Happy Thanksgiving to all!
I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.
Henry David Thoreau
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Thanksgiving 2018
Tag: Thanksgiving
Today is Thanksgiving. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone.
It ought not. But modern humans can be pretty touchy.
“This will be our last press briefing before the Thanksgiving holiday …” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced Monday, “so I want to share a few things that I’m thankful for and I think it would be nice for you guys to do so as well before asking your questions.”
Then, after reciting a bevy of her own blessings, Sanders opened to Q&A, inviting thankful preambles to journalistic questions.
The press corps seemed unperturbed. One reporter was thankful for living in the greatest country on earth. Several expressed gratitude for the First Amendment; one was even thankful “for this exercise.”
“I’m thankful to my father, 96-years-old and going strong,” Newmax’s John Gizzi stated sincerely, “and to my wife, my heroine, I’m thankful to her for saying yes … on the fourth request.”
To light laughter, Gizzi continued, “My question is about Zimbabwe …” And the room erupted.
But this lightheartedness was not universal:
- John Kirby’s article at CNN was headlined, “How Sarah Sanders humiliated the press.”
- Newsweek’s Nicole Goodkind wrote, “The White House turned its Monday press briefing into a kindergarten game … And the reporters followed [Sanders’] orders.”
- In the New Yorker, Masha Gessen claimed Sanders treated the reporters “the way a sadistic teen-ager would treat a group of third graders.”
I’m grateful that we are free … to complain, to disagree, to express outrage. But I’m also glad that on this day each year we can tune out all that, appreciate all we have and gain a few ounces at the dinner table.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
The Pilgrims we were taught about in school deserve a Paul Harveyesque “Rest of the Story” treatment. Most students were not told about how they tried communism before they wised up, though I actually had a teacher who made a point of it.
Yes, initially, the “community” owned everything, and all worked together for the greater good and the Glory of God.
Of course, it was a disaster.
The commune plan sparked sloth, shirking, family quarrels and resentment — with men regarding their wives’ work for others a “kind of slavery.”
And then near-starvation.
The solution? Privatize! They allotted land, setting “corne every man for his owne perticuler.”*
That worked well, but they still had to endure a late Spring drought, and things looked bleak. Then, after prayers and expressions of humility (as Governor William Bradford explained**), the rain returned:
It came, without either wind, or thunder, or any violence, and by degreese in yt abundance, as that ye earth was thorowly wete and soked therwith. Which did so apparently revive & quicken ye decayed corne & other fruits, as was wonderfull to see, and made ye Indeans astonished to behold; and afterwards the Lord sent them shuch seasonable showers, with enterchange of faire warme weather, as, through his blessing, caused a fruitfull & liberall harvest, to their no small comforte and rejoycing. For which mercie (in time conveniente) they also sett aparte a day of thanksgiveing.
So the most obvious political lesson to be drawn from the Pilgrim experience got lost in stories of rain and corn and Indians and such.
But it’s worth noting that Bradford wrote his discussions of communism — and how very wrong Plato and his ilk were — in his primary text, while his talk of the drought was an afterthought in his mss., and appears as a footnote in the edition I’ve consulted.
Both*** Plymouth stories deserve to be told.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
*I wrote about this a few years ago, offering some of the juiciest quotations, in “Plymouth’s Great Reform.”
** Bradford’s History of Plimoth Plantation, available for free at Gutenberg.org.
***The traditional date for the first Thanksgiving is given a few years earlier, with Squanto showing up and helping them plant and all. However, Bradford’s memoirs do not use the term thanksgiving (or “thanks-giveing”) or even “thanks” in relation to the harvests of 1621 at Plymouth Colony. But there is talk of plenty of food, including that Thanksgiving specialty, the turkey:
And now begane to come in store of foule, as winter aproached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besids water foule, ther was great store of wild Turkies, of which they tooke many, besids venison, &c. Besids they had aboute a peck a meale a weeke to a person, or now since harvest, Indean corne to yt proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largly of their plenty hear to their freinds in England, which were not fained, but true reports.
Thank you. It’s Thanksgiving, a good day to say so.
What a great idea for a holiday — a thoroughly American one, unpretentious and unspoiled. Centered on family and friends, the day may be the most important of the year, something we all share, in no small part because it is when we count (and publicly acknowledge) our blessings.
First on the list?
The blessing of liberty, of course. The freedom to work and produce and to keep the fruits of your labor. In order to put food on the table (a LOT of GOOD food.)
And, because man does not live by bread alone, to do it your way, independently, by the sweat of your own brow and the work of your wits — not as any man’s slave, nor riding anyone’s back … including the taxpayer.
Thanksgiving thus serves to celebrate that quintessential American Dream: standing on one’s own two feet … with friends, family, and freedom.
I have a further reason to thank you, though, other than this date on the calendar.
And no, it’s not simply for reading Common Sense and allowing me to bring you heaping helpings of honest outrage, and resolve, stories of perseverance, commitment to principle, tales of “doing something about it,” offering a bit of humor, hopefully providing some good information and argumentative ammunition, a perspective on smart grassroots politics in this state or that, a lens on corrupt politicians and their latest schemes in a city or town all the way across the country.
I’m thanking you for something even more important.
Don’t get me wrong. Common Sense is important. I love riffing on the latest insanity, or success — especially presenting stories that can spur copy-cat campaigns, initiatives, legal actions and, in a word, ACTION.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all.
You and I: we’re the folks taking responsibility for the future of freedom. We’re committed to doing the hard work of political reform.
Right?
It ain’t easy. We need to support each other, learn from one another, and work together — even when we are many miles apart. We have to build a smarter, more united pro-liberty community.
That’s why I write Common Sense.
To communicate with you … and other important individuals. All of us hanging together — and not “hanging separately,” as old Ben Franklin once quipped — because our efforts are absolutely essential to protecting the values of freedom, responsibility and independence.
Friend, we pay our dues (and more) — for otherwise your children and grandchildren, and mine, will face a world without what we hold so dear.
I started Liberty Initiative Fund to help citizen activists place tax limits, term limits, criminal justice reforms, and other pro-liberty and anti-crony measures on state and local ballots. I also serve as president of Citizens in Charge Foundation, which protects our crucial ability to use the citizen initiative and referendum process to hold government accountable.
Thankfully, Citizens in Charge Foundation financially supports Common Sense, allowing my compatriots to make tax-deductible contributions to keep this communication network alive and kicking.
Of course, it all comes down to you. This program, this Common Sense network doesn’t exist without your caring and support.
You know, I adore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. As I know you do, too. But words on paper don’t keep us free unless there are people, like you and me, standing up for those words.
Stand with me again today and support Common Sense by joining Team 1776.
What’s “Team 1776”? It’s a group of folks like you who believe in the values of liberty and in building a network around those values through this communication vehicle. Members of Team 1776 care enough to provide our financial foundation by making a one-time gift of $1,776. Or they donate more. Or less. Whatever they can afford to give.
Many join Team 1776 with a monthly pledge of $17.76, which doesn’t hit the checkbook so hard (less than 60-cents a day), but adds up big-time for Common Sense — especially with more people stepping up to make that commitment.
Between today and the end of the year, I need to raise $30,000 to keep the Common Sense coming. I hope you have a great Thanksgiving Day and that you’ll claim this Common Sense program as one of your blessings.
Thanks for all you do and for your consideration now.
This is Common Sense. You make it possible. I’m Paul Jacob … and mighty grateful.
P.S. Your gift to Citizens in Charge Foundation for Common Sense is fully tax-deductible and 100 percent will go to the support and expansion of this program. Be part of Team 1776 by making a contribution or a monthly pledge today. Click here to make a donation by credit card. If you prefer to mail a check, please write “Team 1776” in the memo line.
P.P.S. My rough draft of this letter was titled, “Hey Comrades — Send Money!” I chuckled. My Web guy chuckled. But “comrades” is a commie word. We’re not even socialists, right? Sociable individualists, I like to think of us. Patriotic Americans. Compatriots. The word “compatriot” means both fellow countryman and colleague. And most of my readers (though certainly not all) are Americans like me, and almost all of you are colleagues (“comrades” without the bad connotations) in an important cause, a cause that must triumph. So this may be a better way to think of us: Compatriots for Freedom! Let’s make an impact … by saving civilization.
P.P.P.S. Thanks again. Happy Turkey Day!
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Happy Thanksgiving, 2014
And thank you for your continuing interest and support.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Tomorrow will be a day of Thanksgiving, a wonderfully unpretentious holiday in a terribly pretentious time.
Thanksgiving is a national celebration about simply having enough food to eat and about eating it together … and recognizing, at least for a moment, how great that is.
The “dining together” part is so important that enormous controversy has erupted in recent years as retailers jump the next day’s usual start of the Christmas season, “Black Friday,” by daring to open up on Thanksgiving Day itself. Many complain that stores are frustrating the feast by “forcing” their workers to work.
Last year, I made the point that families truly committed to eating a meal together could find a way to do so, and that workers are not “forced to work,” but actually enjoy a meaningful degree of freedom in when they work. And I remember being very grateful for the opportunity to earn a living by working on a holiday.
In fact, the abundance on our Thanksgiving tables every year is only possible through the freedom to work and produce and trade with each other. This American holiday is also about giving thanks for that freedom.
Freedom has, like it or not, led to long lines of eager customers waiting for those retail doors to open. I’m no big fan of shopping, but more power to those who are.
Still, freedom has also led to a full-throated public discussion — and backlash. A New York Post article credits social media with mobilizing public sentiment against stores opening on the holiday and causing some stores to roll back their hours.
Brian Rich runs Boycott Black Thursday, a Facebook page with over 100,000 likes. “We are not anti-capitalism,” says the Idahoan, who suggests shoppers spend to their hearts’ content on Friday, but celebrate “a good old-fashioned holiday at home” on Thursday.
I’m thankful stores can open if they wish and that customers have money to trade for products they want. And I’m mighty glad that we don’t have to shop if we don’t want to and that we can speak out freely against stores opening and in favor of folks spending more time with loved ones.
On Thursday, I’m grateful for all those in my family and my wife’s with whom I’ll get to break bread. On Friday, well, my youngest daughter will get me up way too early to take her shopping.
And, doggone it, as painful as it is: I’m thankful for that, too.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.