The Pilgrims, George Washington, Reason TV, Al Mohler and the Purpose of Thanksgiving!!!!
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I want to make three points today. 1. When the colonists created the Plymouth Colony, they used a socialist model but they soon found out that capitalism works much better than socialism and people will always act in their own self-interest. 2. In 1789, President George Washington declared the first national day of Thanksgiving by asking Americans to “unite in most humbly offering our prayer and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of nations” and many presidents have followed suit in recognizing that thanking God is the purpose of Thanksgiving in the USA. 3. Atheists are always frustrated by the Thanksgiving holiday.
Let me start off with point 3. Notice in this video below by Reason TV that they suggest we thank the pilgrims for recognizing that capitalism works better than socialism. Although I agree that the Pilgrims discovered this we don’t need to abandon the true purpose of Thanksgiving. Al Mohler rightly notes:
Millions of Americans will, no doubt, celebrate an essentially secular festival. For them, it might as well be “Turkey Day” or something equally vacuous. This reveals the most important contrast between the Pilgrims and the current generation. The Pilgrims were driven by a worldview that was centered in the worship of the one true and living God, the Creator of the universe, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. They understood His providential rule over the universe to explain everything that happened to them–and everything that blessed them. They did not attribute their survival in New England to their own fortitude–nor to the help of the Indians–but to God.
Secularized Americans are driven by no impulse to give thanks, and wouldn’t know to whom thanks should be addressed. They think of themselves as self-sufficient, self-directed, and self-reliant. Their horizon of thankfulness is, to say the least, rather low.
The civic holiday may not mean a great deal to many moderns–but that doesn’t mean that it is meaningless. At the very least, it implies that we cannot really take care of ourselves. That is just as true today as it was in Pilgrim New England.
Christians understand that the call to thanksgiving is far more urgent than a holiday, and far more important than the calendar. True thanksgiving cannot be limited to a day or a season. We recognize that God has given us everything that we have–and everything that we need. We acknowledge our unconditional dependence upon Him for every second of our lives, every morsel we will eat, and every joy we will ever experience.
A Thanksgiving Tale of How Property Rights Saved America
November 29, 2013 by Dan Mitchell
The genius of capitalism is that there is a link between effort and reward. In a genuine market economy (as opposed to cronyism), people can only make themselves rich by working harder and smarter to satisfy the needs and wants of others.
The blunder of statism is that the link between effort and reward is damaged. Punitive tax rates, for instance, punish people for producing. 
Redistribution programs, meanwhile, create incentives for dependency. And regulation throws lots of sand in the gears of the economy, while also creating big opportunities for corrupt cronyism.
I sometimes try to make this clear by citing the failure of communism. And by failure, I’m not talking about the brutality of Soviet-style dictatorships. Instead, I’m referring to the basic failure of state-controlled economies. Heck, places such as Cuba and Venezuela can’t even produce enough toilet paper!
And North Korea is such a basket case that it reduced physical requirements for military service after pervasive famine led to a stunted generation.
But I don’t want anyone to accuse me of red-baiting, so let’s pretend communism never existed and look at an unfortunate episode from American history.
When the colonists created the Plymouth Colony, they used a socialist model. This video from Reason TV explains how that system foundered.
Uploaded on Nov 23, 2010
The Pilgrims founded their colony at Plymouth Plantation in December 1620 and promptly started dying off in droves.
As the colony’s early governor, William Bradford, wrote in “Of Plymouth Plantation”:
“That which was most sadd & lamentable was, that in 2. or 3. moneths time halfe of their company dyed.”
When the settlers finally stopped croaking, they set about creating a heaven on earth, a society without private property, where all worked for the common good. Everything was shared. Especially bitching and moaning about working for the common good. Bradford again:
“Yong-men that were most able and fitte for labour and service did repine that they should spend their time and streingth to worke for other mens wives and children, with out any recompense….And for men’s wives to be commanded to doe service for other men, as dresing their meate, washing their cloaths, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brooke it.”
With nobody working, everybody was suffering. And in case you think nobody was working simply because they couldn’t understand a damn thing Bradford was saying, chew on this: In 1623, Bradford and the other leaders
“Assigned to every family a parceel of land…this had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more torne was planted then other waise would have bene by any means the Govr or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave farr better contente.”
The Pilgrims, George Washington, Reason TV, Al Mohler and the Purpose of Thanksgiving!!!!
In no time at all “any generall wante of famine hath not been amongest them since to this day.”
America would never go hungry again. So this week, before you drift into your annual tryptophan-induced coma, don’t forget to give thanks to the true patron of this holiday feast: property rights.
For more on this topic, including controversy over whether the pilgrims were proto-communists, go to http://reason.tv/video/show/1515
Approximately 2.30 minutes.
Produced by Meredith Bragg and Nick Gillespie. Voices by Meredith Bragg and Austin Bragg.
Go to http://reason.tv for downloadable versions of all our videos.
Subscribe to Reason.tv’s YouTube channel to receive automatic notification when new material goes live.
Gee, what a surprise. Socialism was the problem and capitalism was the solution. When you give people property rights and establish a clear link between effort and reward, good things happen.
As Bono now understands. More remarkable, even Obama once said we should “let the market work.” So maybe there’s hope.
In honor of the season, let’s share a few more Thanksgiving cartoons, all of which – as you might expect – make fun of Obamacare.
Continuing a theme from some of yesterday’s cartoons, we have the Turkey of the Year.
And an observation on how well the law is working.
This Lisa Benson cartoon is very appropriate since the Mayflower carried the first colonists to Plymouth.
P.S. I don’t want to pass up this opportunity for some well-deserved mockery of the evil philosophy of communism,. You can see some great Reagan jokes in the fourth video of this link and the first video in this link. And this doctored image makes a very powerful point in an amusing fashion.
P.P.S. Back in 2010, I also debunked the leftist counter-argument in a post that included the Reason video and a John Stossel column on the topic of the Pilgrims and property rights.
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The article below is by Al Mohler:
Why Thanksgiving Matters
The holiday police are at it again–looking for violations of the nation’s new policy of separating faith and civic celebrations. The same folks who will soon be trolling courthouse squares looking for manger scenes are now calling on Americans to have a happy Thanksgiving . . . but leave God out of it.
School textbooks filled with revisionist history tell children that the first Thanksgiving was a celebration at which the Pilgrims thanked the Indians for teaching them how to survive the harsh New England climate and plant successful crops. God is simply not part of the picture.
Some educators, worried that even the word “thanksgiving” might be too controversial, have renamed the holiday “Turkey Day.” Of course, this implies that the central thrust of the celebration comes down to poultry.
The revisionist historians want to have it both ways. They present the Pilgrims as wild-eyed religious fanatics–precursors to the Religious Right–and then suggest that the first Thanksgiving was essentially a secular holiday.
The historical basis for the Thanksgiving observance is clear. In 1621, the Pilgrims celebrated “the goodness of God” as they feasted with friendly local Indians. In reality, the Pilgrims had faced far greater adversity than had been expected. The climate was harsh, the crops were sparse, the native peoples were often hostile, and their ranks were thinning. Hunger, disease, discomfort, and discouragement were ever close at hand.
Aiming for Virginia, these Christians–dissenting from the Church of England and determined to establish a truly Christian community–actually landed in New England. That miscalculation meant that disaster was almost certain. Nevertheless, they “fell upon their knees and blessed the God of heaven who had brought them over this vast and furious ocean,” recorded Governor William Bradford.
In 1789, President George Washington declared the first national day of Thanksgiving by asking Americans to “unite in most humbly offering our prayer and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of nations.”
Later presidents followed Washington’s example. Abraham Lincoln issued moving Thanksgiving proclamations during the Civil War. Franklin Roosevelt, who regularized the holiday on the national calendar, called the nation to thankfulness in the middle of World War II: “The Almighty God has blessed our nation in many ways. He has given our people stout hearts and strong arms with which to strike mighty blows for freedom and truth…. So we pray to Him now for a vision to see our way clearly–to see the way that leads to a better life for ourselves and for our fellow men–to the achievement of His will, to peace on earth.”
Is all this just a demonstration of civil religion? Do most Americans really follow the example of the Pilgrims in expressing thankfulness to God, or is it just another holiday with emotional overtones–and an orgy of overeating?
Millions of Americans will, no doubt, celebrate an essentially secular festival. For them, it might as well be “Turkey Day” or something equally vacuous. This reveals the most important contrast between the Pilgrims and the current generation. The Pilgrims were driven by a worldview that was centered in the worship of the one true and living God, the Creator of the universe, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. They understood His providential rule over the universe to explain everything that happened to them–and everything that blessed them. They did not attribute their survival in New England to their own fortitude–nor to the help of the Indians–but to God.
Secularized Americans are driven by no impulse to give thanks, and wouldn’t know to whom thanks should be addressed. They think of themselves as self-sufficient, self-directed, and self-reliant. Their horizon of thankfulness is, to say the least, rather low.
The civic holiday may not mean a great deal to many moderns–but that doesn’t mean that it is meaningless. At the very least, it implies that we cannot really take care of ourselves. That is just as true today as it was in Pilgrim New England.
Christians understand that the call to thanksgiving is far more urgent than a holiday, and far more important than the calendar. True thanksgiving cannot be limited to a day or a season. We recognize that God has given us everything that we have–and everything that we need. We acknowledge our unconditional dependence upon Him for every second of our lives, every morsel we will eat, and every joy we will ever experience.
Deserving nothing but God’s wrath, we were granted forgiveness through the Son. Needing all things, we have been given everything needful for our salvation and eternal life. To these God has added joys, comforts, and provision beyond our imagination–”far more abundantly than all that we ask or think.” [Ephesians 3:20]
So, gather together to give thanks to God. While others celebrate “Turkey Day” and ponder poultry, direct your thoughts to the God of Heaven, by whose hand we have been brought near and given more than we can even remember.
The Pilgrims knew to whom they were praying–and why. Let’s follow their example and remember that their dependence upon God was no greater than our own.
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