Thursday, November 22, 2012

Remembering the First Thanksgiving

One of the earliest and arguably most historically significant North American colonies was Plymouth Plantation, founded in 1620 in what is now known as Plymouth, Massachusetts.

The original Plymouth Plantation had written into its charter a system of communal property and labor.

illiam Bradford recorded in his Of Plymouth Plantation, that a people who had formerly been known for their virtue and hard work became lazy and unproductive. Resources were squandered, vegetables were allowed to rot on the ground and mass starvation was the result. And where there is starvation, there is plague.

Plague. Lest we forget: there was, and remains to this Thanksgiving Day, an unbreakable connection between economic productivity and public health. The Plymouth Colonists' very survival was threatened (and they had neither NHS nor ObamaCare).

After 2 1/2 years, the leaders of the Plymouth colony decided to abandon their socialist charter and create a different system - one which honored private property.

Under their new system, the colony not only survived but thrived, and the abundance which resulted was celebrated at the iconic First Thanksgiving feast.

More here.

May everyone enjoy a peaceful Thanksgiving Day with our families and loved ones - and may we also not forget where the bounty of our great country actually comes from.
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