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:

…so they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery.

At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go on in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family.

This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.

Thus, the deadly madness of socialism was replaced with a pragmatic expression of two natural laws: 1. no person (and no group of persons, acting under whatever title or label or pretense it may) can rightfully dictate the disposal of the product of another’s labor; and 2. no society can violate a natural law without suffering the harmful consequences. It was only then that the colony had its first bountiful harvest, for which the members properly gave thanks.

IT IS THE BENEFICIAL CONSEQUENCE of the Plymouth Rock Colony’s epiphany concerning the destructive follies of socialism and the rewarding virtues of natural law that we have celebrated on Thanksgiving over the years. Here is William Bradford again, expressing the lesson taken by these ancestors of the American revolutionaries of a century-and-a-half hence:

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.

Needless to say, the experience of the Plymouth Rock Colony was firmly in the American memory at the time that our founding principles were spelled out. It is unsurprising that the colonists’ hard-won wisdom deeply informs the Declaration of Independence, the principles enshrined in which are declared to be the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.

It is unsurprising that the Articles of Confederation and our federal and various state Constitutions are constructed around the core principle that no government (which is, in theory, the agent of the community acting as a whole) has a claim of right to any property other than its own, or that which is produced by the exercise of its own unique prerogatives. The Plymouth Rock Colonists taught us the fatal folly of having things any other way.

THE VIRTUOUS LESSONS LEARNED by the Plymouth Rock Colony’s near-disastrous experiment with a fancied and prideful “alternative” to the basic reality of natural law is well-worth the giving of thanks. So is the wisdom of our Founders in taking those lessons to heart and hardwiring them into our American legal structure.

With these things firmly in mind as the real reasons for celebration, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving. I hope that it finds you all well, and leaves you all comfortably stuffed with the good food and good cheer for which this holiday is casually and warmly known.

But I also hope that you all dwell for a few minutes on the more sober aspects of this commemoration. I especially hope you see to it that your children understand the truth (rather than the warm fuzzy fictions that they have been taught in their government schools and through the mindless popular culture).

The real lessons of Thanksgiving are very important lessons. Our societal well-being depends on those lessons remaining embedded in our American consciousness and institutions.

It has been famously and wisely observed that those who allow themselves to be ignorant of history lessons are doomed to repeat them, and we don’t want our children or grandchildren to have to repeat this one. The good Lord might not be so forgiving of their arrogance the second time around.

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P.S. THANKSGIVING IS NOT ONLY A GOOD TIME to reflect and instruct on the evils and delusions of socialism, and the enormous virtues of well-secured liberty and property rights of so, in an academic sense. It is also a great time to think about these things from a practical and personal perspective. Here’s a picture-worth-a-thousand-words on that point. Click on it for more: