The "Rest of the Story" of Thanksgiving

I have to give Rush Limbaugh credit for “the rest of the story” of Thanksgiving on his show. It is a story about the failure of socialism and the successes of capitalism!

In 1620, William Bradford set up the Mayflower Compact to establish “just and equal” laws for the pilgrims to live by, declaring that everything the pilgrims produced would go into a community store or bank. Each pilgrim was entitled to one share of whatever went into the bank. All of the land they cleared and houses they built belonged to that common community. Nobody owned anything, they simply had one equal share of it. The Plymouth Colony began as a commune, Rush detailed.

New England winters are cold. The pilgrims struggled to survive. That winter over half the pilgrims died. When spring came, they met Native Americans who taught them how to catch cod, grow corn, and how to trap beavers for food and hides to keep them warm.

Governor William Bradford soon realized that the “socialistic” Mayflower Compact was hurting, not helping his community because the pilgrims were not incentivized to work.

“For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense, that was thought injustice,” Bradford wrote about the Plymouth Commune under the Mayflower Compact.

That spring, every family was assigned their own land with which they could do as they pleased. By allowing the pilgrims to own their land, and produce, sell and buy their own goods, this new form of self-reliance and capitalism encouraged them to thrive and prosper. They set up trading posts and paid off their debts.

 “This had very good success,” wrote Bradford, “for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.”

In 1621 the pilgrims had a great harvest and they joined with the Native Americans to have the feast following peace treaties that we often hear about. It is true that the pilgrims gave thanks to the Native Americans for their significant help, but the pilgrims also gave thanks to God, who they credited for much of their newly found prosperity. Word spread quickly of the colony's success, and soon many more people came to join what would one day become the USA.

In his 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation, President George Washington said the purpose of the holiday was to give Americans “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.” Americans should not lose sight of this!

This Thanksgiving I thank God for the freedoms and blessings that my family and employees enjoy. We are so blessed to be living in a free-market and capitalist economy.  

I pray that the American people will not take for granted the ideals and values that created the America that we love!

Speaking of socialism, Senator Lindsay Graham donated $1,000,000 to the National Republican Senatorial Committee to help Georgia candidates for Senate Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in their Senate runoff races. I cannot donate a million, but I sent him $1000, and I hope you will send him whatever you feel good about. You can donate here.

I also donated to President Trump’s election defense fund to help his lawyers expose fraud and protect the integrity of our elections. You can donate here.

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours! Gather together, love one another, and pray that God will forgive and save America one more time.