THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson   Red Bluff Daily News   11/28/2023          Lessons: collectivism, vehicular insanity

It’s worth noting, and praising, the offerings of our Daily News columnists over the Thanksgiving holidays set aside for gratitude. We all can benefit by carving, not just the turkey, but also some time and mental space for gratefulness, if only to balance the emotionally draining obligations and frictions around us.

Humans being fallible in a never-ending struggle to follow the “better angels” of our inner selves—rather than the petty foibles of jealousy, hatred, insult and sadness—when writers offer their personal Thanksgiving messages, they deserve a salute.

It behooves this writer to remind readers of the indelible lessons of the first Thanksgiving, wherein our Pilgrim forebears used their little Plymouth Rock colony to experiment in what forms of ownership and social engineering would best contribute to their very survival, as it were. The ideals of utopian collectivism had been praised and aspired to by thinkers, planners and idealists, in the European Old World of the 1600s, for centuries.

As I have repeatedly written, inspired by the annual Thanksgiving message of our beloved radio pontificator, the late Rush Limbaugh, we have the irrefutable, documented experiences of the Pilgrims, described by their Gov. William Bradford in his journals. You may search “America’s First Socialist Republic,” an annual entry at https://powerlineblog.com with links to Paul A. Rahe’s works of history and republics.

The short, most relevant summary goes as follows: The Pilgrims saw an opportunity to practice the admirable system of having each one’s fruits-of-labor shared with other Pilgrims by putting them in a “common store.” “Store” is/was both a term for a physical place to purchase goods, as well as a place where the Pilgrims “stored” what they had produced.

It was the literal “From each according their ability; to each according to their need,” infamously coined by Karl Marx over two centuries later. He obviously was unfamiliar with the utter failure of the Pilgrims’ experiment in communal distribution, which nearly wiped out their colony. Or he was perfectly aware that structuring any society upon such “collectivism” was doomed to failure, shortages, want and starvation—but figured that the idealistic goal of destroying private property was too important to compromise.

For posterity, Gov. Bradford recorded the proclivities of some of the colonists—the young, childless and physically strong—to resent working for the benefit of the older, married, weak or lazy colonists. Their first harvest was so insufficient for their needs that starvation appeared inevitable.

Hence, Bradford instituted a system whereby equal portions of land were assigned to his subjects. If one or more were disinclined to work, they would experience the adage: Who will not work, will not eat.

As is found to be the case everywhere private property is sacrosanct, and one’s right to keep and enjoy the “fruits of their labor” is beyond dispute, the Pilgrims found that abundance followed. Each one, or their family, was able to use what they produced or, in many cases, was able to engage in “fair trade” with others for that which they needed but couldn’t produce.

The abundance was so pronounced that the Pilgrims invited their neighbors—the Wampanoag tribe whose food-producing wisdom helped the Pilgrims to create said abundance—to share in the harvest and feast. That was the First Thanksgiving, a holiday unique to Americans; that holiday remains a celebration of food and camaraderie with those we hold dear.

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Upon learning that what was immediately viewed as a terrorist “car bomb,” at the Rainbow Bridge border crossing by Niagara Falls, was a tragic case of “vehicular insanity,” or an inexplicable runaway acceleration—I recalled a similar case at an Arby’s restaurant I helped manage in Santa Monica. I’m likewise reminded of an auto shop on South Main St. with huge boarded up windows facing their parking lot, from an inadvertent vehicular assault.

Almost everyone at the Arby’s for lunch heard the screeching, high-pitched automotive sounds coming through the drive-through speaker, that kept stopping with a loud crash, over and over. The store’s General Manager took off out the back door, with me close behind. Yes, a car was careening back and forth, as the driver, apparently unable to remove his foot from the accelerator, panicked and shifted from “forward” to “reverse.”

What I’ll never forget is the G.M. running toward the car, standing in its path, and waving his arms as if he could personally stop the illogical actions of the driver. No, the car wasn’t insane, but the driver was surely devoid of his senses, his foot seemingly glued to the gas pedal. Based on the story told us by the local auto shop owner, it was another case of elderly, vehicular panic.

“New Calif. Law Mandates K-12 Students Be Taught 'Media Literacy' (ACTUAL Literacy Not Necessary)” by Doug P. at twitchy.com, reminds us of the old Leninist adage: Given control of children’s schooling for one generation, Lenin could insure perpetual communist rule.