"We certainly applaud those individuals whose
compassion has led them to volunteer extra tax payments," the Boston
Globe opined yesterday in its editorial, "A collective
duty,"
marginalizing our voluntary tax check-off. "But we do not recommend
it."
The Boston Globe's preferred form of government is a
"social bond that people should enter into willingly ... The
core concept is that of community -- that everyone has a stake in everyone
else's well-being."
The editorial board then reached back into history and
pulled out a quote from a Puritan leader of the Mayflower Compact period:
"'We must delight in each other,' John Winthrop said with great
vision in 1630. Mutual responsibility should be the social lodestar,
requiring everyone to keep in mind, as Winthrop said, 'our community as
members of the same body.'"
The editorial concludes: "The day Massachusetts
starts relying on voluntary contributions is the day it ceases to be a
commonwealth."
Shame on the Boston Globe for selectively taking history
out of context to justify its political ends. Its editorial writer should
know that America's first experiment with socialism was an abject
failure that cost the lives of more than half of the foundering settlers by 1627. The editorial should have acknowledged that the failure of
communitarianism was quickly rejected in favor of capitalism and property
rights, and that the colony subsequently thrived.
After living the Boston Globe's philosophy for half a
decade of want, Governor William Bradford and other Puritan founders of the
Plimouth Plantation came to recognize that, despite their struggles,
perseverance and faith,
something was very wrong, something needed to change if they were to
survive. In his journal, "Of Plymouth Plantation," Bradford
wrote:
"All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery."
These were practical men, and as such they looked for
practical solutions that might lend to their survival and that of those
who depended on them:
"At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to
themselves ..."
Governor Bradford and his council established property
rights and free enterprise, self-reliance and self-motivation, truly a new
concept in this new frontier. Immediately, the result of private industry
was quantifiable:
"This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression."
As their social experiment in property rights and
capitalism progressed it only got better, making obsolete what the Boston
Globe again advocates:
"The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God."
Pilgrim leader William Bradford perhaps best summed up the
philosophy of those who today carry the endless burden of "the most
vulnerable among us" in his objective and apparently-ageless
observation:
"For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labours and victuals, clothes, etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it."
While the feel-good Boston Globe would have us return to
the "halcyon" days of the Mayflower Compact and its "core
concept ... of community," the lesson learned from its deadly
failures stands in stark -- and honest -- contrast.
History also provides a dire warning for us: "Those
who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
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|
Chip Ford |
- Excerpt from -
"Of Plymouth Plantation" (1620-1647)
by Gov. William Bradford
Read
more
All this while no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any. So they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery. At length, after much debate of things, the Governor (with the advice of the chiefest amongst them) gave way that they should set corn every man for his own particular, and in that regard trust to themselves; in all other things to go on in the general way as before. And so assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end, only for present use (but made no division for inheritance) and ranged all boys and youth under some family. This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.
The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labours and victuals, clothes, etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it. Upon the point all being to have alike, and all to do alike, they thought themselves in the like condition, and one as good as another; and so, if it did not cut off those relations that God hath set amongst men, yet it did at least much diminish and take off the mutual respects that should be preserved amongst them. And would have been worse if they had been men of another condition. Let none object this is men's corruption, and nothing to the course itself. I answer, seeing all men have this corruption in them, God in His wisdom saw another course fitter for them.