An editorial from The New York Times: How The Story Goes
This editorial briefly shines on the meaning of thanksgiving with thoughts like, "They remind us of an abundance that draws us together" and, "We live well along in Lincoln's "continuance of years" and we enjoy, to an extent he could never have imagined, his "large increase of freedom." " But fails to go any farther. Questions like where did this abundance come from and what is the root of this freedom remain unanswered and I'm begining to think purposely left out.
It reminds me of a scene in Atlas Shrugged where Francisco D'Anconia is speaking to Hank Rearden at a part Rearden's wife is throwing. In the scene Hank has been staring out the window noticing the cold and unhospitable weather and trying to grasp the signifigance behind it's meaning when Francisco comes to name it for him like this.
"You stood here and watched the storm with the greatest pride one can ever feel--because you are able to have summer flowers and half-naked women in your house on a night like this, in demonstration of your victory over that storm. And if it weren't for you, most of those who are here would be left helpless at the mercy of that wind in the middle of some such plain."
In that way Francisco offers grattitude that Hank didn't know he needed and had searched for. This is the root of Thanksgiving. Today is mean to celebrate the abundance enjoyed by Americans in their early days. Where did this abundance come from? Not nature but Man. Yes the harvest that the soil provided them with was large that first year of the festival but who had planted it? Who had concluded that by planting a seed and tending to it in a certain way it would grow to feed not only him but his customers? Nature did not do that, Man did. Man devised the fertilizers and techniques for reaping such a large harvest, these were not gifts from nature but from Man. The root of these achievements like all achievements is Man's Mind. Thanksgiving's real meaning is to give thanks to the men of this country who upheld their intellectual integrity and made the judgement This is Good. Without these men there would be no abundance to give thanks for. As an example direct your attention to the country of India who's brightest minds are leaving in order to come across oceans to countries where they can exercise their minds. Where is India's abundance to give thanks for? There is none because there is no Mind to concieve of the ways to produce it.
The Freedom that Abraham Lincoln gave thanks for comes from the very same source. Man. It is Man's life that dictates and makes these freedoms neccessary. Man must live as Man in order to survive. Throughout the history of this planet it has been demonstrated again and again that the countries who refuse to acknowledge this fact, and it is a fact, sink further and further towards the pre-historic state of cavemen. The only thing saving them from hunting and gathering are those of us who recognize that Man's Mind is the utmost important thing. The Founding Fathers recognized this if only subconsciously and created a country where no one had the right to violate the workings of that mind in the form of Individual Rights, that not even the Government could impede. It was these rights that raised the life of this countries citizens to heights not even imagined in the rest of the world, and it is the destruction of them that will lower us back to the days of the hand plow.
Let me give you a brief example. The Middle East at the turn of the 20th Century was still largely un-industrialized. Men still rode on camels and farmed for their bare sustenance. Already at that time in America who was a scant few hundred years old had bypassed the rest of the world and was building structures to the sky and enjoying a life of hard work and leisure. Americans traveled to the Middle East and noticed that there was an abundace of oil there that could power the cars just being introduced in our great country. These men then devised ways of extracting this valuable sludge from the ground and refining it into the gasoline and mechanical oil that would power our country to this day. In doing this they showed the men who had until then been riding camels how to perform these feats that they could have never dreamed possible and the wealth that it created. These days the Middle East is one of the richest area's in the world due to the oil that WE showed them how to extract and refine. Now WE fight and beg for a portion of the wealth WE created. Instead of camels you now see Mercede's being driven and the Royal Families living in modern palaces heated by the process WE discovered. Without the strength of a Mind there would have been no abundance there. Unfourtanatly we forget our greatness when we gave them control of the industry we had created and now we are at the mercy of those who could never have concieved of what they control. This is what happens when the mind forgets what it should be grateful for.
When you sit at your table today and eat the meal provided by the work of your mind or your fathers' or whoever it is that paid for it take a second and give them thanks for what they've given you. In all our clamour to thank God or the State we forget to thank the ones who need it most and deserve it most as well, the Producer, without whom none of what you're eating would be possible.
2:44:20 PM 
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