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Speaker 1: The Michael Berry Show.

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Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving with family, with friends

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Speaker 2: with Love. A few days ago, we aired our tribute

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Speaker 2: to Rush Limbaugh. For today's podcast, I'd like to share

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Speaker 2: Rush's the true story of Thanksgiving. This has become an

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Speaker 2: annual tradition for us. It never gets old because Rush,

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Speaker 2: as you know, is timeless.

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Speaker 3: The true story of Thanksgiving, the story of the Pilgrims,

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Speaker 3: begins in the early part of the seventeenth century. The

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Speaker 3: Church of England, under King James the First was persecuting

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Speaker 3: anyone and everyone who did not recognize its absolute civil

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Speaker 3: and spiritual authority. Those who challenged ecclesiastical authority and those

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Speaker 3: who believe strongly in freedom of worship were hunted down, imprisoned,

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Speaker 3: and sometimes executed for their beliefs. A group of separatists

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Speaker 3: first fled to Holland and established a community. After eleven years,

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Speaker 3: about forty of them agreed to make a perilous journey

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Speaker 3: to the New World, where they would certainly face hardship

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Speaker 3: but could live and worship God according to the dictates of.

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Speaker 1: Their own consciences.

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Speaker 3: On August first, sixteen to twenty, the Mayflowers set sail

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Speaker 3: it carried a total of one hundred two passengers, including

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Speaker 3: forty Pilgrims, led by William Bradford. On the journey, Bradford

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Speaker 3: set up an agreement, a contract the established just and

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Speaker 3: equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective

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Speaker 3: of their religious beliefs. Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed

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Speaker 3: in a Mayflower Compact come from?

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Speaker 1: They came from the Bible.

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Speaker 3: The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons

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Speaker 3: of the Old.

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Speaker 1: And New Testaments. They looked to the ancient Israelites for their.

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Speaker 3: Example, and because of the biblical precedent set forth in scripture,

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Speaker 3: they never doubted that their experiment would work. But it

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Speaker 3: was no pleasure cruise. The journey to the New World

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Speaker 3: was a long and arduous one, and when the Pilgrims

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Speaker 3: landed in New England in November, they found, according to

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Speaker 3: bradford detailed journal, a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were

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Speaker 3: no friends to greet them, he wrote, There were no

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Speaker 3: houses to shelter them, there were no inns where they

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Speaker 3: could refresh themselves, and the sacrifice that they had made

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Speaker 3: for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half

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Speaker 3: the pilgrims, including Bradford's own wife, died either starvation, sickness,

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Speaker 3: or exposure. When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers

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Speaker 3: how to plant corn fish for cod and skin beavers

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Speaker 3: for coats. Life improved for the pilgrims, but they did

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Speaker 3: not yet prosper, and this is important to understand because

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Speaker 3: this is where modern American history lessons often end. Thanksgiving

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Speaker 3: is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for

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Speaker 3: which the pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving

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Speaker 3: their lives, rather than as a devout expression of gratitude

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Speaker 3: grounded in the tradition of both the Old and New Testaments.

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Speaker 1: Here's the part that's been omitted.

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Speaker 3: The original contract the pilgrims had entered into with their

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Speaker 3: merchant sponsors in London called for everything they produced to

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Speaker 3: go into a common store, and each member of the

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Speaker 3: community was entitled to one common share. All of the

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Speaker 3: land that they cleared and the houses they built belonged

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Speaker 3: to the community as well, and they were going to

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Speaker 3: distribute it equally. All the land they cleared, the houses

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Speaker 3: they built belonged to the community. Nobody owned anything, They

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Speaker 3: just had a share in it. It was a commune.

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Speaker 3: It was the forerunner to the communes we saw in

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Speaker 3: the sixties and seventies out in California. And it was

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Speaker 3: a complete with organic vegetables, even just like the communes

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Speaker 3: of today are.

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Speaker 1: God No, there's no question it was organic vegetables.

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Speaker 3: Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony,

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Speaker 3: recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and

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Speaker 3: destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter which

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Speaker 3: had taken so many lives.

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Speaker 1: He decided to take bold action.

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Speaker 3: Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to

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Speaker 3: work and manage, thus turning loose the power in the marketplace.

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Speaker 3: Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had

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Speaker 3: discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism.

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Speaker 1: And what happened. It didn't work, but it nearly starved.

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Speaker 1: It never has worked.

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Speaker 3: What Bradford in his community found was that the most

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Speaker 3: creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any

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Speaker 3: harder than anybody else unless they could utilize the.

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Speaker 1: Power of personal motivation.

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Speaker 3: But while most of the rest of the world has

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Speaker 3: been experimenting with socialism, for well over one hundred years,

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Speaker 3: trying to refine it, perfect it, and reinvent it. The

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Speaker 3: Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford

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Speaker 3: wrote about this social experiment should be in every school

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Speaker 3: child's history lesson. If it were, we might prevent such

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Speaker 3: needless suffering in the future, such as that we are

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Speaker 3: enduring now. The experience that we had in this common

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Speaker 3: course and condition. This is Bradford, the experience we had

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Speaker 3: in his common course and condition. Tired or tried someday

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Speaker 3: years that by taking away property and bringing community into

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Speaker 3: a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing.

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Speaker 1: As if they were wiser than God.

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Speaker 3: Bradford wrote, for this community, so far as it was

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Speaker 3: was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retired

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Speaker 3: much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.

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Speaker 3: For young men that were most able and fit for

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Speaker 3: labor and service, did repine that they should spend their

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Speaker 3: time and strength to work for other men's wives and

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Speaker 3: children without being paid for it. That was thought injustice.

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Speaker 3: Why should you work for other people when you can't

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Speaker 3: work for yourself? What's the point. That's what he was saying.

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Speaker 3: The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to

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Speaker 3: do their best work without incentive. So what did Bradford's

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Speaker 3: community try next? They unharnished the power of good old

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Speaker 3: free enterprise by invoking the undergirding capitalistic principle of private property.

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Speaker 3: Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work,

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Speaker 3: and permitted to market its own crops and products. What

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Speaker 3: was the result, Bradford wrote, this had very good success,

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Speaker 3: for it made all hands industrious, so as much more

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Speaker 3: corn was planted than otherwise would have been. Is it

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Speaker 3: possible that supply side economics could have existed.

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Speaker 1: Before the nineteen eighties. Yes.

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Speaker 3: Read the story of Joseph and Pharaoh in Genesis forty one.

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Speaker 3: Following Joseph's suggestion, Pharaoh reduced the tax on Egyptians of

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Speaker 3: twenty percent during the seven years of plenty, and the

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Speaker 3: earth brought forth in heaps well. At no time, the

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Speaker 3: pilgrims found that they had more food than they could

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Speaker 3: eat themselves. This this is where it gets really good

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Speaker 3: if you're laboring under the misconception that I was because

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Speaker 3: I was taught in school. They set up trading posts.

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Speaker 3: They exchanged goods with the Indians, the prophets allowed them

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Speaker 3: to pay off their debts to the merchants in London,

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Speaker 3: and the success and the prosperity of the Plymouth settlement

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Speaker 3: attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known

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Speaker 3: as the Great Puritan Migration. But this story stops when

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Speaker 3: the Indians taught the newly arrived suffering in socialism pilgrims

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Speaker 3: how to plant corn and fish for cod. That's where

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Speaker 3: the original Thanksgiving story stops. Story basically doesn't even begin there.

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Speaker 3: The real story of Thanksgiving is William Bradford giving thanks

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Speaker 3: to God for the guidance and the inspiration to set

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Speaker 3: up a thriving colony that socialism caused near starvation. The

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Speaker 3: bounty was shared with the Indians. They did sit down,

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Speaker 3: they did have free range turkey and organic vegetables.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't the Indians who saved the day.

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Speaker 3: It was capitalism and scripture which saved the day, as

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Speaker 3: acknowledged by George Washington in his first Thanksgiving proclamation in

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Speaker 3: seventeen eighty nine.

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Speaker 2: to the show at our email address, Michael at Michael

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Speaker 2: Berryshow dot com, or simply by clicking on our website,

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Speaker 2: Michael Berryshow dot com. The Michael Berry Show and Podcast

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Speaker 2: is produced by Ramon Roeblis, the King of Ding. Executive

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Speaker 2: producer is Chad Knakanishi. Jim Mudd is the creative director.

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Speaker 2: Voices Jingles, Tomfoolery and Shenanigans are provided by Chance McLean.

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Speaker 2: Director of Research is Sandy Peterson. Emily Bull is our

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Speaker 2: assistant listener and superfan. Contributions are appreciated and often incorporated

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Speaker 2: into our production. Where possible, we give credit. Where not,

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Speaker 2: we take all the credit for ourselves. God bless the

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Speaker 2: memory of Rush Limbaugh. Long live Elvis, be a simple

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Speaker 2: man like Leonard Skinnard told you, and God bless America. Finally,

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Speaker 2: if you know a veteran suffering from PTSD, call Camp

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Speaker 2: Hope at eight seven seven seven one seven PTSD and

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Speaker 2: a combat veteran will answer the phone to provide free counseling.

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Speaker 1: Three