Thanksgiving: The First and Essential American Holiday

Rich Terrell

Thanksgiving: The First and Essential American Holiday  "Many Americans -- Christian, Jewish and secular -- find Thanksgiving to be their favorite holiday of the year.  And for good reason beyond the joy of a feast.  Thanksgiving was the first holiday of the Pilgrim forefathers, who spoke of their voyage to the New World in terms of a flight from persecution to freedom, much like the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt to reach the Promised Land.

"Thanksgiving is the holiday that made the other American holidays possible.  Without the Pilgrims having courage, a quest for adventure, and a willingness to sacrifice and risk everything, and absolute faith in their cause and calling, they never would have embarked on the unseaworthy 94-foot Mayflower. Were it not for their dream and determination to find freedom of conscience and religion in the New World there may have never been a July 4th Independence Day or many of the other American holidays we take for granted and celebrate every year.

"After a harrowing passage across the Atlantic -- one that included wild pitching and broadside batterings by gale force winds and ferocious seas that caused the splitting of one of the ship’s main beams -- the Mayflower was blown off course from the intended destination of the established Virginia Colony to wilds of Cape Cod. The Pilgrims knew not where they were nor how to proceed, so they beseeched the Almighty for favor in a safe arrival and in establishing a new and independent settlement. 

"Now in sight of land after a frightening voyage and facing hunger from depleted provisions, some of the secular Mayflower passengers were clamoring for rebellion.  And so, under the direction of Pilgrim leaders William Brewster and William Bradford, the drafting of a governing agreement was undertaken to quell unrest and ensure the establishment of a unified settlement that would be acceptable to both their Christian brethren and the secular crewman and merchant adventurers who made up about half the 102 people aboard the Mayflower. That governing document, known as the Mayflower Compact was introduced “solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and one another,” and it was specifically referred to as a covenant. A covenant is an unbreakable agreement -- with precedents being made between God and towering figures of Jewish history -- such as Abraham, Noah, and Moses." . . . Full article

Scott Powell is a senior fellow at Discovery Institute and managing partner of RemingtonRand LLC. Three generations of his family lived in the Peabody Bradford House, built by a great grandson of Governor William Bradford in 1760 in Kingston, MA. Reach him at scottp@discovery.org. 

Happy Thanksgiving

Jared: The Birdbrain Of Alcatraz

In New York City alone, at least 10,000 people -- mostly minorities -- are not dead because Rudy Giuliani revived the idea of punishment for criminals, in lieu of understanding them.

Ann Coulter  "In the systematic dismantling of common sense in America, Jared Kushner's "sentencing reform" bill is the coup de grace — a Mack Truck hurtling down the highway about to take out thousands of Americans. The Idiot Army is already in place to fight and win this battle.

"Jared and the hip-hop artists currently advising him have decided that too many people are in prison. If you think you've heard this before, you have: Genius insights of this sort have preceded nearly every major crime wave this country has experienced, from Philadelphia to California to a bloody period known as "the Warren Court."

"As anyone with an amoeba's understanding of recent history knows, beginning in the early '60s, assorted heads-up-their-asses liberals jettisoned logic, common sense and a basic understanding of human nature by releasing criminals from the prisons where they belonged.

"Instead of punishing criminals, we would give them social services, education and job training -- with the implied understanding that they wouldn't move next door to any of the reformers. The experts assured a disbelieving public that these policies would reduce crime.

"As Thomas Sowell writes in The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy, the stage was set. Liberal criminologists' soft-on-crime policies were in place. We only needed empirical evidence.

"THE RESULTS: Crime rates skyrocketed. Murder rates suddenly shot up until the murder rate in 1974 was more than twice as high as in 1961. Between 1960 and 1976, a citizen's chances of becoming a victim of a major violent crime tripled."

"Prior to this period, crime had been declining for three decades.

"Thousands of Americans were murdered, raped, assaulted, disfigured and robbed as a direct result of the exact same policies that Jared and his assistant, Donald Trump, are trying to foist on the country right now.

"Then-Princeton professor John DiIulio Jr. looked at the consequences of a single order by a Carter-appointed judge, Norma Shapiro, that put a population cap on Philadelphia prisons in the 1990s. In an 18-month period between 1993 and 1994, 9,732 prisoners released as a result of Judge Shapiro's order were re-arrested for committing 79 murders, 90 rapes, 701 burglaries, 959 robberies, 1,113 assaults, 2,215 drug offenses and 2,748 thefts.

"It took more than a decade of Reagan and Bush judges, Republican mayors and governors, and the endless complaints of ordinary people to produce the low crime rates we have today. Their formula was: Do the precise opposite of whatever the ACLU, the Brennan Center for Justice and The New York Times recommend.

"In New York City alone, at least 10,000 people -- mostly minorities -- are not dead because Rudy Giuliani revived the idea of punishment for criminals, in lieu of understanding them.

"Progressive young hipsters living in Brooklyn today have no concept that their trendy neighborhoods would be uninhabitable war zones but for Mayor Giuliani. If you don't have order and safety in big cities, you can't have anything else.

"In 1991 the U.S. murder rate was well over twice what it is today. " . . .