's not only the best brains who migrate to our country – poor people come as well. There's one important difference between the world's poor who come to America and those who go to Europe. The poor tend to prosper much more here than they do in Europe. American success and European jealousy might explain some of their anti-Americanism, particularly virulent among Europe's elite.
Over four hundred years ago, Europeans migrated to American and rejected socialism and adopted freedom to save themselves from poverty and destruction. Now today we have the world’s poor abandoning the European socialist model and coming to America. Unfortunately we have the Democrats and their MSM cohorts telling them freedom is about receiving free government handouts.
Williams ends his column by pointing out just how wrong the American far-left is for following the lead of the Europeans:
Many American elites share Europeans' anti-Americanism. They're also against "American conditions" and want us to have Europe's high taxes, highly regulated economy and socialized medicine. They also want us to share the European lack of will to protect themselves.
In the past, Europeans were unwilling or unable to protect themselves against Nazism and communism. Now they demonstrate an unwillingness to protect themselves against Islam hell-bent on conquering the West. We just might have to pull Europe's chestnut out of the fire – again.
Today I give thanks to the conservative movement who are working hard to preserve America’s freedom. And I am also thankful to the Internet for giving me the opportunity to speak my mind and tell the Democrats that freedom is not about free government handouts.
I can only hope that the Democrats wake up and understand it is more important to tell the world that America is their friend and the terrorists are not. But I doubt that they can give up their greed for power, and will instead attack America’s Commander in Chief just because he is a Republican. After spending time with family, conservatives must return to the fight for freedom. Unfortunately, we also have to fight against other Americans. It is most disturbing to have to stand up to those Veterans who want to advance the Democrat's socialized medicine. It is truly sad to watch those who have put their lives on the line for the sake of our freedoms, so willing to give it up to advance the Democrat's ill conceived socialism.
Today we give thanks for our freedoms, but we must not take our freedoms for granted. We must continue to work hard to preserve them. Have a Happy Thanksgiving.
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