On Nov 24, 11:38*am, David Hartung wrote:
On 11/24/2011 09:22 AM, Kevin Cunningham wrote:

Yep, our once great nation started out as a socialist colony. *Both
the early Virginians and the Plymouth settlers subscribed to
socialism.

And it worked.

It worked? Please explain.- Hide quoted text -


A group of separatists from the Anglican Church left Plymouth, England
in September 1620 for the New World, where they felt they would be
able to have both civil and religious liberty. They sailed across the
Atlantic, in a very rough two-month voyage, until they landed in
November. They finally disembarked in December at a place they
designated "Plymouth Rock." Before leaving the ship, however, they
all signed the "Mayflower Compact." This was America's first document
of civil government, and the first ever to institute the concept of
self-government.

The colonists immediately held a prayer service and then began the
process of building shelter against the cold Massachusetts winter.
They were not prepared for the starvation and sickness that
accompanied a harsh New England winter, though, and by spring of 1621,
nearly half of those who had arrived in December were dead.
Persevering, and with the help of the native Indians, they reaped a
bountiful harvest that summer. In December of 1621, the grateful
colonists decided to thank God and celebrated a three-day feast with
their Indian friends.

Reports of this celebration show that colonist Edward Winslow
expressed the gratitude of the colony during the feast by saying,
"[Y]et by the goodness of God, we are so farre from want[.]"

That is the story we all remember, and the three-day feast really did
occur in 1621. But that was not the origin of the Thanksgiving Day we
celebrate today.

In large part, the first Thanksgiving Day, which was celebrated in
1623, was a celebration of the abundance arising from the pursuit of
individualism and incentives associated with free markets, amazing as
that may seem.

The background for understanding Thanksgiving Day is found in records
kept by the governor of the Plymouth colony, William Bradford. He
informs us that the colonists' English sponsors had arranged for all
crops and goods to be held "in the common stock," from which they
would be supplied to each family according to its needs (sound
familiar?).

As with many other recorded instances of collectivism in the history
of mankind, there were disastrous results. Governor Bradford wrote
that this experiment reflected a belief of his that common ownership
of property would allow the colony to flourish. Instead, it was soon
found that communal sharing resulted in unintended consequences. The
colonists, as many others have discovered over time, found that
individuals work harder within an incentive system that allows them to
maintain and enjoy the fruits of their own labor.

Desperate not to repeat the mistakes made by the failed communal
settlement in Jamestown, Virginia, where half of the original settlers
were lost to starvation or disease, the colonists met to find ways to
escape a similar fate. They decided to abandon their communal
arrangement for the distribution of goods. Instead, according to Gov.
Bradford, from that point forward, "they should set corn every man for
his own particular [need]."

Each family would be given a parcel of land to cultivate, and they
could keep what they grew from that plot of land (even if they could
not deed the land to their heirs, since the ownership of the land was
still held communally).

Records were kept, and the records showed that the American colonists
in Plymouth Plantation exhibited a dramatic increase in productivity
after this change of economic system, where everyone could produce his
own food on his own plot of land.

Unfortunately, this success was offset the following summer (of 1623)
by a drought. The colonists prayed and offered contrition to God,
and, to their amazement, shortly thereafter, the drought ended, and
the harvest was saved.

And so it was that the colonists set about to celebrate a "day of
thanksgiving to God" that Americans continue to celebrate to this
day. Their new economic system that relied on individual efforts and
the incentive of keeping the fruits of their own labor ensured that
they would be able to produce enough food for the future and brought
them great happiness. This system continues to thrive within the
freedoms enshrined in America's national heritage.

Nearly 170 years later, in 1789, following a proclamation issued by
President George Washington, America celebrated its first official
"Day of Thanksgiving to God" under its new Constitution. That same
year, the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which President Washington
was a member, announced that the first Thursday in November would
become its regular day for giving thanks, "unless another day be
appointed by the civil authorities."

It wasn't until some seventy-four years later, in 1863, that President
Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation setting aside the last Thursday
of November as a national Day of Thanksgiving. Over the next seventy-
eight years, presidents followed Lincoln's precedent, annually
declaring a national Thanksgiving Day. Then, in 1941, Congress
permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as a
national holiday.

So there you have the history of the celebration. Now, a few words on
what Thanksgiving means in 2011.

The lessons of the benefits of individual enterprise, and the
increased productivity resulting from the freedom to keep what you
produce, had dramatic affect on the productivity at Plymouth
Plantation. It also had great effect on the growth of the United
States of America for over two hundred years.

However, for the past hundred years or so of our American history,
there has been a minority of Americans who have felt that the American
tradition of individual enterprise fails to adequately provide an
equal result for everyone. They, in opposition to American tradition,
feel that wealth inequality is not healthy, and they wish to move the
country to some sort of communal arrangement, as they had in the
Plymouth Colony and in Jamestown, where wealth effectively belongs to
the government and is distributed to those in need by the benevolence
and wisdom of said body.

That is not the American way. We believe in the sovereignty of the
individual and private property rights, not the sovereignty of the
collective.

On this Thanksgiving Day in 2011, let us give thanks to God for the
bounties He has provided us in America. Those include the "blessings
of freedom" mentioned in the preamble to the greatest governing
document ever written, our Constitution.

We should thank Him for enabling us to continue to be able to preserve
our liberty in this unique and exceptional country of ours, and to
prevent from achieving their stated goals those who would destroy this
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave by replacing our free-
enterprise, private-property system with a collective redistribution
of resources to equalize wealth. And, last, but not least, we should
thank the American Armed Forces, including those who made the ultimate
sacrifice for their country, for their defense of this great Republic,
and its freedoms, for the past 235 years.

Our Declaration of Independence states that it is a self-evident truth
that all men are created equal. That is, every man is born with the
same opportunity to make of his life what he chooses. Not every man
will seize that opportunity, which is why there is an inequality of
results. But, allowing each to plow his own plot of land and keep the
fruits of his labor is what the colonists discovered was the secret to
productivity, wealth, and happiness. We must work hard to preserve
that exceptional American tradition.

We have much to be grateful for on this Thanksgiving Day in 2011. God
Bless America!

http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/...rica_2011.html