In The Economics and Ethics of Private Property, Hans-Hermann Hoppe explains that taxes "...invariably reduce production, the consumers standard of living, obstructs wealth formation, and creates relative impoverishment."  Let's think about why that is the case.

Think about the ways in which a person can acquire a valuable good? Hoppe explains there are four and only four ways:
1.Original Appropriation Through Homesteading
2.Production (mix of one's labor and previously appropriated goods)
3.Voluntary Exchange
4.Forcefully Expropriation / Theft

Option 4, of which taxation is a part, decreases the marginal utility of activities 1-3 and increases the marginal utility of consumption and leisure:

In addition to being incredibly inspiring and insightful, the latest Speak Liberty Now interview with Mike Shanklin is the perfect opportunity for me to introduce you to two wonderful informational resources: 

1) Speak Liberty Now strives to be the premier venue for the grassroots liberty activist, writer, advocate and thinker willing to speak out in advocacy of individual liberty. The mission is simply to broaden the audience for those who wish to voice their opinions on this important philosophy and related current events topics.
 
2) Mike Shanklin is the creator of VoluntaryVirtues.com, a website dedicated towards advancing the message of a free society. Mike also has one of the best YouTube channels around: http://www.youtube.com/mikeshanklin. 

Mike has created or helps run several excellent Facebook pages you should go like right now.

• Individual Freedom
  
• Statism Is Slavery
  
• Laissez Faire Capitalism
  

I hope you enjoy Michael Shanklin's Liberty Alliance Interview with Speak Liberty Now as much as I did.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

Recently, Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader (D-CA), publicly argued that any cuts to congressional pay would undermine “…the dignity of the job that we have rewarded.”

It is mildly amusing that Pelosi would point to the job that she and the rest of Congress are doing as her support for not cutting congressional pay while the rest of us suffer under the crushing weight of the fiscal leviathan and bloated federal bureaucracy. 

However, Pelosi is simply echoing what civic religion teaches: All good citizens should revere members of government with an extra-special kind of dignity because of their position. 

I admit that “dignity” and “Nancy Pelosi” might not be my first pairing in a word association exercise, but her comments did get me thinking about the concept.  What is dignity? Is it something you can earn or lose? Do some people deserve (or have) more dignity than others?

As usually understood, dignity is a concept pertaining to worth and value. It is often used to signify that someone has a certain right to be valued and her treatment by others should reflect this right. Moreover, the term is frequently used to suggest that a person is not receiving the respect deserved, as exemplified by the Congresswoman’s comments that forced congressional pay cuts are beneath her ‘dignity’.

Nancy Pelosi is correct that dignity is closely related to our ideas about respect. But how and why are the concepts of respect and dignity related?

Let’s start by exploring two popular, but unsatisfactory, views about dignity that are both based on the idea that human value is a comparable value, kind of like prices at the supermarket. The first is the idea that dignity is something to be deserved according to individual accomplishments, wealth, title, status, or social rank. In this view, certain people are alleged to have more innate value than others because of who they are or the merits of what they do.

The second is the idea that human value, and ultimately dignity, is dependent upon the judgment of others. This would mean that people derive their value as human beings from how they are valued by other people.

Note that both of these views rest on the idea that human beings can and should be valued differently from one another and that the value of individual people can change from one point in time to the next. Put simply, this notion holds that some people are worth more than others. That seems strange to me.

In fact, the primitive idea of comparable human worth has been used throughout history to justify some of the worst acts of humanity. Oppression, slavery, and even genocide have occurred when enough individuals in society grant credence to the idea that some people are worth more than others and can be used as mere means to some higher ends.

Preposterous as it may seem that anyone could still explicitly say that some persons are worth more than others, indeed all government officials, including Nancy Pelosi, maintain positions of political power precisely because most people at least implicitly believe exactly that.

Enough people in society have internalized the primitive thought that political status gives certain individuals the moral authority to rule over others. Similar to the days of rule by the divine right of kings, the perceived sanctity of political office affords today’s elected officials a higher-level of dignity not accessible to us mere mortals. We see evidence of this when we hear the average person deferentially referencing their “respect for the office” or when Nancy Pelosi is demanding the “respect for the office” she thinks she is owed. 

In a moment I will explain why having respect for a government office may be misplaced, but presently I will merely suggest that whether or not our rulers are popularly elected has no bearing on the fact that political power is still used to treat some people as mere means to a higher ends in a system that establishes a hierarchical relationship of rulers and subjects.

The primitive idea that some people are worth more than others has maintained a stronghold on human thought for most of history. Fortunately, that is beginning to change. 

We are beginning to understand, as the great 18th century German philosopher, Immanuel Kant, explains that human value and dignity are universal to all persons. For Kant, dignity is a distinctive kind of moral worth that all persons have. All persons are ends in themselves and the intrinsic value of one person cannot be compared against that of another. Dignity is an absolute and incomparable worth. It is not conditional. It is not a derivative of another higher value. For Kant, dignity is the supreme value.

Furthermore, dignity is closely related to our conceptions of personhood. Our rational capacities, as Kant argues, form the basis of our dignity (or absolute worth). As rational beings, we have the capacity to imagine different possible futures. We have the capacity to use our rational judgment to evaluate and choose. We have the capacity to act on reasons we believe to be our own. We have the capacity to value other rational beings as ends in themselves deserving of respect. Persons with rational capacities then are universally ends in themselves with an absolute dignity. 

Robin S. Dillon, further explains Kant’s account of respect for persons is the “…acknowledgement in attitude and conduct of the dignity of persons as ends in themselves….They must never be treated merely as means, as things that we may use however we want in order to advance our interests, and they must always be treated as the supremely valuable beings that they are.”  

In summary, Nancy Pelosi is not deserving of dignity because of her wealth, title, or position. She is a person with absolute dignity because of her status as a rational being and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of Congress do not recognize this universal principle in their interactions with other people. 

Moreover, it is not just the current office holders that have failed in this regard. The essential feature of any State is predicated on a failure to recognize the absolute dignity of all persons. Instead of respecting individuals as ends in themselves having equal worth, the State is the anti-social arrangement whereby people are treated as having unequal worth with unequal dignity. Some people are rulers, and other people are ruled. Some people receive political privilege, while others do not. Some people expropriate wealth, while the wealth of others is expropriated. Individuals are not ends in themselves but rather mere means to satisfy the desires of those in power. All are subjected to the arbitrary power of the State. 

Nancy Pelosi does not operate in a vacuum, but she does actively support the aggrandizement of the State apparatus. Nancy Pelosi’s blatant lack of respect for other human beings as moral equals is repugnant and deserves moral condemnation. That being said, we should neither say that Nancy Pelosi is underserving of dignity, nor that she has lost her dignity because of her reproachable behavior. We may, however, be perfectly justified in saying that she and the other members of Congress have failed to live up to that which dignity entails.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

On March 1, about $85 billion in automatic, across-the-board federal spending cuts are scheduled to go into effect. For the last several weeks, members of the federal government and the media have touted the sequestration cuts as yet another looming fiscal crisis of doomsday proportions. Entire government departments will be brought to their knees. Layoffs will rip through the public sector. The members of Congress and their families will starve. Or, so we are told.

Interestingly enough, even after the “draconian” sequestration cuts, the government would still spend more this fiscal year than they did last fiscal year. Only in Washington D.C. could proposed decreases to the rate of future spending increases be twisted into meaning real, painful spending cuts. But, real spending cuts are exactly what we need. Below is a graph of federal spending since 1947.

Annual federal spending has more than doubled since 2000. The looming automatic cuts to future increases total about 2% of current spending levels. However, these cuts will not all happen at once on March 1st. The sequestration cuts will be phased in over a period of several months.  In fact, only about $44 billion in cuts will take place this year. The remaining balance applies to spending obligations that extend over multiple years. Without question the sequestration cuts represent less than a drop in the bucket and fail to substantively address the issue of the massive fiscal leviathan that is the US government.

All of this political posturing is nothing new. The sequestration debacle is politics as usual in Washington DC. Politicians package events like the Debt Ceiling Crisis, the Fiscal Cliff, and the Sequestration Crisis as individual crises to causelessly appear and then be miraculous adverted at the eleventh hour. The fact is that these are not separate issues but rather are symptoms of the same much larger problem. The government spends too much because it does too much. The government has grown to be involved in countless areas beyond its legitimate function. We need to fundamentally rethink the role of government.

However, the range of acceptable public discourse is confined to arguments about marginally raising taxes on particular groups or splitting hairs over benefits to other groups. Anyone who suggests meaningful reductions to the size and scope of government is deemed impractical. What is impractical is thinking we can continue down the current course that Republican and Democrat leadership insist on traveling. There is simply not enough wealth on planet Earth to pay for the obligations and promises that Uncle Sam has made.

Last week Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader (D-CA), publicly spoke out against the prospect of forced cuts to congressional pay because it would undermine the dignity of her job. In my next post I will share some thoughts I have about “dignity” and what it entails regarding Ms. Pelosi.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

Long before the days of the gas turbine and the steam engine, vessels sailing the high seas relied almost entirely on the motive power of the wind. However, even during periods of total calm, a ship and its crew were far from helpless. In the absence of wind, the crew used their own muscle to manually thrust their oars into the water and propel the ship forward. Because the oars of this era were made primarily of white ash, the term "sailing by the ash breeze" was born. This expression is often used to describe people who blaze their own trails and make something for themselves of their own initiative. It has come to represent strength, determination, and independence. 

For example, Nat Bowditch, the primary character in Jean Lee Latham’s 1955 Newbery Medal winning novel1 about a young man’s quest for learning, famously exclaims, “Only a weakling gives up when he's becalmed! A strong man sails by ash breeze!” While Mr. Bowditch’s words are meant to inspire the best from within, even the strongest among us can still feel anxious and helpless when the winds cease to blow. 

What then can we average landlubbers learn from this old nautical expression, “sailing by the ash breeze”?

First, if ever we find ourselves stranded in becalmed waters, we might do well to pause and take inventory of our situation. Experienced navigators recognize the importance of being aware of their surroundings and assessing how the external conditions of their environment might impact their goals. All too often in life’s journey we become accustomed to traveling by whatever fills our sails. We should first attempt to understand what it is that we are counting on to move us forward.

Are we sitting idle, waiting for some external force to move us along? Are we waiting for our politicians, our boss, or maybe even our spouse to fill our sails with that motive power? While we are often fortunate to sail effortlessly along with the help of a strong breeze, the winds of fortune are not always there to move us in our preferred direction. Sometimes we have no other option than to move ourselves in the direction we want to travel. Instead of waiting for some external source of energy over which we have no control, why not look to our own internal strength?

The early travelers also knew the importance of finding the right balance between relying on external sources of energy for locomotion and creating their own opportunities. Fortunately, we know that the wind doesn’t stop blowing forever, but there are just some days when the wind refuses to cooperate. Often, we can afford to wait for the next breeze, but other times it is urgent to pick up the oars and start rowing right away. When the sails hung limp as the enemy was approaching, the sailors would not stand idle cursing the misfortune of poor external circumstance. They took action. There are simply times when we have to roll up our sleeves and put oar to water.

One final lesson we can garner from the early-day travelers who sailed by the ash breeze is that no single person has the strength to move the ship forward alone. It is when our individual effort is combined with that of others sharing the same goal that we are able to achieve amazing results. Moreover, we should also remember that during those times when it may seem that we are but a single vessel stranded in becalmed waters, our families, friends, communities, churches, and other organizations are there rowing alongside us; even when our individual strength falters. We are not sailing life’s journey alone.

Although we do not have a choice about the wind’s direction, we can control how we react. Instead of worrying about the things you can’t control, try focusing on the things you can. And, if you ever find yourself in becalmed waters, may you find the strength to sail by the ash breeze until the wind fills your sails again.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

This article originally appeared in the 2012 Winter Issue of Peachtree Papers.

What’s New on FreedomUnfiltered.com?

Have you had a chance to explore the Liberty Library?  You can search the library or browse by key topic for a links to some of the best educational resources around. Over the last several months we have built out the Liberty Library with hundreds of hand-selected articles and videos on the topics of individual liberty and sound economics. Please take a few minutes to visit the new Liberty Library and share this resource with your friends. 

The new Liberty in Atlanta Calendar is your window into liberty-oriented events and meetups around the city. Contact us to have your event included on the calendar. 

In December, Jason was interviewed on the Gadsen Rising radio program about the Federal Reserve, the global monetary system, free market solutions, and the history of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Listen to the audio here.

In January, Jason was featured on AFF’s Free the Future: Profile in Liberty.


What is Next?

We are in the process of developing the Liberty Guide, a collection of ten basic lessons we think are essential to understanding the foundations of a free society. Here is a preview of Lesson 1 – The Market.  This will become a valuable tool to share with friends and family new to the ideas of liberty.

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

On the morning of December 7th, 1941, the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japanese fighter planes. The losses were severe. Over 2,500 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded. Eighteen American ships and nearly three hundred airplanes were destroyed or severely damaged.[1] This devastating attack on America’s Pacific fleet is typically cited as the catalyst driving the United States into World War II. The U.S declared war on Japan the next day and would declare war on Germany and Italy a mere three days later.

The narrative frequently taught is that the Japanese attack was an unprovoked, preventive strike designed to decimate the U.S. Navy’s ability to interfere with Japan’s empire building in the Far East and the Pacific region. As Lawrence W. Reed notes, the popular perception is that Franklin D. Roosevelt was “…surprised and stunned by the Japanese attack.”  During one of his most famous speeches, President Roosevelt “…summons the righteous indignation of a wounded nation. From his wheelchair, he stands tall and strong, inspiring even reluctant military men to do their duty.”[2] We are to believe that up until the very moment the Japanese warplanes awakened the sleeping giant, the U.S. was still trying hard to remain outside the fray.

While it is true that the attack came as a shock to the American people and quickly reversed the previously strong national support for non-interventionism, the strike on Pearl Harbor was not a surprise to President Roosevelt, nor was it the reason for drawing the U.S. into war with Japan. According to Percy L. Greaves, chief of the minority research staff of the Joint Congressional Committee to Investigate the Pearl Harbor Attack (1945-1946), the attack on December 7, 1941 was neither unexpected nor unprovoked. The tragedy at Pearl Harbor was “…permitted as a public relations measure to rally the public.”[3]

Historians today acknowledge that there is little doubt that President Roosevelt had prior knowledge of how, when, and where Japan was planning to strike. Even defenders of President Roosevelt’s actions now admit as much. However, apologists submit that the lies were necessary for a much greater cause. A wonderfully detailed account of events leading up to the fateful day can be found in WWII veteran Robert Stinnett’s Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor.

During the late 1930s and throughout the first eleven months of 1941, isolationist sentiments were still very strong in America. President Roosevelt pursued a foreign policy designed to incite Japan to action in hopes of forcing America in the WWII “through the back door”.[4] Roosevelt believed that U.S. involvement in the war was necessary to defeat the Axis Powers. Additionally, he believed war spending would help bring the still struggling U.S. economy out of the now decade-long depression.

In Stinnett’s book he explains that not only did President Roosevelt have knowledge of the impending attack on Pearl Harbor, but FDR deliberately pushed Japan in the direction of military aggression for several years prior. [5] Moreover, President Roosevelt took steps to ensure the naval fleet would be concentrated in Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack, and the men on the ground in Hawaii would have no advanced warning.

President Roosevelt even reassigned Vice-Admiral James O. Richardson, commander-in-chief of the United States Fleet, when he openly objected to harboring the bulk of the Pacific navy in one place. Richardson’s replacement was Admiral Husband Kimmel who leapt 32 others in the chain of command to, in the end, fill the role of fall guy. The White House refused to alert Admiral Kimmel of the impending attack even though they intercepted seven damning Japanese naval broadcasts between November 28th and December 6th.

Of his own accord and without any knowledge of the intercepted broadcasts foretelling the attack, Admiral Kimmel sent several ships north of Hawaii where he feared Japanese aircraft carriers were gathering. Just days before the strike, the White House strangely ordered Kimmel to return his ships to Pearl Harbor. It turns out that Admiral Kimmel’s suspicions were correct. Yet, after the attack it was Kimmel who took the blame from the White House. Roosevelt promptly demoted him to rear admiral.

The merits of the decision to enter WWII may be debatable. However, regardless of one’s position on the need of the U.S. to enter the war, it should be clear to all that the “date which will live in infamy” was the culmination of intentional and deliberate actions by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[6] Based on the information obtained during his time on the Joint Congressional Committee to Investigate the Pearl Harbor Attack (1945-1946), Percy L. Greaves concludes:

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle


References

[1] 5 Facts About Pearl Harbor and the USS Arizona, Barbara Maranzani, 2011. http://www.history.com/news/5-facts-about-pearl-harbor-and-the-uss-arizona

[2] The Real Crime of Pearl Harbor, Lawrence W. Reed, 2001  http://mises.org/daily/688

[3] Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy, Percy L. Greaves, Jr., 2010 http://mises.org/document/5364

[4] Back Door to War: The Roosevelt Foreign Policy, 1933-1941 Charles Callan Tansill, 1952

[5] Day of Deceit, Robert Stinnett, 1999 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684853396/ludwigvonmisesinst/

[6] Do Freedom of Information Act Files Prove FDR Had Foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor? http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=408

[7] Pearl Harbor: The Seeds and Fruits of Infamy, Percy L. Greaves, Jr., 2010 http://mises.org/document/5364

Much has been made about the pending ‘fiscal cliff’ facing the US economy. Automatic spending cuts and tax hikes will go into effect on the first of the new year if our wise leaders in Washington don’t come together and save us (from the problem they themselves created). Here are ten quick thoughts I have about the whole fiscal cliff fiasco:

1. The US government has a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

The government is not $16 trillion dollars in debt because it has failed to raise enough revenue. The total amount of money the US government takes in each year has increased nearly 20% since Obama took office in 2009. I know many households that would love to have seen their annual income increase by 20% over the last four years. The problem is that government spending continues to skyrocket. For the government to balance the budget at current revenue levels, they would have to cut spending back to....wait for it.....2002 levels!  Wasn't the government already spending plenty in 2002! 

2. Tax increases tend to lead to more spending, not lower deficits.

The income tax originally only taxed the wealthiest one half of one percent. There was a time in our history when federal government spending only consumed a few percentage points of our total economic output. As tax revenues have grown over the past century and the federal government has gotten their hands on more of our money, they have increased spending as well. Politicians tend to do more and promise more as long as they can keep getting away with it. If history is any guide, we know the government tends to look at additional revenue as an excuse to spend more, not pay down their existing bills. And once a new government program is in place, it rarely goes away.   

3. Increasing tax rates is not the same thing as increasing tax revenue.

Obama keeps making comment after comment implying that if we could just raise rates on the wealthy then we would be able to fix the government’s fiscal disaster. While this may sound like music to the ears of the class-warfare zealots, it is no more than a rhetorical distraction. Since World War II, regardless of tax rates, the US government has confiscated roughly the same percentage of GDP in the form of tax revenues. When tax rates are high, the government takes about 17.7% of GDP. When tax rates are low, the government takes about 17.7% of GDP. However, raising tax rates, as Obama proposes to do, tends to do a couple of things. Patterns of behavior do not remain constant before and after tax rate increases. Human beings respond to incentives. Just think, would you have the same incentive to work if 90% of your income was taken from you as opposed to only 10%? Higher tax rates discourage saving and investing. They discourage production. They divert scarce resources away from productive activities and drive people to spend more time and effort looking for tax shelters and loop holes. In short, tax rate increases discourage the very types of behaviors that grow an economy. If the government raises rates, they may very well actually take in less revenue than they otherwise would have in a period of higher GDP growth absent of the tax rate increases. Besides, even if they took 100% of the earnings from everyone making over $250,000 then they would have enough money to fund the US government until about Easter. It's a spending problem folks.

4. Any “tax cuts” that come out of the fiscal cliff negotiations are smoke and mirrors.

The government is not Santa Claus. You and I have to pay for everything the government does, whether we like it or not. People pay for all of Uncle Sam’s welfare, warfare, and out of control spending through either taxation, government debt (future taxation), or inflation (hidden taxation). Inflation is the cruelest tax of all. It hurts the people that can least afford it, such as the poor and elderly on fixed income. Inflation is a deceptive way for the government to slowly transfer wealth from the population to the political class. That wealth transfer is very real. The Federal Reserve is responsible for monetizing U.S. government debt. This tricks people into thinking politicians are Santa Claus when in reality they are systematically stealing from the poor and middle class. So long as the government continues to spend, the people will continue to pay (whether they realize it or not).       

5. The fiscal cliff negotiations are not about fixing the problem. It is about avoiding the blame.

The Republicans and Democrats both want you to think the fiscal disaster facing the U.S. is the other party’s fault. In fact, they are both right. The current situation is the result of decades of bi-partisan malfeasance.  The best either party can hope for right now is for you to believe them when they point the finger across the aisle and say, “It’s their fault.” Don’t pay attention to these tired political games. Both parties are to blame. 

6. Washington D.C. cannot and will not fix the problem because Washington D.C. is the problem.

I wish people would just stop and consider why we are in this mess in the first place. The fiscal cliff is the result of Congressional legislation and “bi-partisan summits” and “super-committees”. The fiscal cliff is a product of Washington D.C. The politicians created all of these programs they can’t pay for. Neither side has any intention of actually cutting spending. The most “draconian” cuts are merely reductions to the rate of future spending increases. The current unfunded obligations promised by the U.S. government over the next 70 years far exceeds the total economic output on planet Earth, yet the politicians continue to turn a blind eye to the reality of the fiscal abyss. Arguments over a billion here or a billion there don't make any material difference. The solution will not come from Washington D.C. The solution will have to come from the states and from the people. Our government spends too much because it does too much. It is time that we fundamentally rethink the role of government.      

7. The current debate is not Republicans vs Democrats….It’s political parasites vs. peaceful and productive human beings.

The term “political parasite” may sound harsh, but it is more than appropriate. Government does not have any resources of its own. It produces nothing. All that it has and all that it distributes it must first take. Washington D.C. is fat and happy. The D.C. area is one of the richest in the country and has grown considerably ever since the onset of the Great Recession. While the rest of the country has struggled to make ends meet, the political class has continued living well. The corporate stooges in Congress and the White House exchange political favor for campaign funding. The banksters, the cronies, and the military industrial complex continue to grow. Debates like the current one regarding the fiscal cliff are designed to get the people fighting with one another over the scraps rather than realizing the presences of a massive red & blue colored tick sucking dry our wealth and resources.   

8. The status quo will be extended.

There will be a compromise pushed through at that last minute.  It is likely we will see some tax increases and and possible decreases in the rate of future spending increases (not any real spending cuts). Chances are good we will see some kind of bridge deal this month and then more of a grand bargain in 2013. The politicians will celebrate it as a bi-partisan solution. It will not be a solution. Nothing changes.  

9. This isn’t a new problem.  The politicians have had years to address the problem. Waiting to the last minute is a deliberate, conscious choice.

Why do they always let it come down to the last minute? Answer: So they generate panic and then ram through their terrible plan as time expires. This is exactly what always happens with these political negotiations. This time will be no different. They have known about the fiscal cliff for over a year. Why wait until December?

10. The bottom line is that the “fiscal cliff” doesn't matter nearly as much as the fiscal abyss. 

The US government passed the point of no return a long time ago. It is fiscally insolvent. There is no possible way it will be able to honor the promises it has made. It will default. The only question remains whether the default will be honest - meaning they come clean now, level with the people, and begin to restructure. Or, the more likely scenario -  they default in a dishonest manner by destroying the currency and making life very difficult for the massive of people now dependent on government for their livelihood.

Isn't it sickening to think that a few hundred incompetent, power-lusting buffoons so strongly control the fates of hundreds of millions of people. Who thought that would be a good idea? 

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

In the United States we celebrate Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. It’s a day of family, football, turkey, and the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. How did this day of giving thanks late in November become part of American culture?

We all know the commonly-told story. It goes something like this: The Pilgrims came to America seeking religious freedom. Times were tough that first year. The Native Americans helped the Pilgrims learn to cultivate the land. The Pilgrims invited everyone over for a big Thanksgiving feast. Everybody lived happily ever after. Today we gather with family and friends to celebrate, remember, and give thanks.

There is some truth to that narrative, and there is some fiction. But, there is a lot missing from that story too. I thought it would be timely to fill in a few of the gaps and share some lesser known facts about this popular holiday:

1.  Most of the colonists on the Mayflower were not Pilgrims.

“Just over a hundred colonists sailed from England on the Mayflower in September 1620. Of these, only forty-one were Pilgrims, from Leyden, Holland; eighteen were indentured servants, bound as slaves for seven years to their masters; and the others were largely Anglicans from England, seeking economic opportunity in the New World.” - What Really Happened at Plymouth, Murray Rothbard   

2. Thanksgiving, as we have come to know it, is based historically on an amalgamation of the 1621 meeting between the colonists and the Native Americans and a celebration of the Pequot massacre.

We are told the celebration of Thanksgiving can be traced back to 1621, when Governor William Bradford invited the neighboring Wampanoag Indians to a feast in celebration of the good harvest.

The Pilgrims did have a feast to celebrate the harvest, but it was not repeated again until years later. It certainly was not the beginning of a Thanksgiving tradition. In fact, the Pilgrims didn’t even call the feast Thanksgiving. That would come a decade and a half later.

1621 was indeed a very difficult year for the Plymouth colony. Over half of the colonists were dead by the end of the first winter. The harvest was not the beginning of better times. Food was scarce for several more years in Plymouth (we will learn why a little further down).

The first official "Day of Thanksgiving" was actually proclaimed in 1637 by Massachusetts Bay Colony Governor, John Winthrop. What is not typically taught is that the annual “Thanksgiving” festivities we have come to know and love have origins in the celebration of the Pequot Massacre. 

In May of 1637, a group of well-armed English settlers, along with Narragansett and Mohegan allies, surrounded the Pequot village, set it on fire, and slaughtered the inhabitants.

Winthrop issued a proclamation stating: "A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children….This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots."

The annual “thanksgiving” became a regular tradition after the Pequot Massacre in 1637. Most Americans think about Thanksgiving as being a symbol of colonists and Native Americans working together in peaceful cooperation. However, now that we know the other side of the story, it is easy to understand why many American Indians today call Thanksgiving a "Day of Mourning".

3. The Plymouth Colony was originally organized as communist order, and nearly perished because of it.

“A major reason for the persistent hardships, for the "starving time," in Plymouth as before in Jamestown, was the communism imposed by the company. In this alliance, each adult settler was granted a share in the joint-stock company, and each investment of 10 pounds also received a share. At the end of seven years, the accumulated earnings were to be divided among the shareholders. Until that division, as in the original Virginia settlement, the company decreed a communistic system of production, with each settler contributing his all to the common store and each drawing his needs from it — again, a system of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." - What Really Happened at Plymouth, Murray Rothbard   

Governor William Bradford, far from an individualist or supporter of free-markets, wrote that the taking away of private property and bringing the harvest into the commons for distribution based on need “…was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense.” - William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation, 1620–47, New York: Knopf, 1952, pp. 120–21.)

By 1623, Bradford and the colonists were forced to abandon this communal arrangement. Governor Bradford decided to allocate a parcel of land for each household for private ownership. He told them “…they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit.”

In other words, Bradford unleashed the colonists from the chains of the communist economic system and instituted a system of private property.

Richard J. Maybury, in The Great Thanksgiving Hoax, writes that: “The harvest of 1623 was different. Suddenly, "instead of famine now God gave them plenty," Bradford wrote, "and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God." Thereafter, he wrote, "any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day." In fact, in 1624, so much food was produced that the colonists were able to begin exporting corn.”

4) Why is Thanksgiving celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November?

On October 3, 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26, 1789, as an official holiday of “sincere and humble thanks.”

From Washington until Lincoln, the date that Thanksgiving was observed varied, but the last Thursday in November was customary in most U.S. states. In 1863, Lincoln proclaimed the date to be the final Thursday in November in an attempt to foster unity between the states.

In 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday to the third Thursday of November to lengthen the Christmas shopping season in hopes of boosting the economy. (We know that these Keynesian ploys don’t actually do anything to generate wealth but merely shift consumption patterns).

Anyway, this move set off a national debate and on December 26, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a joint resolution of Congress changing Thanksgiving Day to the fourth Thursday.

Closing thoughts

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday (in close competition with Secession Day on July 4th). It is a day of joyous reflection about all we have to be thankful for. I love that I am able to spend the day enjoying delicious food and spending time with my family.

I think we can still learn much from the Pilgrims’ early lessons about the merits of economic freedom. As Governor Bradford came to understand: Incentives matter!

Finally, I also took a few minutes today to somberly reflect on the fact that the new colonists committed horrendous acts of genocide against the human beings that had settled the New World long before the Europeans.


In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

I understand that elections are often more a referendum about what people are against than what people support. I understand and sympathize with those breathing a sigh of relief that Mitt Romney will not be the next president. I am also relieved. That does not mean I am excited that Obama is president for four more years. Quite the contrary. An honest look at Obama’s record shows that he has extended and augmented most all of the horrendous policies of his predecessor and added many new boondoggles of his own. Despite promises to increase transparency, this president has made the executive branch even more authoritarian and intrusive than the last guy. That is no small feat!

[Note: I actually wrote this article last week, but wanted to wait a few days to share so folks didn’t just think I was part of the “sore loser” crowd. I knew going into this election that a blow to individual liberty would be dealt either way. I suppose that’s what we get when the majority of people still think the only choice is the lesser of two evils. I also have an "Open Letter to Romney supporters" I will share soon.]

 An Open Letter to the Obama Enthusiasts

As Tuesday’s election results rolled in, it was fascinating to witness the social media flurry from all the various perspectives.  The folks that continue to perplex me the most are those that express genuine excitement in celebrating Obama’s victory. I understand the power of the rhetoric he uses to reach his constituents. I realize some people are excited about the promise of more goodies. I get that. I realize that most of the population is incredibly ignorant when it comes to politics, but how it is that anyone can be moderately informed and still be an enthusiastic Obama supporter is an enigma to me.

I am not being condescending. I am genuinely interested: What do you stand for and what exactly has Obama done to win your enthusiastic support?

Do you celebrate Obama because you think he is a champion of civil liberties?

Are you excited that Obama signed the NDAA into law? Do you support the indefinite detention of American citizens without charge or trial? Obama went even further than Bush by claiming the power not merely to detain citizens without judicial review but to assassinate them.

Are you pleased that he renewed the Patriot Act? Obama continues to grow the power of the surveillance state. According to Jack Balkin, Law professor at Yale, “We are witnessing the bipartisan normalization and legitimization of a national security state.” Perhaps you take pleasure in being groped by the TSA or subjected to warrantless invasions of your privacy?

Do you like that he has maintained the detention camp at Gitmo? Do you celebrate Obama’s opposition to lawsuits by victims of government torture? 

Obama has suppressed whistleblowers at an unprecedented rate, prosecuting more than double the number of whistleblowers of all previous presidents combined. Do you support the grotesquely inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning, accused of revealing evidence of U.S. war crimes to WikiLeaks?

Do you rejoice over Obama’s immigration policy? An immigration policy that, as Nick Gillespie at Reason points out, has deported record numbers of immigrants.

Do you like that Obama has stepped up the war on drugs and increased the number of raids on medicinal marijuana dispensaries? Do you remember that he promised to end DEA raids on medical marijuana but instead engaged in the biggest war against medical marijuana of any president to date? He has only further extended the domestic stronghold of the US prison-industrial complex.

“But, Obama stands for the equality of all people,” you say. Well, I guess whether you are rich, poor, black, white, gay, or straight…this president’s record is clear. It is possible for any one of us to end up on his ever-expanding targeted kill/capture list.

Maybe you celebrate Obama because you think he is anti-war?

Did you really think Obama was the anti-war candidate? Was it because he appears to be less of a war-monger than Romney? Perhaps, but that doesn’t make him anti-war.

Maybe you actually liked how Obama bragged about increasing military spending, imposing sanctions, and expanding the reach of the imperialistic US military-industrial complex during the foreign policy debate? Or, maybe you are not anti-war, but anti “Republican war”?

Obama expanded our theaters of war as president and further destabilized the Middle East. He is still bombing Pakistan and Yemen. He carried out military intervention in a civil war in Libya, which was not a national security threat to the US. He claimed immunity from having to get Congressional approval for Libya, blatantly ignoring the War Powers Act.

We still have 68,000 troops in harm’s way in Afghanistan. On Tuesday night were you celebrating our continuing occupation of Afghanistan?

Do you enthusiastically celebrate the man who has significantly increased the use of unmanned predator drones to murder innocent civilians overseas? Obama authorized nearly 300 drone strikes in Pakistan during his first four years in office. That is well over six times the number during the administration of George W. Bush. Obama fully supports “murder by drone without due process”; even if it happens to be a 16 year old, Denver-born American living overseas.

If you voted for Obama because you think he is going to keep us out of Iran, I think you will be sorely disappointed.  During the week of the election the Obama administration put new sanctions on Iran, and we saw two Iranian jets fire on an unarmed U.S. predator drone over international waters. Today we got word of the first death of an Iranian child from the U.S. sanctions on Iran. Jacob G. Hornberger writes, “The death of 15-year-old Iranian Manoucherhr Esmaili-Liousi brings to mind the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children from the 11 years of sanctions that the Empire enforced against Iraq during the 1990s." Is that what you celebrate?

I predict an Iranian conflict within the next six months. This would have happened with Romney as president too, but this is still no reason to be excited about Obama. When it comes to war, there is not a substantive difference between the positions of Bush, Obama, and Romney.

Now that the election is over, where is the outrage from the Anti-War Left?

Do you celebrate Obama because you think he fights for the little guy?

It’s like the old saying goes:  “With friends like that, who needs enemies?”

Obama, the champion of divisive class warfare rhetoric, has led the little guy through the worst economic recovery since the Great Depression. Obama inherited a mess, but he cannot continue to blame the current stagnation on everybody but himself. The number of Americans living below the official poverty line is the highest number in the 52 years the Census Bureau has been publishing figures on it. 15% of America is still on food stamps after four years of Obama’s policies. Inflation-adjusted median household income has fallen the second year in a row, well after the official end of the Great Recession.

I think Arthur Silber said it well: “[S]o many people who are not members of the ruling class think that Obama is on their side. Even after Obama has systematically betrayed all those ‘ordinary’ people for the last four years, they still think he’s really on their side. He just couldn’t do what he wanted to do — which happens to be exactly what all those good liberals and progressives wanted him to do — because: a) evil Republicans; b) evil Republicans left a really, really, huge mess; c) evil Republicans kept messing with him; d) evil Republicans kept stealing his toys; and e) evil Republicans.”

The consequences of Obama’s economic policies were quite predictable even before the ink dried on his massive stimulus bill. These ideas are not new and have been tried and failed many times in the past. Obama’s every move has been toward central planning of the economy and increased federal regulation and taxation of the job creators. Uncertainty and fear are not good ingredients for a healthy economy. On top of that, Obama has already signed into law at least 21 new taxes.  

Back in 2009 President Obama predicted his stimulus bill would help push the unemployment rate down to 5.6 percent by July 2012. After wasting $800 billion on his cronies, the headline unemployment number was still around 8 percent on Election Day.  However, a more meaningful measure of the job market is the participation. The labor force participation rate, which measures how many people actually have jobs, has declined steadily under President Obama and currently sits at 63.8% - the lowest level since 1980.

Deficits do matter. The 6 trillion dollars in new debt under Obama crowds out private investment, skews the economy, and creates a gigantic burden on the present and future taxpayer. 

The poor are unquestionably worse off today, and I have not even discussed the issue of monetary debasement. Obama’s deficits are enabled by the Federal Reserve. The Fed buys US debt with newly created money. More money tends to increase prices. Price increases are much harder on the poor and those living on fixed income. That is why many call inflation the cruelest tax of all.

And of course there is Obamacare. That’s reason enough to celebrate, right? Well, I don’t want to rehash a debate that has already taken place at length, but I will go ahead and say that we already know that Obamacare will fail at accomplishing what you think it will and we know why Obamacare will fail. Here’s a reading list if you are interested.

 So, for all of you who are excited about Obama, you can be proud that (like the Romney voters) you merely voted for the banksters, the corporate cronies, the military-industrial complex, and all the other special interests that live off political loot. 

The Question for 'Candidate' Obama Supporters

Now that the election is over, I can only hope that supporters of liberty and decency across the political spectrum will not turn a blind eye as Obama continues to abuse the power of the office he was elected to serve. It is time for the intellectually honest among us to look past the cult of personality and hold this president accountable for his record.

My purpose in writing this article is summed up nicely by sentiments expressed by Kevin Carson over at C4SS.org: "These monstrous things demand justice, regardless of the culprits’ party affiliations. If you feel the rule of this Democratic war criminal and corporate stooge weighs less heavily on your neck than a Republican, I don’t begrudge you your momentary celebration. The question is, what are you going to do now that the election’s over?”

In Liberty,

Jason Riddle

p.s. You will have to forgive me if I left any of President Obama’s first-term “accomplishments” off the list. I know he had many more. I was just working from memory.