How leftist ingrates threaten the republic
Exclusive: Patrice Lewis notes Thanksgiving was turned from celebration to flagellation
By Patrice LewisPublished November 29, 2019 at 7:01pm
Yes, I know Thanksgiving has come and gone, but I have a few lingering thoughts about the festival.
As with just about any holiday in the last few years, progressives have turned Thanksgiving into an opportunity to flagellate, not celebrate.
In the weeks leading up to the holiday, they provided us with instructions on why Thanksgiving is racist and sexist, why it's all about killing animals and killing the environment, and above all why it celebrates genocide.
Leftist publications put out articles with such cheery monikers as "37 reasons why Thanksgiving sucks" (warning: graphic language) and then wonder why no one wants to invite them to dinner.
But let's put aside varying renditions of history.
Let's put aside the "white supremacy" theory.
Let's put aside the sexism about women in the kitchen while men watch football.
Let's put aside the vegan alternatives to turkey.
Let's put all the political baggage aside and focus – please, just try to focus – on the one real purpose behind the holiday. Ready?
Gratitude.
Yes, Thanksgiving is about gratitude, and amazingly – astoundingly – that simple notion is getting lost in the whirl of flogging that now surrounds the fourth Thursday in November.
You see, the real issue behind Thanksgiving is not the story of its origin and beginnings.
The real issue is gratitude.
Many Americans have forgotten how to be grateful.
Students are taught to focus their energy on why Thanksgiving is hateful instead of what blessings they have in their lives.
They're taught to focus on hate and anger, despair and guilt.
In the face of all they are told is evil, it's hard to be grateful for their families, their warm beds, their full bellies, even their personal electronics.
By focusing – obsessing, really – on the disputed origins and historical context of the holiday, progressives ignore the whole purpose of Thanksgiving:
to give thanks. To count our blessings.
To be aware, for one day at least, of how wonderful it is to have friends and family we love, to live in a great nation, to have abundant food on our tables, to have every consumer good on the planet at our disposal.
There are billions of people who wish they were in our shoes … indeed, who wish they had shoes at all.
Instead, the left focuses on everything negative. The carbon footprint of holiday travel.
The horrific oppression of Native Americans.
Why Uncle Charlie the Trump supporter should be shouted down at the table.
And of course, the utter stupidity of thanking a Deity for anything.
Psychological study after study has confirmed that counting blessings makes people happier.
But the left doesn't want people to be happy.
They want people to be miserable victims, to morph into activists, to focus on the injustice in the world.
It's the only way to advance their socialist agenda, you see, so of course gratitude is rock bottom on their list of Things to Do on Thanksgiving.
This lack of gratitude might frustrate those of us who ARE grateful, but it goes much deeper than that.
It might, in fact, spell our nation's doom.
How?
America's very abundance – the thing we should be most grateful for – may be our political undoing.
I'm sure you've all heard about the Eight Stages of Civilization (from bondage to spiritual growth / from spiritual growth to great courage / from courage to liberty / from liberty to abundance / from abundance to complacency / from complacency to apathy / from apathy to dependence / from dependence back to bondage).
We are very apathetic and dependent at the moment.
How long before we're back in bondage?
Remember, there's nothing new under the sun.
Another successful nation, Rome, famously fell.
Endless ink has been spilled explaining why, but one theory touches on Rome's affluence.
During "the glorious days of the Roman Republic, law was over the king and not the king over the law," explains columnist Jerry Bowyer.
"That all changed with the coming of the Caesars who promised greater wealth, greater privileges and eventually bread (welfare) and circuses (violent entertainment).
There is only one thing the Romans needed to give up in order to gains these benefits: their republican form of government.
That sort of appeal only works against a particular kind of people – ungrateful people.
… The appeal of the despot is always the same: give up what you have now and I will create Heaven on Earth.
Implicit in this bargain is this premise:
'You have nothing to lose.' It is only a people who have become severed from the virtue of political gratitude who believe they have nothing to lose.
In short, gratefulness is the chief bulwark against the demagogue." [Emphasis added.]
When we stop being grateful as a nation, we start to believe all our blessings are evil.
Things must be destroyed and rebuilt according to utopian promises and utopian definitions of "fairness" and "equality."
The infrastructure in place to allow those in poverty to rise above their circumstances is not perfect; therefore it must be eliminated.
But perfection (as journalist John Stossel is fond of pointing out) is the enemy of the good.
Perfection is impossible, and destroying America's "good" infrastructure in the name of achieving perfection is just plain stupid at best and evil at worst.
"The story of the 20th century, which is the bloodiest century in world history, is largely the story of what happens to the world when gratitude fades and people are wooed into giving up the hard-won liberty of centuries in exchange for racial glory (the Nazis), or economic security (the Communists)," Bowyer concludes.
"Our ancestors knew this and offered something to inoculate us against it: Thanksgiving Day. Let's honor them and their gift to us."
Amen.
Thank you, dear readers, for reading my column. Thank you, WND, for giving me a platform. I'm more grateful than I can say … and that's just the start of my blessings.
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