Happy 389th Thanksgiving! (UPDATED FOR 2010)
If one begins with the most oft-recognized “First Thanksgiving,” in 1621 in the Colony of Virginia, then 389 Thanksgiving celebrations have passed since the first one. However, history teaches us that once they learned their lesson, and switched from communal farming to privatized farming (in other words, everyone reaps what they sow, and they enjoy the fruit of their own labors), the harvest was far greater, and the Thanksgiving of 1623 was far more plentiful, beginning the legacy of prosperity and plenty that accompanies liberty here in America.
Here is the Encyclopedia Smithsonian account:
Personally, I’m thankful for so much that I could go on for pages and pages, so I’ll try to stick with the most important things.First of all, I’m thankful for my life, and those of my family, as well as our liberty and relative (and absolute) prosperity; we live in the most prosperous nation anywhere, anytime, in the known recorded history of this planet. We live with such incredibly prosperity, the poorest among us live as well as lords and ladies of past eras live, but with more freedom.
We are truly among the top 0.1% of all who have ever lived on this Earth, with respect to prosperity and liberty. Even now, when we must fight for our liberty, we are still immensely blessed.
I’m grateful for the Principles of Liberty and our rights (including the right to free speech and to peaceably assemble, not to mention the right to keep and bear arms, and the right to worship as we please), which are enshrined in our Founding Documents, including the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States (including the Bill of Rights), which have driven the prosperity we enjoy today. I’m grateful for the Founding Fathers who followed divine inspiration to create said founding documents, and who had the courage to declare Independence from the Superpower of their age.
I should list this first, as it is the most important, along with life itself: I am grateful for the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer; the only name by which we can be saved. I am grateful for the Atonement He performed, and for His life and Ministry in the Meridian of Time.
I am grateful my Mother wanted me to live, and that she WASN’T one of those who believe in the lie that it’s okay to slaughter the innocent unborn; I am also grateful to have been born into a home where I was taught to love the Lord and to worship God Almighty.
I am grateful for Latter-day Patriots like Glenn Beck, who pave the way and help us identify and organize ourselves so we can Re-Found America. I am grateful for his book suggestions which have aided my efforts to self-educate more than I can describe. I am grateful for Glenn’s excellent, enlightening, entertaining TV show on FNC. I am grateful for Principled Patriots in the recent past, including Ronald Wilson Reagan, who bought us another two and a half decades of freedom. I am grateful for the 2010 Mid-Term Election results, and am looking forward to 2012.
I am grateful for Authors like W. Cleon Skousen, Glenn Beck, Jonah Goldberg, David Barton, etc. I am grateful for institutions like the Heritage Foundation and the NCCS, among others. I am grateful for the Eagle Forum and other groups that have been around for decades defending the family and liberty. I am grateful for Fox News Channel and other, smaller media outlets who actually report the truth; imagine a world without Fox News Channel and the Internet, where CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNBC, PBS, etc. are our only options!
I am grateful for a loving family and for my friends, both old and new, and for the Principled Patriots I meet regularly. I am also grateful that the hostile government takeover of our Internet is not yet complete, that Cap & Trade didn’t pass, and that the other radical progressive legislative efforts that we DID stop, failed to pass.
I’m grateful that America is beginning to wake up, I’m grateful for my home, for computers, the Internet, and other modern communication and education technologies & opportunities. I’m very grateful for electricity, for indoor plumbing, for central heating, safe indoor ovens, automobiles, trains, and modern jet aircraft; inexpensive fabric and clothing, inexpensive shows and boots, sunglasses, corrective lenses & laser eye surgery, as well as other life-changing (and saving) medical technology. It’s amazing what we can do; our forebears would scarcely believe what we can do with what we have been blessed with!
I am so grateful for the Revolutionary War Patriots who put it all on the line, and who sacrificed their lives, their fortunes, and who put on the line their sacred honor, as did the Founders, to give us the liberties and the nation we are blessed with today. I am also immensely grateful for the men and women of the United States Armed well as the Veterans who have served us in the past. We owe them a debt of gratitude and respect!
I could go on and on; there is so much to be grateful for, but I would like to make this shorter rather than longer, and so I’ll close by quoting George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation:

George Washington praying at Valley Forge
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to “recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:”
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.