The Tea Party sees Thanksgiving as a morality tale about finding salvation in Capitalism. The Pilgrims were failed Socialists who turned to Capitalism for survival. Only after foregoing communal ownership of property and allowing private ownership did the colony prosper. (Communism could also have been used, but socialism is the bogey meme du jour.)
The actual historical details are much more interesting than the Tea Party myth.
The Pilgrims formed a start-up and the Merchants and Adventurers of London were their venture capitalists. The Merchants would put up the cash for the supplies and the trip to the New World and the colonists would put up the labor. They signed a seven-year contract in which all land, livestock, lumber, furs, and other trade goods were held in partnership. At the end of the seven year period, the company was to be dissolved and the assets distributed. The Pilgrims were more like shareholders in a corporation than socialists.
Interestingly, only one Pilgrim died on the 66-day voyage. This is attributed to the fact that the Mayflower had never carried passengers, she was a “sweet ship.” Seepage from previous wine cargos had impregnated the ship’s timbers and acted like a disinfectant.
The Mayflower landed in November of 1620 and the first Thanksgiving was held in 1621. The colony’s governor, William Bradford, abolished the communal land arrangement and gave each household a parcel of land, in 1623. It seems unlikely that a colony in the grips of a famine, caused by evils of communal property ownership, would host a three-day feast. The prospects of a famine would come the following year with a devastating summer drought and the seasonal migration of fish and fowl.
Agriculture did become more profitable in following years, in part due to improved cultivation techniques of corn, a crop for which the colonists had no experience, and in part due to the increase in each individual’s exertion on their privately held land.
Two attempts to make payments to the investors were met with pirates, who captured the ships bringing back furs and timber. The investors, fearing a total loss of their investment, settled with the Pilgrims for £1800 after an investment of nearly £7000.
H/T: NY Times, New American, Dictionary of American History.
-David Drumm (Nal)
GG Buddha is always the first to lob the troll/your to stupid argument when he feels his position has been encroached.
Gump:
“(keeping in mind you’ve read Kant a lot more recently than I have).”
that is Pure Bull Shit, you have never read Kant but are too insecure to admit it. Why don’t you just admit you haven’t read Kant? You probably haven’t read a good deal of the things you say you have so you can appear “intelligent”.
Hell, the simple troll Bdaman (your words not mine) hands you your head on a plate over global warming on this thread. I should go and read some of the other places he makes you look like a chimp er chump.
It is important to note at this point that our rights do not derive from Kant, but rather the Constitution as informed by the Declaration. This is a sidebar at best as it is evident and clear that in “according to the rules of the Constitution, all will, of course, arrange themselves under the will of the law, and unite in common efforts for the common good.”
I really don’t care what you think is your answer to others whom you disagree with.
Right back at ya,
Sure alot more skeptics these days than what there was two years ago, alot like high tide or should I say sea level rise. Wonder why that is. All that talk of consensus went right out the window.
If I bore you, you’ve certainly spent a lot of time attacking me.
Actions speak louder than words, troll.
As to your critique of my thinking?
ROFLMAO
I really don’t care what you think, fascist apologist.
And why don’t you let Bob speak for himself, douche bag.
Gump:
“The more you trolls attack, the worse it is for you. My defense lay on defensible premises and information whereas your attacks rely on wishful thinking. A foundation of stone trumps a foundation of sand every time.”
Bob Esq just told you the same thing I have been telling you. Is he a troll? Granted I have been belligerent but I believe you started it here:
“Just because you’re too stupid and/or venal to realize there is a dichotomy in that human rights and property rights are two distinct areas often in distinct opposition would be a problem with you, sport.”
Gump you bore me, you are a legend in your own mind and a churl as well. Your ability to understand simple concepts is for shit. Someone must have told you early on you were a genius. Like those American Idol contestants who cant believe Simon Cowell told them they cant sing for shit. Well you cant think for shit. Without the Internet you are just a 2 bit intellectual shyster.
clarification: have to end where usurpation of others rights begins
Then pray tell, Bob, where do your property rights end according to Kant? Because logically they have to end where usurpation begins based on that and the totality of the rest of his work (keeping in mind you’ve read Kant a lot more recently than I have). Equal Protection also demands this, so it’s not just a speculative question.
Buddha: “Are you your chattels?
No.
Are your property rights unlimited if the fruits of your labor usurp another’s rights to his own person?
No. Not without contradiction of Kant’s above statement they don’t.
And that is all that has to be said about that.”
This would be the first time that you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.
Reagan’s Ghost,
You should know that while Bob and I agree on many things, we don’t agree on everything.
This would be one of those things we disagree on and for the aforementioned reasons.
The persistence of your attacks though says something though.
I’ve touched a nerve when I took your anti-socialist Neocon fascist trollery to task.
That makes me giggle.
bdaman,
You’ve had your ass handed to you on every thread you’ve brought up climate change, and not just by me.
Your digressions are nothing more than you attempting distraction and they have been dealt with.
You can’t explain away the fundamentals of the chemistry or the carbon cycle no matter how hard you’ve tried.
I’m done talking weather with you today. You already admitted I have the chemistry right. The rest of what you say is sound and fury signifying nothing.
Gump:
Listen to Bob Esq. The common is for each man to exploit as his ability allows. That some are unable to gather from the state of nature does not entitle them to the labour of others. General welfare does not mean to each according to his needs from each according to his ability.
If it were so then there would be no reason to have a DOI or Constitution because you have out of the box violated individual rights. Jefferson wasn’t as stupid as you make him out to be.
I know it is hard for you, and most people for that matter, to understand.
Bob,
“yet every [one] has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself”
Are you your chattels?
No.
Are your property rights unlimited if the fruits of your labor usurp another’s rights to his own person?
No. Not without contradiction of Kant’s above statement they don’t.
And that is all that has to be said about that.
on sb own sorry
bdaman,
Maybe you missed this . . .
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/british-climate-change-scientists-cleared-of-dishonesty-2023409.html
Buddha come on now, Whom where they cleared by, the people who they work for. Same with Michael Mann he was cleared too. by Penn States on review panel.
David
Yes it is. It was predicted by Lorius et al. 20 years ago.
This may be true but it does not mean that it was accepted. Lots of scientist bring alot of ideas to the table. It does not mean they are accepted. If this was the case the word consensus could never be used when referencing anything pointing to AGW.
Thats what all the climategate e-mails were about. They tried to shut other scientist who were skeptics from presenting their ideas,
ask Henrik Svensmark. I posted this before it switches to English about a minute and a half in. Take the time to watch all six.
Ooo. Attack the messenger when you can’t defeat the message, Reagan Troll.
That’s original.
Andy Not-so-Brietbart teach you that trick? (rhetorical)
The more you trolls attack, the worse it is for you. My defense lay on defensible premises and information whereas your attacks rely on wishful thinking. A foundation of stone trumps a foundation of sand every time.
Buddha: The idea that certain rights are inalienable from the person isn’t a synthetic judgment. It’s analytical if one accepts the proposition that all men are created equal.
No shit.
Buddha: Being that equality is a primary founding principle of the country in question, that is not beyond the bounds of Kant’s definition of analysis as opposed to synthesis.
Perhaps you missed my use of the term ‘analytic’ in my previous post.
Buddha: That your rights end where they infringe upon the rights of others is a natural extrapolation from that analysis.
Do tell.
Buddha: Self-determination is, as Kant says, the right to the property of the self.
Who said what?
Buddha: It is not a natural consequence that property of self correlates to chattel ownership of objects separate from the being.
Uh, the entire theory of property comes down to the mixing of self-ownership with the labor required to obtain or create chattels from nature.
“Though the earth, and all inferior creatures, be common to all men, yet every man has a property in his own person: this no body has any right to but himself. The labour of his body, and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever then he removes out of the state that nature hath provided, and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature hath placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it, that excludes the common right of other men: for this labour being the unquestionable property of the labourer, no man but he can have a right to what that is once joined to, at least where there is enough, and as good, left in common for others.”
The only place Kant comes into the argument is in the ‘analysis’ of the sticks existing necessarily within the bundle of rights known as self-ownership.
bdaman,
Maybe you missed this . . .
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/british-climate-change-scientists-cleared-of-dishonesty-2023409.html
Ekeyra:
you cant fix stupid and Gump is about as stupid as they come.
His posts are just long winded rants which are prosaic.