Thanksgiving 2025

In this episode we celebrate Thanksgiving by listening to the great Rush Limbaugh tell the story of the first Thanksgiving.

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Transcript

0:14

Welcome to the Live Sheet podcast. My name is Jeff Al, and I've been a licensed farm for life, 18 years in this podcast to talk about all things related to the amendment, as well as anything else going in the world, a sports story, or anything else that I might find interesting. So welcome, welcome, welcome. This is the week of Thanksgiving, and I've done this before and I'm gonna do it again this year. And I'm gonna probably try and just make it a tradition that on Thanksgiving I share, uh, rush Limbaugh telling the story of Thanksgiving. Uh, it is a great listen and you can never, uh, get too much of the, uh, warm dulcet tones of, of Rush Limbaugh. And so, uh, without any further ado, here is l Rush Bo. Now the story of the pilgrims begins in the early part of the 17th century. The Church of England under King James. I was persecuting anyone and everybody who did not recognize the church's absolute civil and spiritual authority. Actually, the state I now, those who challenged the ecclesiastical authority and those who believe strongly in freedom of worship were hunted down. It's in England. In the 16 hundreds, they were hunted down. They were imprisoned, sometimes executed for what they believed. So a group of separatists people that didn't want any part of this fled first to Holland. They liked wooden shoes and cheese. They established a community. They were there for 11 years. After 11 years, about 40 of these separatists who liked wooden shoes and cheese agreed to make a perilous journey to the new world. They had heard about it, some new, exciting place hadn't been developed. They knew that they were gonna face hardship. Hardship like you and I don't know. And I'm not preaching to you. I'm just telling you, we don't know the hardship these people endured. We can't. We are way too advanced Now, people who lived in the 16 hundreds would not believe life today. Try to explain. Flight Jet traveled, they wouldn't understand it. They knew they were facing hardship, but. Paramount importance to them was living freely and worshiping God according to the dictates of their own consciences, their own beliefs. That's what they were denied the freedom to do in England. Sa. August 1st, 1620, the Mayflower Set Sale. There were a total of 102 passengers, including 40 of these separatists. The pilgrims, there were just 40 of them. They were led by a man named William Bradford. Remember his name on the journey across the Atlantic. You talk about something. It had to be frightening and scary. The Mayflower was not much bigger than a 50 foot boat, 102 people on it. On the journey. William Bradford set up an agreement, the contract, if you will, that established just and equal laws for all members, all 40 members of this pilgrim community. It didn't matter what their religious beliefs were, these were the laws they were all agreeing to live by. Now, where did these laws, these ideas come from? We're talking about the Mayflower Compact is what Bradford wrote. The Mayflower Compact derived from the Bible. The pilgrims were a people completely steeped. In the Bible, old and New Testaments, they were devoutly religious people. No matter what else is said about them, and even that is denied. They were devoutly religious. They looked to the ancient Israelites for much of their example and because. Of the biblical precedent set forth in scripture, they never doubted because of their faith in God that their experiment would work. They never doubted they would get to the new world. They never doubted that once they got there, they would thrive. The journey was long. It was arduous. It was dangerous. And when they finally landed, when the pilgrims finally landed in New England in November, according to William Bradford's detailed journal, they found a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. Imagine New England as it exists today, as nothing but rocks, forest, undeveloped nature in November. And getting colder. There were no friends degree. There was no shelter of any kind other than what, you know, hiding under a tree. There was nothing, folks, it was desolate. There were no hotels. There were no ins ends, there were no places to clean up. There were no houses to show. I mean, this was real hardship. The sacrifice that they had made for the freedom to worship was just beginning during that first winter. Remember they arrive in November. During that first winter, half of them, including William Bradford's own wife, died of starvation, of sickness, exposure to the elements. Now we're getting close to what you were taught in school when Spring finally came. And by the way, writing that doesn't do it. Justice Spring didn't just finally came. It was a survival. It was an act of survival that you and I cannot possibly relate to or understand. American special forces can. Military people who've been trained can understand what the pilgrims, whether you and I can't. We've never done anything like that. First winter. In the new world, they survived it. Spring finally came, they did meet the Indians, the Native Americans who were there, who did help them in planting corn and fishing for cod. They showed them where the beavers were, so the beavers could be skinned for coats. Other things, you edible rights, people are not gonna like some of this story, but it, it happened. But even at this, even, even with this degree of assistance from the Indians and Native Americans, there wasn't any prosperity yet. They had the Mayflower Compact. They had these laws they were living by, but there was no prosperity. And I wonder why. Now, this is important to understand here folks, because this is where modern American history lessons end with the Indians teaching the pilgrims, how to eat, how to fish, how to skin, beavers and all that. That's where it ends, and that's the feel good story. But that doesn't even get close to the true story. You know, Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives. It wasn't that it that happened, but I, Thanksgiving was a devout expression of gratitude, the pilgrims to God for their survival. And everything that was a part of it. Now, here's the part that has been omitted. The original contract the pilgrims entered into in Holland, they had sponsors. They didn't have the money to do this trip a on their own. They had sponsors. There were merchant sponsors in London and in Holland, and these. Merchant sponsors demanded that everything that the pilgrims produced in the new world would go into a common store, a single bank, if you will, and that each member of the Pilgrim community was entitled to one share. So everybody had an equal share of whatever was in that bank. All of the land, they cleared, all of the houses they built, belonged to that bank, to the community as well. And they were going to distribute it equally because they were gonna be fair. So all of the land that they cleared and all the houses they built belonged to everybody. Belonged to the community, belonged to the bank, belonged to the common store. Nobody owned anything. They just had an equal share in it. It was a commune. The pilgrims established a commune, essentially forerunner of the communes we saw in the sixties and seventies out in California. They even had their own organic vegetables by the way. Yep. The pilgrims, forerunners, and organic vegetables. Of course. What else could there be no such thing as processed anything back then. Now, William Bradford, who had become the governor of the Colony,'cause he was the leader, recognized that this wasn't gonna work. This was costly and undestructive and it wasn't, it just wasn't working. It was collectivism, it was socialism. It wasn't working. That first winter had taken a lot of lives. The manpower was greatly reduced, so William Bradford decided to take bold action, which I will describe when we get back here. So I want to get back to where we left off. William Bradford, the governor of the Pilgrim community. Saw that none of this was working. The Mayflower Compact was not working. Giving everybody a single share of stock in the common store in the common Bank was not working collectivism. It was, it was as costly and destructive to the pilgrims. As it is and has been to anybody who has ever tried it. So Bradford decided to scrub it. He just, he threw it out and took bold action. He assigned a plot of land to each family. Every family was given a plot of land. They could work it, manage it. However they wanted to. If they just wanted to sit on it, get fat, dumb, happy, and lazy, they could, if they wanted to develop it, if they wanted to grow corn, whatever on it, they could. If they wanted to build on it, they could do that. If they wanted to turn it into a uh, quasi business, they could do whatever they wanted to do with it. He turned loose. The power of the capitalist marketplace. Long before Karl Marx was even born, long before Karl Marx was a sperm cell in his father's dreams, the pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism, and they found that it didn't work. Now, it wasn't called that then, but that's exactly what it was. Everybody was given an equal share. You know what happened? Nobody did anything. There was no, there was no incentive. Nothing worked. Nothing happened. What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anybody else did, unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation. But while most of the rest of the world's been experimenting with socialism. For over a hundred years longer now, trying to refine it, perfect it, reinvent it. The pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently. What Bradford wrote about this experiment should be in every school child's history lesson. If it were, we might prevent so much suffering. We might have prevented this election if the true story of. Thanksgiving had been taught for years and years and years, and I'll tell you what Bradford wrote and how they fixed it. When we get back after this, so William Bradford, after putting everybody in a common store, the Mayflower Compact, they wanted to be fair. They wanted everybody to have one common share of stock, and everything that happened that the pilgrims produced and it bombed. It didn't work. There was no prosperity. There was no creativity because there was no incentive. Here's what Bradford wrote about the failure. For this community so far as it was, was found to breed much confusion and discontent. They were not happy. In other words, this community was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. In other words, nobody worked. The way they set it up, killed and discouraged work. There was no need for young men that were most able and fit for labor and service, sat around and did nothing, should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without being paid for it. They said, why do that? So they didn't. It was thought to be injustice. Why should you work for other people? When you can't work for yourself, what's the point? You hear what he was saying here, folks? The pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without some incentive. So what did they try? What did Bradford's Pilgrim community try next? They unvarnished. The power of free enterprise, they invoked capitalism. The principle of private property all the way back in the 16, 14 hundreds, 16. I mean, it was incredible. Every family was in, signed its own plot of land and they could do with it whatever they wanted to do. Bradford wrote this, had very good success. For it made all hands industrious. So as much more corn was planted than otherwise would've been. So when profit was introduced, when the opportunity to prosper was introduced, it went busters. That my friends, is the essence of the. True story of Thanksgiving. This is where it gets really good if you're laboring under the misconception that I was and I was taught in school, they, they set up trading posts. They exchanged goods with the Indians after they had enjoyed this prosperity. It was not the Indians that brought them prosperity. And it's not said to insult anybody. The Indians assisted them on their arrival undeniably. But what led to prosperity? For these original settlers was a discovery that the common store failed socialism didn't work. When they introduced what turns out to be capitalism. They didn't have the name for it, but. When they turned loose. Individual incentive, keep what you produce, sell what you don't need. They went crazy. This is not something they were taught by anybody, but self-experience. It was not the Indians. None of this is said to put anybody down. Don't misunderstand. The Indians did a lot of things that helped'em, which I'll get to in just a second, but it was their own industriousness. They set up trading posts, they exchanged goods with the Indians. They sold stuff to them, and those profits allowed them to pay off the debts of their sponsors in London and in Holland. And you know what the success of that colony after they had. Abandoned socialism and tried what was essentially capitalism, the word spread throughout the old world of this massive amount of prosperity that was there for the taking in the new world. And guess what happened? The new world was flooded with new arrivals. The success and the prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted more Europeans and began what came to be known as the Great Puritan migration, and all it took was prosperity and the word spreading across the Atlantic Ocean. Of how there mo there was prosperity and, and it was there for the taking. All you had to do was get there and give it a shot. The lesson is, the true story of Thanksgiving is that William Bradford and his pilgrim community were thanking God for the blessings on their community after the first miserable winter. Of a documented failure brought on by their attempt at fairness and equality, which was socialism. It didn't work. Only when they abandoned it did it work. And I need to say again because I don't, I don't want people to be misunderstood. Get noses outta joint. The Native Americans, the indigenous peoples, the engines, whatever you wanna call'em, they were of considerable assistance. And they were friendly when the pilgrims arrived, but they had little, if anything, to do with the prosperity that occurred because that was the result of Bradford and the Pilgrim leadership deciding to change their structure according to the Mayflower Compact. Now, Indians assisted natural, I can't deny it. I mean, they taught them how to fish and this kind of thing that they didn't know how to do, and that led them to be. Productive undeniably so, but it was the Pilgrim community itself, which experienced this massive prosperity, the word of which spread all the way back to the old world Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean. Now, I mentioned earlier that, uh, the Federalist has a story on all this. And in it they describe much of what we did in the second book that dealt with this, the children's book, uh, rush Revere, and The Brave Pilgrims. And that book goes into great detail about how the Indians did provide assistance and what kind of assistance it was, how valuable it was, and how crucial. It was, and in Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims, we focus on a Native American by the name of Quato. Now, as I told you, during that first winter 1620, only 44 of the original 102 pilgrims survived. They had an elected governor by the name of John Carver. And it was an Indian by the name of Quinto who came to their rescue. And this is, as I say, explored in great detail in Rush Revere, and the Brave Pilgrims. Now Quato, uh. It was no ordinary native early settlers in 1610, captured him and sold him into slavery. A group of Catholic friars ended up freeing him, brought him to England, where he learned to speak English in 1618, serving as an interpreter on an English ship. He was brought back to the new world. It was Quinto, who is a famous Native American in his own right. In the Pilgrim story, it was Quinto who taught the pilgrims, how to plant, how to fish, how to skin beavers. It was Quinto who brokered a peace treaty between the pilgrims and other Indian tribes. There was more than one tribe of Indians. It was not. Copacetic. It was not friendly and it won with nature. It was not anything like the multiculturals, what have you, belief. There were squabbles, there were power struggles, turf battles. It was human, the Indians, the pilgrims, everybody was scrambling for power, for survival. Survivability was the name of the game, and it was not guaranteed. Now many of the pilgrims literally believed that God had sent Quato to save them and they believed, pilgrims believed that without Quato they never would've survived or thrived. And they, they experienced a tremendous harvest in 1621. And that's. The big gathering that is taught in the history books, the Native Indians and the pilgrims joined together for a huge feast, which is the foundational story of the Thanksgiving story that's taught in public schools. But again, that is not. The real story of Thanksgiving, that's the textbook brain. It did happen, but it's so much more than that and I, I love taking the opportunity every year to explain the truth, especially now, given how this election's apparently allegedly fallen out. Because even as the Federalist side, this is so great that the story is spreading. One of the most important legacies of the early settlers is that they experimented with socialism in the 1620s, and it did not work. Private property rights personal responsibility saved the Plymouth colony from extinction and laid the economic foundation. For the free and prosperous nation that we all enjoy today. And that is exactly right. And that is the true story of Thanksgiving. And that has been what we have shared with you every Thanksgiving for the past 31 years. Now, a brief we're.