Thanksgiving Is NOT About "Sharing"

"Think Thanksgiving is about 'sharing'? Think again. The first Thanksgiving couldn't happen until the colonists learned to forgo communitarian principles and, instead, live on private property. Every year around this time, schoolchildren are taught about that wonderful day when Pilgrims and Native Americans shared the fruits of the harvest. 'Isn't sharing wonderful?' say the teachers. They miss the point. Because of sharing, the first Thanksgiving in 1623 almost didn't happen. The failure of Soviet communism is only the latest demonstration that freedom and property rights, not sharing, are essential to prosperity. The earliest European settlers in America had a dramatic demonstration of that lesson, but few people today know it [because socialists will not let you know it -RT]. When the Pilgrims first settled the Plymouth Colony, they organized their farm economy along communal [collectivist -RT] lines. The goal was to share everything equally, work and produce. They nearly all starved." And sooner or later EVERY attempt at collectivism will fail, and people will starve. It is this fact that those disposed toward collectivism (socialism) want to keep you from understanding. Let's say it more clearly. The "original colony" at Plymouth Rock almost failed and the people there almost starved to death, because their original colony was set up on a COLLECTIVIST basis. It wasn't until they scrapped that notion and allowed each member to earn his own living that the colony prospered, and we "shared" that prosperity with the Indians. We prospered in the end because of INDIVIDUAL INITIATIVE, which is impossible under collectivism. Don't accept those "socialistic notions" of "sharing with others" as the basis for living. It won't work. It never has, and it never will. (John Stossel, 11/21/07)