Excuse Me: The Pilgrims Were Not Like ISIS

On Thanksgiving Day, a notoriously progressive newspaper, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, ran an editorial that outrageously likened the iconic Pilgrims to ISIS. The anonymous author(s) claimed that their suggested revised narrative of the origin story of the American people …

at least the immigrant population that over 400 years has come to dominance

… is truthful, citing as their source a television program on the also notoriously progressive PBS.

Who Wants Income Equality? Do You?

While arguing for a large increase in the minimum wage, Barack Obama recently said:

Across the developed world, inequality has increased. … But this increasing inequality is most pronounced in our country, and it challenges the very essence of who we are as a people. …

Obama called this perceived need to address the allegedly growing income inequality as the

defining challenge of our time.

We know Obama only too well, and so we also know that the challenge, in Obama’s reasoning, is how to impose communism, redistribution, and income equality on nearly everyone in the USA (with the elite like himself excepted).

Thanksgiving Lessons

Following are excerpts from A Thanksgiving Lesson, by Chip Wood: [emphasis added to quotes]

Did you know that our Pilgrim forefathers tried communism when they first landed at Plymouth Rock? …

The Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were incredibly brave and hardy souls. They were motivated by the noblest of virtues. They vowed, each and every one, to be as selfless as possible—to always put the needs of the group first. They agreed to own everything in common and to share everything equally.

And their naïve piety almost killed the entire colony. …

A Thanksgiving Lesson

(Open Thread)

November 20, 2009
by Chip Wood

Did you know that our Pilgrim forefathers tried communism when they first landed at Plymouth Rock?

How’s that for a dramatic beginning to a story? Years ago, when I used to give a lot of talks to high school classes, this was one of my favorites. It always got the students’ attention. And I have to admit, I also enjoyed seeing some liberal teachers get so upset with me they almost lost their lunches.

Here’s the story I told those students in those long-ago presentations.

The Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were incredibly brave and hardy souls. They were motivated by the noblest of virtues. They vowed, each and every one, to be as selfless as possible—to always put the needs of the group first. They agreed to own everything in common and to share everything equally.

And their naïve piety almost killed the entire colony.

We all know how the adventure begins. A group of devout Christians, seeking religious freedom for themselves and eager to “advance the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ” in the New World, sets sail from Plymouth, England in 1620. An investment consortium known as the Merchant Adventurers of London paid the expenses for the trip, including chartering the Mayflower and its 40-man crew.

The deal was simple: The Pilgrims agreed to establish a colony in northern Virginia where they would plant crops, fish the waters and hunt in the forests. They would return a certain percentage of each year’s bounty to London until their debt had been repaid.