THE NEW ENLIGHTENMENT

Thanksgiving Is Not A Religious Myth

Over on Sixth Column, Cubed has published "The Real First Thanksgiving."  It is an inspiring story.

The following story tells the "rest of the story" from the Jamestown colonial celebration which always gets misrepresented as religious myth solely.

The Jamestown colony was early socialism and communism in practice.  All for one and one for all.  Everybody worked and put into the common pool what he produced, and he was entitled to one share of whatever there was.  All incentive dropped out, and production bottomed out to a low level.  This was long before the terms of "socialism" were coined, but socialism it was, and it had exactly the same effect as every other form of socialism ever tried subsequent to 1620.

Ingeniously, Captain Bradford deduced what was causing the pitiful production.  On his own, he gave every colonist his own piece of land, free from restrictions including taxes.  Whatever the colonist produced, he could use and dispose of as he saw fit.

In short order, these private plots were producing far more than the owners could use, and, in fact, more than the colony itself could use.  The colonists set up trading posts with the indians and shipped stuff home.  They paid off their English debts.  And, they joined with the indians to celebrate their bounty with the gigantic feast we now call "Thanksgiving."  No doubt they excessively thanked God, but God had nothing to do with any of it.

This is the first feast of the bounty of capitalism, another term not yet coined.

As a postscript, Mao in Red China tried the same thing with Chinese peasants and got exactly the same results.  Just that tiny relief from the shackles of the state allowed the rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness exercised on those tiny plots outproduced all of the collective farm system.  As I recall, it embarrassed the commies, so they got rid of it.

Isolationism or Standing Up for Our Interests?

In the 1930s, America was accused of "isolationism."  Following the great advice given by President Washington, our nation sought to stay out of "foreign entanglements."  The interventionists won, and we got up to our eyeballs in the blood of World War II.

Since then, liberals, mostly, have rethrown the accusation of impending isolationism at the USA every time we do not want to get involved in foreign entanglements.  Thus, we have Greece, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Beirut, Somalia, Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq.  We have done badly in all but Greece and Grenada.  Now, of course, the new cry is for "Darfur."  Those issuing such cries truly believe that we are Christ Savior to the entire globe and are meant to suffer at the hands of U.N. philistenes, the E.U., etc.  It is always ours to give and theirs (whomever, but not us) to receive.

The television psychologist, Dr. Phil McGraw, stresses how each of us teaches other people how to treat us, and this applies to nations as well.  Our interventionism since World War II has created all sorts of Frankenstein's Monsters, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Dr. Thomas Sowell recently wrote about one aspect of this, and it is a subject near and dear to us.

CHILLING ALERT TO READERS!

The following email came in this morning from Jewish World Review.  We here had no idea of what is happening.

We must remain alert and act to stop this effort to wipe out the First Amendment.  We will publish any information that comes to us.

Dearest readers:

Bet you are wondering why today's daily update is being sent in this form --- text, not html. I know that I would be.

(For those who don't won't to know about a VERY troubling move that will shortly be imposing itself on your Internet reading habits, PLEASE access today's issue via our Front Page: http://JewishWorldReview.com).

For the last couple of weeks, I've been receiving notes from readers asking why I stopped sending them the daily update. Some were gracious, apologizing for any unintended slight. Others downright obnoxious, questioning if I was taking revenge for sending a nasty note to a writer.  I told each that I value my readers -- REALLY value them! -- and, rest assured, I ENCOURAGE readers to spread the word and seek new readers. I certainly don't stop subscriptions.

But everyday more and more notes kept coming in.

Yesterday, I tried mailing out the newsletter in its normal form. But the master copy, though sent, was not arriving at the majordomo database. My hosting company assured me it was not their fault. In fact, it wasn't.

I use a company that's a rather large Internet provider in the NY metro area. After keeping me on the phone "troubleshooting" for an hour, they finally concluded that I was -- gasp! - a spammer. How did they arrive at this absurd conclusion? Because I send html e-mails that are a combination of text, links and pictures.

So what does have to do with you? A lot, actually.

In addition to notes from readers, I've been receiving letters from
owners of other likeminded sites.  They wanted to know if JWR's
newsletters are also being blocked. They suspected a conspiracy to silence those who share our values. What I found out from my company, was that within a short time, YOUR Internet company will be blocking YOU from receiving ALL html newsletters.

YOU will no longer be able to choose what you want to read! Re-read that statement!

If you have not received the JWR newsletter in a while and are receiving it now, it's because this is all text.  YOUR company that YOU pay money to decided that you shouldn't be reading JWR. And MY company, as of yesterday, won't allow me to send you an html newsletter. (I'm aggressively seeking a "workaround".)

What's worse, my company rep told me yesterday, this policy will be spreading to ALL of the major Internet providers, starting with AOL.

They are doing this, they defend themselves, because of spam. (Most spammers use html e-mails)  They are doing this to HELP you, you see. And YOU will have no choice in the matter.

I'm alerting you of this, because if your newsletter stops arriving,
it's NOT because we didn't send it. The same is true of other sites.

In case that happens, PLEASE go to our front page: 
http://JewishWorldReview.com/
I REALLY VALUE YOUR READERSHIP!

But ALSO let your Internet company know that you think this new
"standard" is impacting your reading habits and is WRONG!

*******

Today's issue has it all: Inspiration, humor, controversy and just plain
smart writing. PLEASE access it at http://JewishWorldReview.com/ --- and
don't forget our sister site, http://PoliticalMavens.com/, which is
updated throughout the day and only SOME of the postings are linked in
the daily newsletter and on our front page.

With wishes for a GREAT Shabbes/Weekend and in gratitude and friendship,
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky,
Editor in Chief

Before You Vote ...

This article is directed mostly to those who have yet to vote for the mid-term election, scheduled 7 November 2006.  In a wider sense, it is directed also to those who should vote in 2008.

Over today and Monday, read the article "The Decline and Fall of American Conservatism" by C. Bradley Thompson in The Objective Standard journal.  The article is freely available to all.

The journal's synoptic description reads: 

"Examines today’s putatively splintered conservative movement, zeros in on the essence of its two dominant factions, and shows the movement to be only superficially split while fundamentally unified—and stultified—by the conservatives’ universal acceptance of a morality that is antithetical to liberty."

This article we recommend to you particularly if you regard yourself as any of the following:

• Republican
• conservative
• On the Right or favoring the Right
• Constitutionalist
• Pro-freedom
• Right winger
• any similar term

The article is long, but is smooth reading and electrifying in what it will teach you.  No one can afford to be without this intellectual ammunition--our future depends on it.