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From:
Subject: MAYFLOWER COMPACT
Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 11:20:28 EST
On 11/25/04 (9:09:22 AM MST), Dave () wrote,
"I would like to wish everyone a "Happy Thanksgiving" and to remind those
that this country was founded on Christian principles as established in the
Mayflower Compact." (Dave includes a copy of the Mayflower Compact after his name.)
First, Thanksgiving was and is a religious celebration, based on the
Pilgrim's wanting to emulate the Jewish (Thanksgiving) Festival of Sukkot, one of the
3 mandated (given in the Bible) pilgrimage festivals (the other 2 being Pesach
and Shavuot).
The American Thanksgiving is the only day that is simultaneously celebrated
with religious services by all the Abrahamic faiths in the U.S.
Second, when the Pilgrim Fathers, bound for Virginia, actually landed on the
shores of Massachusetts they established a communist system. Out of their
common product and storehouse they set up a system of rationing, though it came
to 'but a quarter of a pound of bread a day to each person.'
Even when harvest came, 'it arose to but a little.'
A vicious circle seemed to set in. The people complained that they were too
weak from want of food to tend the crops as they should. Deeply religious
though they were, they took to stealing from each other. 'So as it well appeared,'
writes Governor Bradford, 'that famine must still ensue the next year also, if
not some way prevented.'
For the classic Thanksgiving Holiday essay, "Private Enterprise Regained" by
Henry Hazlitt's, please go to:
http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=6385
Happy Thanksgiving,
Walter Greenspan
Great Falls, MT
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