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Nov. 21, 2007 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:16
November 21, 2007, Wednesday, Hour #3
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The views expressed by the host on this program, now documented to be almost always right 98.8% of the time, according to the latest opinion audit from our opinion auditing firm, the Sullivan Group in Sacramento, California.
Welcome back, folks.
Rush Limbaugh.
Meeting and surpassing all audience expectations on a daily basis.
Great to have you with us.
We're doing Open Line Friday on Wednesday today, so we go to the phones.
You can talk about whatever you want.
You own the program, and we go to the phones.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882, and the email address is rush at EIBnet.com.
General Motors.
November U.S. sales on average are on track to meet expectations. The Top GM executive told Reuters on Tuesday.
Yeah, we're looking at the numbers for November.
We're making our numbers, said Bob Lutz, GM's chief of global product development at Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit.
Some days we're a little behind, some days are a little ahead, some days we're lots ahead.
So on balance to me, it looks like we are making track.
There's no surprise in me as to this being true.
General Motors became an official sponsor of this program this past spring.
Dawn, you're still driving to Buick?
Dawn's going to buy, they give us a car to drive every two weeks.
They switch them out.
And Dawn loves this car that she is in and is going to get it.
And it is cool.
So I want to, and I know Lutz, Lutz at our cigar dinners in New York.
He's a fighter pilot.
In fact, his business card has a picture of him in his flight suit in front of a, I don't have it in front of me.
It looks like it's an F4.
I don't know if he still flies it, but he is a really good guy.
Great hobby.
Also, I have to tell you this, too, since I'm talking about sponsors.
I've got a bunch of family in this weekend.
There's going to be, what's it going to be?
It's going to be close to 60 people all told.
And maybe for Thanksgiving Day, it's going to be close to 70.
And folks, I have ordered enough food from Allen Brothers on, let's see, what do we have Monday night?
I've forgotten what was it?
Oh, that's right.
We had these giant Allen Brothers pork chops.
And then last night with the giant veal chops.
And tonight we're doing a combination of filet and New York Strip.
And then for Thanksgiving, we're going to have, I'm even adding liver and onions to the Thanksgiving buffet.
Prime rib.
The stuff that you get from these people, you cannot get in grocery stores.
You just can't get it anywhere else.
It is just out of this world.
Genuine prime, not the fake prime that they try to tell you you're getting.
Nothing against grocery stores, by the way, but the amount of prime in this country is really, really small.
Only 2% of the beef is prime, and most of it goes to restaurants.
And Allen Brothers has opened up a retail division via web and catalog.
And of course, we are a primary sponsor.
I am losing my voice.
Yeah, and that's another thing.
Since my North Carolina mistress yesterday started telling me I sounded tired, these guys, no, you don't sound tired at all.
They were telling me yesterday.
Now all day long, they're telling me you sound tired.
Dawn and Snerdley running scams.
I walk out of here during the break and they're huddling and they're talking in Snerdley's office.
And then they stop when I walk in there.
And Dawn says, you do sound tired.
You realize we were just talking about it.
And I know that that's not the case, but I am hoarse.
At any rate, absteaks.com is the website for Allen Brothers, ABSTeaks.com.
Everything, right?
The turkey from, yes, I'm paying for it.
You know better than to ask.
I do not take freebies from anybody because I don't want the obligation.
Yes, I'm paying for it proudly.
We're getting the turkey.
We're getting the ham.
Well, a couple, maybe three turkeys, 70 people.
This buffet, I can't wait till you guys see this buffet is, I get some of the family here watching in awe as the program unfolds before their very eyes.
But this buffet tomorrow is just going to be astounding.
And most of it, the beef and the meat and all that's coming from Allen Brothers.
If you haven't tried their stuff, I mean, Saturday night for MUKU, sports bar menu in the big viewing room.
And we're going to take Wagyu beef, Kobe beef.
We're going to grind it up.
Well, form it into little sliders.
And their jumbo hot dogs.
I bought some expandable waistline shorts for this week.
I have just thrown all discipline and the diet out the window.
You can do it for a week.
I mean, the trick is after the week's over, getting back on it, which, as a person of great discipline, I will have no problems in accomplishing.
All right, to the audio sound bites.
Clinton and Obama fighting it out over experience.
Mrs. Clinton, it is said, is now starting to take swipes at Obama, which is unique because normally the drive-bys portray Mrs. Clinton as the victim of these personal attacks that so demean the campaign.
But she is responding.
Obama, what he said was, and it is kind of silly, do you hear what he said?
Obama said, well, I lived abroad when I was 10 years old, and that has given me a perspective on U.S. foreign policy that other candidates don't have.
So Mrs. Clinton fired back.
With all due respect, I don't think living in a foreign country between the ages of six and 10 is foreign policy experience.
I think having the firsthand experience with so many leaders that I have had over the last 15 years equips me to be a president who can start on day one.
That was yesterday in Creston, Iowa at a campaign rally.
I think having the firsthand experience with so many leaders that I have had over the last 15 years equips me to be was that Hum, ours or was that on the bite?
Hum was on the bite.
Over the last 15 years, it equips me to be a president who can start on day one.
This is like, yeah, she's got 35 years of experience standing up for kids.
She's got 35 years experience in bimbo eruptions, and that's it.
The experiences that she's had with foreign leaders, our health care program have all been disasters.
Here's Obama, a portion of his remarks in New Hampshire.
She went on to make up the point, as some of the Republicans have made, that she's made, she's met with all these world leaders.
And I was wondering which world leader told her that we needed to invade Iraq, because that is the conventional thinking that we're going to have to break.
You know, if Obama's smart, and he started laying the groundwork for this, but he's not followed through on it.
If he's smart, he would do a JFK and start this torch of a new generation business.
Because this election is going to be the last gasp of the baby boomers, the anti-war baby boomers in the 60s and the conservative baby boomers, of which I'm one, and they're going to be represented either by Mitt Romney or Rudy.
But that's it.
If the Clintons lose in 08, this is pretty much the last gasp for the dying breed of the 60s anti-war crowd to get their arms around this country and shape it and form it in their image and what they want, which I said earlier is socialism.
And so Obama is not a boomer.
And if he really wants to make some hay here and move, and he is moving up in New Hampshire, he's gotten a lot closer to her.
A big poll came out, some local poll up there, which cannot please Mrs. Clinton.
Leed was from 24 to 14 or 23 to 14 in less than a month.
So he is moving.
Huckabee almost tied with Mitt Romney in a poll out today in Iowa.
And remember, my friends, it was I a few short weeks ago who asked you to consider outside the prism of conventional wisdom just how much the campaign would be shaken up if Huckabee wins Iowa, even if he finishes a strong second.
I know it's not December yet, this is just a poll, but he is moving up.
And so the Republican other candidates are going to start attacking him now.
They're going to do it on the subject of his ethics and his tax increases when he was governor in Arkansas.
In addition to that, what happens, I asked, if Mrs. Clinton isn't the nominee, I know it seems so unlikely and improbable, but if she isn't, everybody gets caught up in the media bubble and the conventional wisdom.
And so many surprises can happen and probably will between now and the Hawkeye Caucasi on January 3rd.
Now, here's Obama in Manchester, New Hampshire, speaking to students at Manchester Central High School.
There were times where I got into drinking, experimented with drugs, and there was a whole stretch of time where I didn't really find myself alive.
And it wasn't until I got out of college, or got out of high school and went to college, that I started realizing, man, I've wasted a lot of time.
Now, I've been some reaction to this, Obama admitting.
He did in his book, too.
He admitted that he had tried cocaine in the speech here.
He admits to consuming adult beverages and flirting with illegal drugs.
Rudy Giuliani has come out and practically defended him.
Oh, come on.
The days of having somebody with perfect life, a perfect past, those days are over.
And to have somebody admit these things, it's good to get it out there.
Before the Clintons get it.
I mean, obviously.
Remember what's going on here.
I know he talked about it in his book, but remember Robert Novak's piece from last Sunday: the Clintons have scandalous information on Obama, but they're not going to use it.
And in the process of saying that, they're using it.
There's scandalous information.
Folks, I'm going to let you in on something.
I might have mentioned this one other time, but there's a story out there that supposedly everybody in the drive-by media knows.
They don't know.
We don't know who it's about.
They do.
It's supposedly really, really scandalous.
It could blow the lid off of whoever the story is about.
And they are struggling with how and if to use it.
And everybody's wondering, well, who's it about?
So, this leak from Novak or this leak to Novak on Sunday is scandalous information about Obama, supposedly from the Clinton camp, or that the Clinton camp has it.
Everybody's speculating, hmm, it might be Obama.
Now, Obama's gone out there since this leak happened and said, yeah, he's cocaine and drugs, wasted a lot of time.
That doesn't sound all that scandalous.
Other people think it's about another candidate and has to do something with totally not at all together with Barack Obama.
So it's lurking out there.
In fact, the LA Times, I think, even reported on this story that everybody knows about it in the drive-by media, but they don't know how to use it or if to use it.
I don't know what it is.
I have no clue, and I don't have a relationship, that close a relationship with anybody in Drive-By Media for them to tell me.
So I'm among those speculating.
Got to take a quick break.
We'll be back and continue in a sec.
All right, welcome back.
Little fun and games going on here behind the scenes involving the broadcast engineer, Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network.
Right back to the phones.
We've got the real story of Thanksgiving coming up, a tradition on this program.
I will read from my great work, See, I Told You So, in the next half hour.
Joe and Phoenix, you're next.
Great to have you with us, sir.
Thank you, sir.
I just kind of get straight to it.
So, well, basically, I opened a small business in Phoenix, Arizona, about seven years ago, and I was doing great.
In fact, we predicted to wait two years to get to even, and we were even at one year.
I figured we'd be doing okay by the end of three, and we were doing great.
We've been building and building, but when you say you don't see a recession or anything serious going on, at least here in Phoenix, I see it.
And the other people I talk to, small businessmen, you know, my business, last January, when we go into a growth period for our business.
Wait a second.
Just say, what is your business?
Maybe we can save it here.
Well, I'd rather not say just because I don't want people to know what my situation is at the moment.
Oh.
You know, because I don't want my customers to know.
Well, you know, now we've got to catch 22.
I understand.
You've just described your business is in trouble, and so you don't want to identify it because that will depress it even further.
And yet, by identifying it on this program, we can save it.
Okay, I understand what you're saying.
I understand what you're saying.
If you want to keep it quiet, keep it quiet.
Yeah, I understand, and I appreciate that.
My whole thing is I've talked to a lot of places.
There's a sandwich shop guy right next door to me, and he's been saying the same thing.
For the last year, we just keep seeing business going down and going down.
I spent a fortune last year on increased advertising because it was the time of year when our growth is biggest.
And I thought if we really pushed it, we'd help to increase it, and it still decreased.
It may have decreased less because of that, but we were still on a decrease.
And now we're really getting to really hard times.
And we're just kind of, you know, we're getting by, but we're just barely doing it.
And if it keeps getting worse, I don't know how much longer we will.
Is your business seasonal?
Yeah, it's got two.
Well, basically, it's strong for about eight months out of the 12.
What are the four week months?
Well, it breaks down.
Part of it is in the summer, and the other part is this time of year during the holidays.
Mostly it's discretionary income, but it's not retail.
I see.
Oh, it's not retail.
Okay.
No.
Well, you know, if you go to Michigan, you'll hear the same thing.
You'll hear talk of recession, depression, economic depression, this sort of thing.
And Michigan is in trouble for a host of reasons, mostly because of the way state and local governments have run the show up there.
Even in the best of times in the country, there are pockets that don't do well.
I remember back in the 80s, it might have been the 70s, oil price plummeted to 10 bucks a barrel.
Great for the consumer, great for everybody that had to buy anything that had to do with oil, except for the domestic producers.
It was below what they could sell it for or turn a profit on.
They had to cap wells in Louisiana and Texas, and it put some people out of business.
So it was a dichotomy.
So whether, you know, you may, in your particular business, in your particular part of Phoenix or Arizona, you might be experiencing a downturn and a recession.
Whether it represents something of a trend nationally remains to be seen.
What's fueling the national trend and speculation on a recession is the credit crunch and all the mortgages falling apart and the banks having to charge off these huge write-downs for bad loans and so forth.
And so it's, but, you know, the thing, we may be well-headed to recession.
I don't know.
The thing that bothers me about all this is if you watch television, any business program, this stuff is designed for bad news.
Do you know that people who sell financial newsletters will hype crisis after crisis to increase their subscriptions?
People respond to crisis and how to deal with it from experts.
And so you've just got to be careful about the media bubble here and be a little bit independent from it because it's powerful in affecting your attitude.
Now, I know you're talking...
I've been hoping for a long time that it's just hype and that this was just a momentary thing.
And I hope still that, you know, come the first of the year that it turns around again.
I'm just telling you, and you may be right.
It may just be a pocket here that's going on.
I can't answer for the rest of the country.
I just wanted to make sure you understood that, you know, I agree the Republicans are who I want to see in office.
I want more conservatives.
I want us to continue along that line.
I certainly don't want to see Hillary.
But at the same time, I wanted to let you know, you know, don't say just outright there isn't going to be a recession because there just may be.
I'm not saying it's the Republicans' fault.
In fact, I'm blaming all the Democrats for sure.
But at the same time, it may really exist.
Well, you look at here's this is what I mean by the media bubble.
In the last seven years, the focus, last four years, four or five years, the focus in the media has been Iraq and Bush lied.
And Bush is incompetent, and Bush is a reprobate, and Bush is Hitler, and Bush is all of this.
Iraq was unnecessary.
Now, all of a sudden, that's turning around.
So, for the last seven years, the economy, which has been good, we came out of 9-11, we came out of a recession, we've created gazillions of new jobs, wealth gap, every quintile is showing increases in wages.
The real economic news is good.
People in surveys say their personal economic situation is good, but they're worried about their neighbor.
Next year, Iraq as an election issue is going to be off the table, and the Democrats and the media who have been ignoring a good economy for the last seven years are all of a sudden going to start focusing on the bad economy because they are going to realize if they can convince enough people that the future is grim and bleak because of Bush's tax cuts or because of Bush's policies, anything they can do to get Hillary or a Democrat elected.
So, all I'm saying to you is that the news next year about the depressed, look at the stack of stuff I led with today.
Thanksgiving in the greatest country on earth, and you would not believe.
I had a half-inch worth of paper on all the doom and gloom and the misery and the pessimism people feel.
And I resent the hell out of it because it's unnecessary.
I'm not saying yours isn't.
You're in a business and you're having a downtime right now.
But I'm just trying to warn you, it's going to get worse in terms of the people in your customers are going to be told all next year: boy, a country sucks right now.
The economy is looking bad.
Recession, oil prices, and so forth.
And the more they're told it's bad, the more they're going to think it's bad.
And the more they think their neighbors are hurting, the more they're going to think it's bad.
So, whether it's real or not, they're going to try to make it real.
And I feel for you.
I agree with that.
And again, like I say, I'm not trying to be pessimistic.
I'm going to keep going.
I know every hope of it.
I know.
You're running a business.
You've got to be realistic and especially honest about your projections.
I wish you the best.
Thanks for the call.
We'll be back here in just a second, folks.
Stay with us.
As usual, talent on loan from God.
Half my brand tied behind my back just to make it fair.
All right.
I want to see what you people think about this.
Susan Cole wanted to fly her 12-year-old son, Danny, from their Maryland home to Houston so that he could catch a football game with his dad, who was there on a business trip.
Danny had only flown once or twice.
Remember, he's 12 years old.
He's a crumb cruncher.
And he had never flown alone.
So Susan, the mother, plenty nervous herself, last month took Danny to Baltimore, Washington International Airport three hours early and accompanied him to the gate.
She said, I assume Southwest Airlines would let him on early before the herd of passengers gets on because I'm not even sure he's tall enough to reach the overhead luggage, said the mother.
She said a succession of Southwest employees not only refused to let Danny board early, but wouldn't promise to help him meet up with his father.
Oh, no.
Southwest executives says that employees were just following company policy.
Southwest escorts children five through 12, 11, 5 through 11 who are traveling alone.
Once you hit 12, you're considered a youth and not an unaccompanied minor, said Teresa Laraba, the airline's vice president for ground operations.
Each year across the U.S., hundreds of thousands of unaccompanied minors take to disguise.
Airline officials say that the holidays are second only to summer in numbers of solo crumb crunchers, making it a time of year that tests anxious parents and airline policies.
Now, the airline said you're 12 years old and that's it.
You're 11, fine.
Now, my personal take on this, and I know this probably is going to sound harsh, but the airlines are not babysitters.
You know, they're not, it's not a kindergarten.
It's not a village.
You know, you don't throw your kid, I don't care what age, in the fuselage of an airplane.
You never know who's going to be on there.
You just expect the kid to be taken care of.
Would you let your kid roam around in a store 12 years old while you're outside in the car?
No, you go in with him, right?
So, mom, fly him to Texas.
Fly with him.
Or make the husband come get him.
Or you go and stay.
What's the problem here?
Maybe she doesn't like football.
But this is one of these things, you know, people have all these expectations of things that somebody's going to do something and it's not airline policy.
Excuse me, have you heard about it?
I'm sure you have.
The Saudi judiciary yesterday, Saudi Arabian judiciary yesterday defended a court verdict that sentenced a 19-year-old victim of a gang rape.
The victim, the victim of a gang rape, was sentenced to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was with an unrelated male when they were attacked.
The Shiite Muslim woman had initially been sentenced to 90 lashes after being convicted of violating Saudi Arabia's rigid Islamic law requiring segregation of the sexes.
The Ministry of Justice stood by the verdict on Tuesday saying that charges were proven against the woman for having been in a car with a man who was not her relative.
Now, we in America, we hear this, it's like the Bush administration.
The State Department expressed astonishment Tuesday about a Saudi court sentence of six months in jail, 200 lashes for a woman who was gang raped.
Why are we astonished?
This is who they are.
This is their policy.
This is their mentality.
What astonishes me is where the hell are the nags?
If anybody ought to speak up about this, it's not the State Department.
It's a National Association of Gals.
You know, the NOW gang.
And of course, Mrs. Clinton, didn't Mrs. Clinton say something about this?
I don't have the quote, but she spoke up and disapproved mightily of this.
Wait a minute, Mrs. Clinton, I thought we weren't supposed to interfere in the internal affairs of another country like a rock.
I mean, I didn't hear anybody shocked and outraged at all the rapes and the torture going on when Saddam Hussein ran the place.
But now all of a sudden we hear this and we are astounded.
This is their system.
This is their religion.
This is not the first time.
Is this the most egregious example we've heard?
Here is Don in Flat Rock, North Carolina.
I'm glad you waited, sir.
Welcome to the program.
Thanks, Dr. McCall Rosh.
Yes, sir.
I've been trying to get you for five years.
Been listening since 88.
I consider you a professor of history.
Well, I appreciate that, sir.
Thank you.
And I equate you to Alexander Hamilton, who was instrumental, as you probably know, in starting this country.
Yes, except he lost a duel.
And I hope the comparison ends there.
Well, I would urge you to read the book.
Ron Chernow wrote it.
I understand.
I love Alexander Hamilton.
I was just joking.
But he did lose a duel.
Well, I would urge you to read it anyway.
It's a great eye-opener.
I think a little less of Thomas Jefferson from the book because he and Adams Mono and Madison went out of the way to do negative broadsides against Hamilton in spite of all he did for the country.
And it sounded like the beginning of liberal, you know, the same kind of stuff we're hearing today about destroying the opponent rather than anything else.
But I cannot conceive of where this country would be without your interdiction for the last 20 years in educating the populace to listen to you on history in general.
I appreciate that.
I really do.
I don't think, though, that Thomas Jefferson is the architect of partisanship.
Well, that's the way Turno wrote it anyway.
I mean, to say that partisanship didn't exist before Jefferson, I'm talking about in court in the course of human history.
Well, yeah.
Partisanship, I mean, are you trying to trace the origins of liberalism and the way it came?
No, I was just stunned because of all the accolades Jefferson has received and all the nothing about Alexander Hamilton and what he's done for this country.
He's a guy that came like you from the bottom and fought his way to the top and made so many contributions to this country that it's unbelievable.
And yet, Jefferson, of all people, and sometimes not even using his own name, printed broadsides and negative newspaper articles and politically did everything he could to destroy the man.
I was just astounded.
Well, that is an interesting perspective, and I know that you have a point.
Did you mention the name of a book?
Yeah, it's called Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.
Ron Chernow, that's right.
Okay, look, I appreciate that.
Don, thanks much.
There's one more thing.
I've signed on to your military program, and I want to just say hello to my guy in Fort Hood in the first infantry.
Oh, the Adoptor Soldier Program.
I think it's great.
I think everybody should get on board and support those guys for what they're doing.
Thank you very much.
I really appreciate you.
Your kind words mean a lot.
Thank you.
Okay, no.
John in Cincinnati, you're next.
Great to have you with us today, sir.
Hello.
Yeah, hello, Rush.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Thanks to you, sir.
I just wanted to speak to the junior senator's experience, Hillary Clinton's experience in foreign policy.
If I recall correctly, she gave Yasser Arafat's wife a big old kiss right on the lips.
I mean, is that what we can expect?
Wait, wait, Just a minute.
We're talking Sue Arafat.
Somebody had to kiss her.
Do you think?
I mean.
I can't imagine anybody wanting to kiss Yasser Arafat, and I can't imagine wanting to be kissed by Yasser Arafat.
Somebody had to give her.
But was it on the lips?
If I recall correctly, it was a kiss that, well, let me just say, it wasn't the traditional kiss on one side, on the other side, and then on the other side.
And it inflamed the Jewish community.
And, you know, here she is, Senator of New York.
And can we expect her to kiss the spouse of more terrorists during her reign as president of the United States?
I mean, as far as being the most intelligent woman in the world, who would do that, really?
The Clinton campaign, when you mention things like this to them, would say, well, look, Ronald Reagan kissed Reza Gorbachev.
I mean, these things are just done.
This was protocol.
And then you used her engaging in yet another personal attack against Mrs. Clinton and her good nature.
She was by herself.
She was by herself.
And it was not with a Yasser Arafat or her husband.
She was almost an envoy representing our country.
And it was ridiculous.
She was her foreign policy experience.
That is ridiculous, period.
The bottom line is: you're dead right.
She is unqualified.
She's inexperienced.
In fact, I think, you know, in that soundbite that we played attacking Obama for claiming he has foreign policy experience because he lived abroad until he was age 10, she said, I'll be ready on day one.
It struck me later, I think that was one of the slogans of George H.W. Bush in 1988 when he was succeeding Reagan.
I'll be ready on day one.
I know it's not hers.
I have heard this somewhere else.
It's plagiarism.
She's stealing it from a bush, no less.
Back after this, folks, don't go away.
Okay, we're back.
Before we get to the real story of Thanksgiving, I meant to mention this all day and I forgot.
A good friend of mine, Pete Wayner, used to work in the White House now at Commentary Magazine, CommentaryMagazine.com.
He wrote a piece with an associate, Yuval Levin, not related to F. Lee Levin, wrote a piece that appeared in commentary, and it is just fabulous.
It fits the theme that we've been talking about all day.
The essay that says it all, crime, drugs, welfare, and other good news.
While everybody thinks that the culture is falling apart, they've gone back 16, 20 years, looked at data, and found that it's being put back together.
There are a couple of things that are not, but for the most part, drug use, random sex, crime, all these things are down, including divorce.
And I'm going to put a link to it, rushlimbo.com so that you can read it because it's exactly the kind of thing you need to have to counter all the pessimism that's out there, particularly about the culture.
Now, the real story of Thanksgiving, August 1st, 1620, Mayflower set sail.
102 passengers, including 40 pilgrims led by William Bradford.
During the journey, Bradford set up an agreement, a contract, that established just and equal laws for all members of the community, irrespective of their religious beliefs.
Where did the revolutionary ideas expressed in the Mayflower Compact come from?
They came from the Bible.
And this is what's not taught, and this is what's left out.
The Pilgrims were a people completely steeped in the lessons of the Old and the New Testament.
So they looked to the ancient Israelites for their example.
And because of the biblical precedent set forth in Scripture, they never doubted their experiment would work.
But it wasn't a pleasure cruise.
The journey to the New World was long and it was arduous.
When they landed in New England in November, they found, according to a detailed journal written by Bradford, a cold and barrel and desolate wilderness.
There were no friends to greet them, no houses to shelter them, no inns where they could refresh themselves.
The sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning.
During the first winter, half the pilgrims, including Bradford's wife, died of either starvation, sickness, or exposure.
When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, how to fish for cod and skin beavers for coats, and life improved, but they didn't prosper.
And this is important to understand because this is where modern history often ends.
Thanksgiving is actually explained in some textbooks as a holiday for which the pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives rather than as a devout expression of gratitude grounded in the tradition of the Old and New Testaments.
Now, here's the part that's been omitted.
The original contract that the Pilgrims had entered into with their sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store.
And each member of the community was entitled to one common share.
All the land that they cleared and the houses they built belonged to the community as well.
They were collectivists.
Now, Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this collectivism was costly and destructive, almost as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives.
He decided to take bold action.
He assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage and turned loose the power of the marketplace.
Long before Karl Marx was even born, the Pilgrims had discovered and experimented with what could only be described as socialism.
And what happened?
It didn't work.
Surprise, surprise.
What Bradford and his community found was that the most creative and the most industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else unless they could utilize the power of personal motivation.
But most of the world still experimenting with socialism for well over 100 years, trying to refine it, perfect it, reinvent it.
The Pilgrims decided early on to scrap it permanently.
And what William Bradford wrote about this social experiment should be in every history lesson every kid gets.
If it were, we might prevent much, the needless suffering that was going to happen in the future.
Here's what he wrote: The experience was that was had in this common course condition tried sundry years that by taking away property and bringing community into a common wealth would make them happy and flourishing as if they were wiser than God, Bradford wrote.
For this community, so far as it was, was found to breed much confusion and discontent, retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.
For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service, they did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense.
That was thought injustice.
What he was saying, the Pilgrims found that people couldn't be expected to do their best work without incentive.
So what did they try next?
Well, they unharnessed the power of good old free enterprise by invoking the capitalistic principle of private property.
Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products.
And what was the result?
Well, Bradford wrote, this had very good success, for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.
Doesn't sound like much of a Clintonite, does he?
Is it possible that supply-side economics could have existed before the 1980s?
Anyway, in no time, the Pilgrims found that they had more food than they could eat themselves.
So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians.
The prophets allowed them to pay off their debts to the merchants in London, and the success and prosperity of the Plymouth settlement attracted even more Europeans and began what became known as the Great Puritan Migration.
Now, aside from this program, have you heard this story before?
Is this lesson being taught to your children today?
Probably not.
And so why not?
Can you think of a more important lesson one could derive from the Pilgrim experience?
What if Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton had been exposed to these lessons when they were in school?
Do you realize what we face in next year's election is the equivalent of people who want to set up these original collectivist communes that didn't work, with nobody having incentive to do anything except get on the government dole somehow, because the people running the government want that kind of power.
So the Pilgrims decided to thank God for all of their good fortune.
And that's Thanksgiving.
And read George Washington's first Thanksgiving address.
Count the number of times God is mentioned and how many times he's thanked.
None of this is taught today.
It should be.
Have a happy Thanksgiving, folks.
You deserve it.
Do what you can to be happy.
And especially, do what you can to be thankful.
Because in this country, you have more reasons than you've ever stopped to consider.
I'm getting all kinds of grief for my take on the Southwest Airlines story.
I'm just out of touch.
I don't know.
It's just 500 bucks for another kid or parent to travel with a kid rush.
You just can't really.
Okay, tell you what.
I'll make it up to you, folks.
I'll get up at 5 o'clock Friday and I'll go to a mall for a half hour shopping just to get back in touch.
Have a great weekend.
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