We take the rest of the day off to be with family and friends. But, please do take some time to look over our past work in the archives. In the meantime, God bless you and have a Happy Thanksgiving and see you tomorrow. And we are thankful for your readership.
President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation:
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
Continue reading “
Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation”
One of America’s earliest, religious documents, the Mayflower Compact was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony. It was written by the Separatists, also known as the “Saints”, fleeing from religious persecution by King James of Great Britain. They traveled aboard the Mayflower in 1620 along with adventurers, tradesmen, and servants, most of whom were referred to as “Strangers.”
The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard ship on November 11, 1620 by most adult men (but not by most crew and adult male servants). The Pilgrims used the Julian Calendar, also known as Old Style dates, which, at that time, was ten days behind the Gregorian Calendar. Signing the covenant were 41 of the ship’s 101 passengers, while the Mayflower was anchored in what is now Provincetown Harbor within the hook at the northern tip of Cape Cod.
It is interesting to note that even as they were fleeing religious persecution, they still felt they were Englishmen and wrote their compact as Englishmen.
Here is the text of the compact as seen in William Bradford’s History Of Plymouth Plantation as written in William Bradford’s History Of Plymouth Plantation:
(Spelling and punctuation modernized)
In the name of God Amen· We whose names are underwritten, the loyal subjects of our dread sovereign Lord King James by the grace of God, of great Britain, France, & Ireland king, defender of the faith, &c
Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith & honor of our king and country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia· do by these presents solemnly & mutually in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant, & combine our souls together into a civill body politic; for the our better ordering, & preservation & furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and frame such just & equal laws, ordinances, Acts, constitutions, & offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most mete & convenient for the general good of the colony into which we promise all due submission and obedience. In witness whereof we have here under subscribed our names at Cape Cod the ·11· of November, in the year of the reign of our sovereign Lord King James of England, France, & Ireland the eighteenth and of Scotland the fifty fourth. Ano: Dom 1620
SIGNERS:
| John Carver | Edward Tilley | Degory Priest |
| William Bradford | John Tilley | Thomas Williams |
| Edward Winslow | Francis Cooke | Gilbert Winslow |
| William Brewster | Thomas Rogers | Edmund Margesson |
| Isaac Allerton | Thomas Tinker | Peter Brown |
| Myles Standish | John Rigsdale | Richard Britteridge |
| John Alden | Edward Fuller | George Soule |
| Samuel Fuller | John Turner | Richard Clarke |
| Christopher Martin | Francis Eaton | Richard Gardinar |
| William Mullins | James Chilton | John Allerton |
| William White | John Crackstone | Thomas English |
| Richard Warren | John Billington | Edward Doty |
| John Howland | Moses Fletcher | Edward Leister |
| Stephen Hopkins | John Goodman |
(As compiled HERE)
The Mayflower Compact was signed on 11 November 1620 on board the Mayflower, which was at anchor in Provincetown Harbor. The document was drawn up in response to “mutinous speeches” that had come about because the Pilgrims had intended to settle in Northern Virginia, but the decision was made after arrival to instead settle in New England. Since there was no government in place, some felt they had no legal obligation to remain within the colony and supply their labor. The Mayflower Compact attempted to temporarily establish that government until a more official one could be drawn up in England that would give them the right to self-govern themselves in New England.
In a way, this was the first American Constitution, though the Compact in practical terms had little influence on subsequent American documents. John Quincy Adams, a descendant of Mayflower passenger John Alden, does call the Mayflower Compact the foundation of the U.S. Constitution in a speech given in 1802, but this was in principle more than in substance. In reality, the Mayflower Compact was superseded in authority by the 1621 Peirce Patent, which not only gave the Pilgrims the right to self-government at Plymouth, but had the significant advantage of being authorized by the King of England.
The Mayflower Compact was first published in 1622. William Bradford wrote a copy of the Mayflower Compact down in his History Of Plymouth Plantation which he wrote from 1630-1654, and that is the version given above. Neither version gave the names of the signers. Nathaniel Morton in his New England’s Memorial, published in 1669, was the first to record and publish the names of the signers, and Thomas Prince in his Chronological History of New England in the form of Annals (1736) recorded the signers names as well, as did Thomas Hutchinson in 1767. It is unknown whether the later two authors had access to the original document, or whether they were simply copying Nathaniel Morton’s list of signers.
The original Mayflower Compact has never been found, and is assumed destroyed. Thomas Prince may have had access to the original in 1736, and possibly Thomas Hutchinson did in 1767. If it indeed survived, it was likely a victim of Revolutionary War looting, along with other such Pilgrim valuables as Bradford’s now lost Register of Births and Deaths, his partially recovered Letterbook, and his entirely recovered History Of Plymouth Plantation.
The term “Mayflower Compact” was not assigned to this document until 1793, when for the first time it is called the Compact in Alden Bradford’s A Topographical Description of Duxborough, in the County of Plymouth. Previously it had been called “an association and agreement” (William Bradford), “combination” (Plymouth Colony Records), “solemn contract” (Thomas Prince, 1738), and “the covenant” (Rev. Charles Turner, 1774).
-By Warner Todd Huston
The U.S.Post Office Holiday Stamps Flier
A new print ad for the U.S. Post office reminding customers about its wonderful new holiday stamps seems to be missing the “Christmas” part of the holidays. The ad features a Hanukkah menorah stamp, a Kwanzaa stamp and that wonderful standby Christian stamp… the gingerbread house. Yes, the Post Office just excluded Christmas in its ad.
The advertisement is a mailer sent to American’s homes to remind them of the holiday stamps offered by the U.S. Post Office.
As is clearly seen, the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah is celebrated by a stamp. So is the fake African American “holiday,” Kwanzaa. But instead of Christmas being celebrated, we get a gingerbread house. Where is Christmas?
As the wags at Twitchy noted, “One of these USPS holiday stamps is not like the others.”
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U.S. Post Office Celebrates Kwanzaa and Hanukkah… but NOT Christmas”
-By Warner Todd Huston
America is a singularly different nation where it concerns our military veterans. We love them. We even have a national holiday to honor them. This is not so in most of the rest of the world. Elsewhere military veterans are not so loved as they are here.
Is that because the United States is the Sparta of the world, loving war more than anything else? Hardly. In fact its because our soldiers bring peace wherever they go, not perpetual war.
In other countries, soldiers are usually the dregs of society, living off the people while at the same time lording over them with machine guns and violence.
In other countries the military is feared by both the people and the government because all too often the army is used to take power and steal away the government for its own aggrandizement. There is no accident that the word “coup” is one rarely spoken in the USA unless when viewing foreign news.
So, not in America. In the USA we respect our soldiers because they respect us as much as they respect the law.
When an American sees a soldier an American will feel pride, not fear. When an American hears that a fellow is a veteran, an American thanks that fellow for his service.
In other countries when people see soldiers they fear them, they loathe them. In other countries they don’t want to sit near soldiers on public transportation, they avoid eye contact. Here we shake their hand and ask if they need anything.
So, from us to you, our dear military veterans, we thank you. We thank you for putting your lives on hold while serving us, while making sure we are safe and able to go about our business unafraid of danger, and for putting your own safety at risk.
Happy Veterans Day to you all.
Continue reading “
Happy Veterans Day, 2013: Why OUR Veterans Are Different”
-By Warner Todd Huston
An inscription on a WWII monument in Kohima, India fittingly describes the sacrifices that our soldiers make with their service to our nation. And on this Veterans Day it is also fitting to focus on it. The Inscription says:
“When You Go Home, Tell Them Of Us And Say, For Their Tomorrow, We Gave Our Today.”
What could be a more fitting tribute to the sacrifices made by our fallen loved ones, comrades, and servants? They gave their last full measure so we could enjoy the freedoms we are so fortunate to have today. They gave their lives for our benefit in the truest definition of sacrifice.
This memorial commemorates the Allied dead that faced the Japanese 15th Army upon its invasion of India in March of 1944. The invasion was beaten back by June of the same year through the sacrifice of these Allied troops.
The words are attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds (1875 -1958), an English Classicist who in 1916 added them to a collection of 12 epitaphs to commemorate World War One. Adding the inscription to the Kohima monument was a suggestion by Major John Etty-Leal, the GSO II of the 2nd Division who was a classical scholar in civilian life.
The verse is thought to have been inspired by the Greek lyric poet Simonides of Ceos (556-468 BC) who wrote after the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC: “Go tell the Spartans, thou that passest by, That faithful to their precepts here we lie.”
And now we too can recall this verse etched into a stone in a far away and foreign land as a perfect tribute to our fallen as well as for those who gave service to their fellows by wearing the uniform of our armed forces.
So, thank you all. We appreciate your sacrifice. And happy Veterans Day.
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A Fitting Memorial to Veterans on a WWII Monument in India”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 237 years of existence as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from our Mother nation, England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “July Fourth” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth.” We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsure steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator has given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man can tax away from us, rights no man can legitimately take by force.
Contrary to the God averse America we have stumbled into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
The fact is the Founders did not want a nation free from religion (there is no such founding principle as a “wall of separation” as many think of it today, but that is another story for another day). This is not a Godless nation, but a nation based on Christian ideals.
Secondly, the Declaration of Independence is also a list of the wrongs and slights that England perpetrated against us. In the list of crimes against us that the English Crown and Parliament perpetrated against us is detailed many of the rights that free men must enjoy to truly be free men. This list of slights is not just stuffy old history but are timeless principles which should guide all men even today.
And lastly, to that “all men” point just noted. Our Founders did not write a Declaration that only pertained to their situation in their focused pint in history. Instead they wrote a document to inspire every people to take up freedom and liberty as their own. The Declaration of Independence is not just a document for America. It is one that should inspire all men everywhere to throw off the shackles of government-imposed slavery. It is a document that is not just for the nascent American people, but one that insists, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Declaration of Independence is for humanity. Not just America.
And so that is also our charge. Freedom is a cause for all men, not just Americans. The United States should not shrink from the charge to aid and encourage freedom and liberty for all men.
Please take a minute to read the entire Declaration below and re-famliarize yourself with our founding ideals.
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237 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”
If you are not redirected automatically, follow this link to the 2014 Fathers Day message
As we take the day off to celebrate Memorial Day, we wish you and your family a great day.
Other Memorial Day Posts
-By Warner Todd Huston
To honor our troops for this year, I am going to share this story about their mettle. What follows are excerpts from remarks by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Kelly made to the Semper Fi Society of St. Louis on November 13, 2010. While leading his platoon on a combat patrol, Kelly’s son, Marine 1st Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, had been killed in action four days earlier in Sangin, in southern Afghanistan. Lt. Kelly was only 29-years-old.
Giving Thanks for Our Warriors
“Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths… No, they are not victims but are warriors, your warriors, and warriors are never victims regardless of how and where they fall. Death, or fear of death, has no power over them. Their paths are paved by sacrifice, sacrifices they gladly make… for you….
“Two years ago when I was the commander of all U.S. and Iraqi forces, in fact, the 22nd of April 2008, two Marine infantry battalions, 1/9 ‘The Walking Dead,’ and 2/8 were switching out in Ramadi… Two Marines, Corporal Jonathan Yale and Lance Corporal Jordan Haerter, 22 and 20 years old respectively, one from each battalion, were assuming the watch together at the entrance gate of an outpost that contained a makeshift barracks housing 50 Marines… Yale was a dirt poor mixed-race kid from Virginia with a wife and daughter, and a mother and sister who lived with him and he supported as well. He did this on a yearly salary of less than $23,000. Haerter, on the other hand, was a middle-class white kid from Long Island. They were from two completely different worlds… But they were Marines, combat Marines, forged in the same crucible of Marine training, and because of this bond they were brothers as close, or closer, than if they were born of the same woman.
Continue reading “
THIS Is What American Troops Are Made Of…”
-By Warner Todd Huston
A few years after the Civil War as the nation started upon its long road toward reconciliation, rebuilding, and healing the wife of one of the war’s union generals noticed the touching devotion of Confederate widows, wives and their children as each year they came together to place flowers and little flags at the graves of their fallen. Mary Simmerson Cunningham Logan was so moved by the devotion she witnessed that she urged her husband, Illinois General John A. “Blackjack” Logan, to look into creating what was to become Memorial Day.
General Logan was a Senator from Illinois and eventually became a candidate for Vice President on the 1884 Republican ticket, losing to Grover Cleveland and another Illinoisan, Vice President Adlai Stevenson. But before all that Logan was instrumental in creating Decoration Day, the celebration of the nation’s war dead that eventually became Memorial Day.
The following is the general order that Logan issued in 1868.
HEADQUARTERS GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC
General Orders No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
The Birth of Memorial Day”
-By Warner Todd Huston
This year, March 31 is Easter Day, the day that American Christians celebrate Jesus Christ having risen from the tomb to join his Father in Heaven. But instead of hosting a doodle celebrating that sacred holiday, this March 31, Google is celebrating the birth of famed union activist Cesar Chavez.
Cesar Chavez was born on March 31, 1927 and is most well known for organizing south western farm workers into unions in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In 1962, Chavez co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) with fellow activist Dolores Huerta. By 1972, the NFWA had merged with another union to become the United Farm Workers union (UFW).
Under Chavez, the UFW constantly used violence, threats, and strong arm tactics to coerce workers into joining the union and the FBI often investigated Chavez for ties to the Communist Party.
So on this March 31, Google has chosen to celebrate the life of a union activist instead of the Risen Christ with its “doodle.”
A Google “doodle” is a cartoon graphic celebrating a day of historical interest. The doodle is placed on the search engine’s main landing page just above the search field. Doodles are often whimsical and animated.
Google’s most recent doodles include Bangladesh Independence Day, Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro’s 167th Birthday (Portugal), Persian New Year, St. Patrick’s Day, Hungary National Day, Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky’s 150th Birthday, and Women’s Day.
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On Easter, Google Doodle Celebrates Union Leader Cesar Chavez”
If you are not redirected automatically, follow this link to the 2014 Easter Day message
As we take the day off to be with our families, we here at Publius Forum wish you and yours a very happy Easter Sunday.
6 “He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”
—Matthew 28: 6-10 NIV
Thanks for making 2012 a great year for Publius Forum. I am looking forward to serving you in 2013 and beyond.
2012 saw me get more involved than ever with the Breitbart Group, of course. I was sort of in the running to become more involved just before Andrew passed from a heart attack in March (in fact, I had seen Andrew only a few weeks previous at CPAC). Not long after he passed we settled on terms and I was able to take a larger role at Breitbart.com. It looks like this new year will deepen that relationship further.
In fact, there is an outside possibility that my work at Breitbart might interfere with this website — both contractually and time-wise.
In any case, I hope you and yours had a great — and safe — New Years Eve night and we wish you a Happy New Year.
Warner Todd Huston
Owner and editor of www.PubliusForum.com
-By Warner Todd Huston
Merry Christmas, 2012
“And unto you a child is born.” With that promise Earth was given the promise of a light unto all men, a light that will lead us to our salvation if only we choose to accept that path.
Even if you are not a Christian, even if you’re not especially religious, if you claim another religion or none at all, the path that Christ walked when he was born into this world is a path from which we all can all learn. It is one worthy of study and acceptance even if only as an example of a way to live. Christ’s path is, indeed, a philosophy worthy of consideration for it is one based on service to your fellows, love for all, and a suppression of one’s selfishness in order to pursue a higher calling.
What could be a better path, even for the non-religious?
So, as we celebrate this Christmas Day, the day meant to memorialize the birth of Christ, and as we head into 2013 let us all strive to work harder to be of service to our fellows. Let us engage in those random acts of kindness that makes everyone’s lives so much more fulfilling — not to mention easier. Let us remember to say thanks to those who have done something for us and let us offer our own works for others without expecting immediate repayment.
Let’s try and leave this place a bit better off than when we came in.
I want to thank each and every one of you for having been such wonderfully loyal readers and for you folks that have only been recent visitors, may you find a home here for the upcoming days. We hope to give you a Christmas gift that never stops giving here at Publius Forum.
May God Bless you all and enjoy the day with your family and friends.
Merry Christmas and, if you don’t visit again before the end of the year, may you have a Happy New Year
Yours,
Warner Todd Huston
Publisher, PubliusForum.com
-By Warner Todd Huston
Alright, kids, NORAD is once again tracking Santa’s progress across the world this Christmas season. If you kiddies want to find out where Santa is right this very minute, have mom and dad help you dial 1-877-446-6723 or visit NORAD’s Santa tracking website: http://www.noradsanta.org/en/.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) has been tracking Santa since 1955, and it all started by accident.
It is sort of a cute story, really, but what started NORAD’s Santa tracking effort was a 1955 Sears department store advertisement from Colorado Springs — where NORAD is based — that informed kids that they could call Santa on the phone. Unfortunately for the Sears promotion, the newspaper printed the wrong phone number and by sheer accident that number happened to take callers to the military installation’s switch board.
When dozens of calls from little kids started coming into what was then called the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Center, the officer in command, Colonel Harry Shoup, told his operators to go ahead and tell kids what they wanted to hear. He also ordered to tell kids that they were tracking Santa across the world with their radar installation.
Colonel Shoup passed away in 2009 and upon his passing NORAD created a little video of the good Colonel reciting that first Santa phone call.
Today, NORAD enlists the aid of volunteers to staff the phones and operate the website (http://www.noradsanta.org/en/) to handle the thousands of requests from the kids.
NORAD: The Story of Tracking Santa Klaus”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Every year I post a piece on the troubled truth about Kwanzaa. This year will be no exception. Note that some of the newspaper articles I quote are several years old and may no longer be online.
Kwanzaa, the purported “African” holiday celebrated only in the United States, is the ultimate politically correct holiday. It is little observed, even by our African American community, of course, but those that do celebrate it are wholly unaware that the faux holiday was created by a man with a very troubled past. For Kwanzaa’s creator, Maulana Karenga, has a violent criminal record, is a racist, and even a rapist.
Each year, with the onset of Christmas, we are treated to another gauzy, fluff piece about how great Kwanzaa is by yet another PC spewing columnist. This year, among many others, we find aggrandizement such as that in The Telegraph from Macon, Georgia with, “Annual Kwanzaa celebrations highlight arts, community and history,” and the Dallas Morning News with its titled,”Look forward to Kwanzaa celebrations with storytelling, music and more.” We even find such helpful sites as TeacherPlanet.com’s, “Kwanzaa Resources for Teachers.” Yes, the world is filled with celebratory lionization of Kwanzaa.
Several years ago, the Houston Chronicle got in the act with a piece by Leslie Casimir titled “Learning about Kwanzaa from the holiday’s creator.” This one, though, was a bit off the usual track of the how-great-is-Kwanzaa theme because this particular piece celebrated the inventor of the faux holiday, Maulana Karenga, himself. So, instead of merely celebrating the manufactured holiday, Casimir amazingly made a hero of the rapist, race monger and violent thug who created it! To Casimir, Kwanzaa creator “Maulana Karenga” was a hero.
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The Kwanzaa Con: A Fake Holiday Created by a Rapist and Torturer”
-By Warner Todd Huston
You can’t even eat turkey on Thanksgiving without being called a racist by our friends on the extreme left side of the aisle in America today, especially if you prefer the white meat over the dark.
Just before Thanksgiving last week, the liberal site Slate dredged up a 2010 piece claiming that the reason Americans love the white meat on a turkey is because we are all racists.
The rant written by Ron Rosenbaum is a great example of all that is wrong with the race baiting left in America these days. It is a sad example that literally everything under the sun is just another excuse for the far left to cry racism.
But before Rosenbaum goes into how turkey meat is racist, he prefaced his turkey talk with a digression on white bread, that one-time most favorite American sandwich bread. Rosenbaum says that white bread was once “regarded as the peak of social refinement by the new middle class.”
White bread fell from grace, Rosenbaum says, because “white bread” itself became an epithet — as in “that is so white bread” — and because nutritionists decided it was not a healthy food choice.
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Slate: If You Like The White Turkey Meat, You Are A Racist”
-By Warner Todd Huston
It’s become a tradition on every holiday that somewhere in the country a taxpayer supported university professor will come forth to trash one of our American traditions and this holiday season we were treated to a claim that Thanksgiving is really just a celebration of “genocide” created by “Nazis.”
A long-time, extreme left-winger named Robert Jensen, a taxpayer supported journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, felt Thanksgiving eve was the perfect time to unleash his latest anti-American screed on the radical website Alternet. Titled “No Thanks for Thanksgiving,” Jensen claimed that this most gentle of holidays is really nothing but a celebration of genocide sponsored by Americans who are little different than Nazis.
To Jensen, Thanksgiving isn’t a day to give thanks for what we have, it isn’t a spiritual day to reflect on one’s good fortune, it is instead a “white-supremacist holiday” that would be better spent in a “day of mourning” for the “genocide” evil whites perpetrated against America’s native people.
Continue reading “
University Prof: Thanksgiving is a Nazi Holiday”
We take the rest of the day off to be with family and friends. But, please do take some time to look over our past work in the archives. In the meantime, God bless you and have a Happy Thanksgiving and see you tomorrow. And we are thankful for your readership.
-By Warner Todd Huston
Like most conservatives, I felt Election Day was the end of the United States of America. I am not convinced going forward that it isn’t, either. But on this day of giving thanks for what we do have, it would be a mistake not to be grateful for the things with which we have, in our good fortune, been blessed. There are things that we should and must be thankful for.
What are those things? What should we be thankful for? Well, certainly there are all manner of things we should be thankful for as individuals. Our loved ones, friends, perhaps our health and good fortunes. But, as a nation, there are many things to be thankful for, even if those things seem fleeting. Granted, there are many things other than what I list below that we should be thankful for. I have no intention of claiming this list is comprehensive.
So, first and foremost, as a nation we should be thankful for our founders’ vision of a nation created on the premise of self-government, freedom and liberty.
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What We Are Thankful For”
President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation:
The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.
Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.
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Abraham Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation”
-By Lawrence W. Reed
“The worst crime against working people,” so said Samuel Gompers, “is a company which fails to operate at a profit.”
Gompers, of course, is known by the history books as the father of the labor union movement in America. He was founder of the American Federation of Labor. It may seem incongruous for such an important labor figure to say such a thing about profit, but Gompers appreciated something back then that perhaps a few of today’s labor leaders don’t. An economy without profit is an economy in deep, deep depression.
Profit and the self-interest motive behind it were under relentless attack not so long ago. The radicalism of the 1960s was dead set against them, laying most of society’s ills at the feet of greedy, profit-hungry and selfish capitalists. Anti-profit sentiment was even more popular in Europe and Africa, where it helped boost the socialist agenda and a wave of nationalizations.
In more recent years, however, a better understanding of profit has taken hold in surprising places. Communist China started implementing it in the late 1970s as an incentive for moribund state industries and previously prohibited private enterprise. And in my files is an English translation of an article that appeared in a most unlikely place. Here’s a key excerpt:
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There’d Be No Thanksgiving Without the Profit Motive”
-By Warner Todd Huston
Today America enjoys the celebration of 236 years of existence as a nation by noting the day we declared our independence from our Mother nation, England. Sadly, that celebration has, for too many, become the “July Fourth” holiday, a day of picnics, rote parades, “white sales,” and for some a day off work. Of course, we should not and don’t celebrate any “July Fourth.” We celebrate Independence Day, the day we formally separated from our parent nation and took those first unsure steps into the world as a nation of our own.
So, what is this Independence Day all about? Well, for one thing we celebrate the gifts that our Creator have given us. That’s right, our Founding Fathers started this nation celebrating the gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and those natural rights given to us by God, rights that no man can tax away from us, rights no man can legitimately take by force.
Contrary to the God averse America we have stumbled into, the Declaration mentions God, the Creator, or the divine multiple times and the Founders rested their entire claim of liberty and freedom on the claim that no government can legitimately take away the natural rights that mankind should and must enjoy.
The fact is the Founders did not want a nation free from religion (there is no such founding principle as a “wall of separation” as many think of it today, but that is another story for another day). This is not a Godless nation, but a nation based on Christian ideals.
Secondly, the Declaration of Independence is also a list of the wrongs and slights that England perpetrated against us. In the list of crimes against us that the English Crown and Parliament perpetrated against us is detailed many of the rights that free men must enjoy to truly be free men. This list of slights is not just stuffy old history but are timeless principles which should guide all men even today.
And lastly, to that “all men” point just noted. Our Founders did not write a Declaration that only pertained to their situation in their focused pint in history. Instead they wrote a document to inspire every people to take up freedom and liberty as their own. The Declaration of Independence is not just a document for America. It is one that should inspire all men everywhere to throw off the shackles of government imposed slavery. It is a document that is not just for the nascent American people, but one that insists, “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Declaration of Independence is for humanity. Not just America.
And so that is also our charge. Freedom is a cause for all men, not just Americans. The United States should not shrink from the charge to aid and encourage freedom and liberty for all men.
Please take a minute to read the entire Declaration below and re-famliarize yourself with our founding ideals.
Continue reading “
236 Independence Days and Counting, But What Does it all Mean?”
Veterans understand that they must bring that knowledge and that perspective to bear in a much wider fight, one that will require a commitment, focus, and sustained effort unlike any seen previously. They must carry with on the same mission they accepted while in uniform — defending freedom.
Video courtesy of Concerned Veterans for America.
Mitt Romney’s message for the day…
“It’s time for us to come together and to carry our message across this country, we’re restoring those principles that made America the great nation that it is …. We’re going to keep America strong, and worthy of the great sacrifice of America’s veterans and those young men and women who put their lives on the line for us even today.”
As we take the day off to celebrate Memorial Day, we wish you and your family a great day.
-By Warner Todd Huston
After a morning in remembrance of our fallen troops and an afternoon firing up the gas grill to burn up a mess of burgers, hot dogs, and brats for my family as we observe what has become a traditional American Memorial day meal (Some of us in my household are working tomorrow, so we had our meal today), I find that MSNBC is observing this holiday in true liberal* fashion: denigrating our troops.
True to that liberal penchant of discounting the brave men and women that serve in our nation’s armed forces, I introduce to you a lowly personage named Chris Hayes, a left-wing MSNBC host whose show “Up” airs on the weekend.
This weekend Hayes felt compelled to warn everyone that calling our troops “heroes” is something that should make us all “uncomfortable.”
In an inordinately inarticulate way, here is what he said about our troops this weekend:
Thinking today and observing Memorial Day, that’ll be happening tomorrow. Just talked with Lt. Col. Steve Burke [sic, actually Beck], who was a casualty officer with the Marines and had to tell people [inaudible]. Um, I, I, ah, back sorry, um, I think it’s interesting because I think it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the words “heroes.” Um, and, ah, ah, why do I feel so comfortable [sic] about the word “hero”? I feel comfortable, ah, uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war. Um, and, I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism: hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that. But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic. But maybe I’m wrong about that.
(Thanks Newsbusters for the transcript)
This is typical of the hatred that liberals have for our troops.
Continue reading “
MSNBC Liberal Chris Hayes ‘Uncomfortable’ Calling Our Troops ‘Heroes’”
