RadioBanter - View Single Post - The Pilgrims Were Thankful For The Bounty Of Capitalism

dave

On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 13:29:13 -0800, âˆ…baMaâˆ… Tse Dung wrote:

On Nov 24, 11:38Â*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. Â*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

George Washington hated church. He was not religious.