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Rush Limbaugh and the True Story of Thanksgiving

The story not taught in schools

By: CFPeterson (Diary)  |  November 26th, 2008 at 09:18 AM  | 

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From the diaries by Erick.

If you go out and do a Google search on “true story of thanksgiving” you will be inundated with articles of how the pilgrims made war and spread disease to the Indians. Well, that is true to history, but it has nothing to do with Thanksgiving. It occured in the years following the great gathering and we shouldn’t let it tarnish the glory of God’s bountiful blessing and peace among two different peoples that was celebrated that day (or three days as it were).

In my opinion the best True Story of Thanksgiving is the one Rush Limbaugh wrote in “See, I Told You So!” and reads annually on the day before the holiday (that’s today for those of you in Rio Linda). And this year I think the lessons learned need to be stressed, as in some ways we are repeating the errors.

The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share.

The pilgrims came to the new world to found an idealistic socialist utopia. But as with all socialism the ignorance of human nature and the lack of incentive to work harder than your neighbor led to misery.

Bradford wrote. ‘For this community [so far as it was] was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense…that was thought injustice.’

So Bradford let loose capitalism and let each man keep the fruits of his own labors to do as he pleases.

In no time, the Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves…. So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London.

Capitalism works and it works because it sets free people to do God’s work with the talents that He has given them, and the fair and proper value of his work is determined by the sacred meeting of the man’s desire to do the work and another man’s desire to pay for it.

Happy Thanksgiving and God bless.

Transcript of Rush’s reading: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1742553/posts

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  • izoneguy

    Nice diary.

    My wife’s side of the family are Mayflower Descendants.
    They are descendants from John Alden.
    They also belong to
    The Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of Texas

    On a plaque from “The Society of Mayflower Descendants in the State of Texas” in my son’s room it reads in part:

    “The purpose of the Society is to keep bright the memory
    of the Pilgrims; to cherish our heritage of Liberty and Freedom, for which they sacrificed so much; and to transmit those ideals to generations of the future.”

    That kind of says it all.

    Happy Thanksgiving

  • youthgrunt

    My quibble is that the Pilgrims keep getting passed off as those who had the first Thanksgiving. Even limiting it to only the English, those in Jamestown, VA were first and they keep getting ignored.

  • CFPeterson

    …in my English version anyway, whether 1/5 is an increase or decrease. I don’t know if we can assume which it is, but we can assume there was some collection before Joseph to feed the palace and soldiers, etc.

  • mcg

    From Rush:

    “Read the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Genesis 41. Following Joseph’s suggestion (Gen 41:34), Pharaoh reduced the tax on Egyptians to 20% during the ‘seven years of plenty’ and the ‘Earth brought forth in heaps.’ (Gen. 41:47)

    I’m not seeing any evidence in Scripture that this 20% collection was a reduction. Indeed, my assumption all along was that this was a new collection.

  • mcg

    To suggest that it is a reduction is to suggest that the ancient Egyptians knew about Laffer curve effects. The whole point of the passage is that the Egyptians needed to store more during the seven years of plenty so that they would be ready for the seven years of famine.

    I don’t think it can be credibly argued that Pharoah or Joseph was saying, “aha, we need to increase revenues, therefore we must reduce taxes” :-) At least, not without explicit mention in scripture. No, the increase in revenues came about because God brought about the seven years of plenty.

    I think it must be concluded that this was a new collection; a tax increase.

  • mcg

    (link) “It seems it was customary for Pharaoh to take 10% of the grain in Egypt as a tax. Essentially, Joseph doubled the taxes over the next seven years.” I don’t know where he came up with the 10% figure.

  • CFPeterson

    I found this after a quick search.

    http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/economy/taxation.htm

    Which supports your tax increase assumption, refuting Rush’s coment.

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  • mcg

    is that it was hardly necessary for Rush (or his source) to insert the tax reduction comment. I mean, let’s say for the sake of argument it was a tax increase, even a tax doubling. It’s still only 20%! Honestly, that’s not bad! If only we had a 20% flat tax!