Pete Hendrickson (@LostHorizons)

The Real Story Of Thanksgiving Do yourself and society a favor-- read this to your kids. THANKSGIVING DAY IS ONE OF MY FAVORITE special days of the year, and not because of the great food. The real virtues of this unique American celebration lie in the lessons in humility and maturity offered by its history. The virtuous lessons to which I refer are offered only by Thanksgiving's true history, however. That true history is the exact opposite of the bogus, "Thank God (sorry... politically incorrect... make that, "Thank Fortuitous Random Chance") we were saved from starvation by the generosity of our neighbors-- see how wonderful socialism can be!" nonsense which too many Americans have been misled into imagining to be the truth. In fact, the feast we commemorate on the fourth Thursday of November had nothing whatsoever to do with "generosity". What we actually commemorate on Thanksgiving is the Plymouth Rock colonists' recognition of the evils of socialism and the goodness of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of profit-motivation unleashed by security in property rights. It was that 11th-hour epiphany after a disastrous experiment with communitarian soulfulness that saved the colony from starvation. Thanks be to God, indeed, for that merciful and timely grant of wisdom. IN VERY BRIEF SUMMARY, the Plymouth Rock colony began as a commune, organized under the principle that the proceeds of every individual's labors would be claimed of right by the community as a whole, and then redistributed in equal measure to every member. This system lasted for several years, during which the colony grew ever more hungry and impoverished. Unable to keep the fruit of their labors for themselves, and with the unproductive receiving the same out of the communal resources as those who worked hard, soon no one worked hard. To do so was a fool's game. The only competition un-smothered by the communitarian rule was the race to the bottom in the avoidance of labor. Every year the crops were thinner; every year the shares distributed to each colonist were more meager. Finally, in 1623 and on the verge of the colony's failure (that is, the death of all the colonists), the feel-good socialist lunacy was recognized as the deadly mental virus that it is. The ruinous pretense that the community had a rightful claim on the food produced by each member was abandoned, and the colonist's rights to their own production was secured. As it was recounted (in third-person format) in 1623 by William Bradford, Governor of the Colony: Continued... https://losthorizons.com/N/123.htm#2