Ah, Thanksgiving.  The time where we all come together and celebrate the propensity for American leftists in education and the media to re-write and distort history.  The story, as we are all taught in our state-run schools, is that the ignorant and greedy colonists arrived in the New World, and promptly began to starve to death, until they were saved from complete destruction by the pure, noble, and generous natives who shared their rich bounty, and subsequently were wiped out by the evil white people.

But there’s another narrative in the struggles of the early colonists that continually goes ignored.  The simple fact of the matter is that the early colonists lived in a communal society, which was an abysmal failure, and led to mass starvation, theft, and a general complete failure.  Eventually, they adopted a system of individual ownership of property, and suddenly and mysteriously, things were less awful.  I’m not an expert on the matter, but here’s a few links that help tell the normally untold story…

http://lewrockwell.com/orig10/maybury1.1.1.html

http://www.economicfreedom.org/2011/11/23/so-is-that-my-corn-or-yours/

Last year’s Free Talk Live had a long discussion on the topic that is very instructive, if you have some time.

You can also get this story in most non-leftist American history books, and often in non-leftist books on the history of Communism.

So Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  When you’re going over the list of things that you are thankful for, keep in mind the following.  For most of you, most or all of the food you eat will have been grown, bred, and prepared by a for-profit corporation.  If you travel to be with family, your means of transportation were most likely built by a for-profit corporation.  And you better believe the National Football League could not be effectively run by the state!  Enjoy them all, and be thankful that the early colonists learned a lesson that they passed down the generations which led to the mass luxury and relative opulence most of us enjoy today.