Good morning,

Do you know the real story of Thanksgiving and what it has to do with overcoming socialism?

But first, here’s the Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Wednesday, November 25, 2020
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• When it comes to taxpayer-funded lobbying – a form of legalized theft where your tax dollars are used to advocate against you – Texas voters have been strongly opposed, even while their elected officials engage in the scheme. When lawmakers gather in 2021, will they finally abolish the practice or simply try to reform it?
       
• That’s the question Brandon Waltens is exploring in a legislative analysis leading up to the Jan. 12, 2021, start of the 87th Session of the Texas Legislature.
       
• One of the Republican Party of Texas’ top legislative priorities is a complete ban on taxpayer-funded lobbying. In 2019, the Texas House watered down a Senate-passed ban to the point of uselessness, and then killed it. 
       
• Frankly, a thug on the street is more honest than the users and defenders of taxpayer-funded lobbying. At least when he robs you, the thief just goes away. When your local governments take your money, they expect you to thank them for it... then be glad they are using the money to fight against you.

• By a 4-0 vote yesterday, Tarrant County commissioners authorized their spokesman – County Judge Glen Whitley (R) – to extend their mask mandate until Feb. 28, 2021. As Robert Montoya reports, the extension came despite large numbers of citizens testifying in person and by phone against it.
      
• Texas remains under a statewide mask mandate imposed by Gov. Greg Abbott in early July.
       
• Republican Party of Texas Chairman Allen West told Texas Scorecard on Tuesday it was time for the state legislature to end mandates and executive overreach. “It is vital that executive overreach is a priority in the 87th Texas legislative session. We must return to being governed by laws passed by a legislative body.”
      
• “Government exists to protect our rights, not protect our health, that is an individual responsibility.” – Allen West

• After a lengthy public hearing, the Amarillo City Council voted 4-1 to pass an ordinance providing stricter penalties for businesses not enforcing mask wearing and social distancing. Thomas Warren reports council members took the action despite widespread opposition from the community.
   
•  A first violation of the ordinance will result in a notice of violation, while a second violation will result in an Amarillo business being fined up to $2,000.

• Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell will have to pay a $1,000 fine for violating his own stay-at-home order, a Class C misdemeanor. Gravell, who had ordered citizens to stop gatherings for fear of the Chinese coronavirus, was caught on camera in April visiting his grandson’s birthday party dressed up in a county fireman’s suit.

• When the all-Democrat city council in Austin got their hands on a half-million dollars of “COVID-19” relief money intended to help local small-business owners and citizens languishing under government-ordered shutdowns, they did something else with it entirely. They gave it to a local labor union masquerading as a charity.
   
• Jacob Asmussen reports the Austin City Council has been funneling money to the Workers Defense Project under the guise of “COVID-19 Relief.”
   
• Current Austin City Councilman and self-proclaimed socialist Greg Casar was the former policy director for the Workers Defense Project, and recently elected Travis County District Attorney José Garza—also endorsed by the local Democratic Socialists—was the former executive director for the group.

Thanksgiving Reflection

We think we know the story of Thanksgiving: the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, faced a harsh winter, famine and disease, and then only with the help of friendly natives learned how to survive. It’s nice for bedtime stories, and feel-good paintings, but it ignores the most important lessons of our early history.

The pilgrims weren’t city slickers ill-prepared for wilderness life, nor were they misguided about the challenges facing them in the New World. Sadly, the travails and trials of those pilgrims weren’t merely the result of recklessness, ignorance or chance.

No, the problems the pilgrims faced — and overcame — were of their very own making through a well-intentioned, though misguided, governing ideology.

William Bradford, the governor of Plymouth Colony, explains what happened in his History of the Plymouth Settlement. Even before setting off for the New World, the pilgrims imposed on themselves what he called “communal service” – what we today would recognize as socialism.

Everything — the land, the work, the crops, everything — was held communally. Everyone was expected to work hard and receive only what they truly needed. As a result, Bradford wrote, many would simply “allege weakness and inability.”

You won’t be surprised that Bradford reported: “the young men who were most able and fit for service objected to being forced to spend their time and strength in working for other men’s wives and children, without any recompense.”

At the same time, “The strong man or the resourceful man had no more share of food, clothes, etc., than the weak man who was not able to do a quarter the other could.”

Bradford would note: “Community of property was found to breed much confusion and discontent.” No one had an incentive to work, so no one produced, and everyone was miserable.

Remember, this was a small group of people who shared common values, cared for each other, and had willingly joined philosophically to the colony’s arrangements. It’s just that socialism fails in practice whenever it is tried; sometimes it limps along, but ultimately the results are always the same.

Socialism – no matter what one calls it – always produces human misery.

After three years the colony abandoned its “communal” life, lest they die-off completely. Bradford wrote that colony leaders divided the land among the families and “allowed each man to plant corn for his own household, and to trust to themselves for that.”

As a result, Bradford added, “It made all hands very industrious, so that much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could devise, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better satisfaction.”

Private property rights and a free market carried the day. Labor was naturally divided – not politically imposed – and everyone utilized their skills to their own benefit, thereby increasing the productivity and happiness of the colony as a whole.

In the newly free society, where the local knowledge of Native Americans was combined with the techniques of Europe, the Pilgrims had a harvest bountiful beyond comparison.

The very first days of the American experience demonstrated what world history repeatedly proves: socialism fails, and fails miserably. Bounty is produced by liberty driven by self-governance, not central planning – even if its well intentioned.

We must remember that individual liberty is in the 21st Century, as it was in the 17th, a necessary and integral component of our general prosperity. And let us be thankful to God daily not only for the material things we have but for the liberty of which He is the author.

A Note About District Offices

At the bottom of almost every Texas Minute we list the federal and state officeholders for your address. These will be updated, where appropriate, with new names and contact information when they take office. For now, the incumbent (even one who was defeated or didn’t seek re-election) is still the officeholder.