Connections: Thanks Giving, Capitalism, Revolution, Kindergarten and The Citizen Soldier

I should have known that was coming. Even six year old logic had to dictate that there was something more to the story. What was I going to say? I could see her staring at me through the rearview mirror. Uh..."What did mommy tell you?" I mean, it's not my kid. I'm just the aunt. No way am I doing the "birds and bees" thing with somebody else's kid. It's part of my libertarian leanings where I believe that such topics are not mine nor the state's responsibility to share with children. It's the parents'. Then again, part of it could be because I'm a big coward.

"Well, she said that her and daddy loved each other very much so they made a baby." I could feel her eyes burning into the back of my head through the car seat.

"That's right. When two people love each other they get married and have a baby." Thank you, mommy, thank you.

Not so fast. "That's not right." What? I could see her sitting in her car seat, her chin propped on her hand like a little Rodin statue of "The Thinking Man."

"Yes, it is." I replied quickly. Then, "Look! There's a Minnie Moo's. Want to get some ice cream?" Yay! Ice Cream! Ice Cream! Sheesh! I could feel the sweat that was beading on my forehead start to evaporate. Six year olds could still be distracted by the important things in the here and now; like ice cream.

Which brings us back to the moment where I am reading her the story of the first Thanks Giving. I got to the second page after "they came to make a new home" when she put her hand on the book and asked "the question". "Why did the Pilgrims leave their old home?"

Well, I've imbibed millions of pages of history on that subject and more, but it was light years away from a six year old's understanding of the world. How do you distill that down for a six year old mind? So, I said, "Because they wanted to pray the way they wanted to and no one could tell them not to."

"But, why couldn't they pray in their old homes? We pray in ours." She was definitely not letting that one go.

I answered, "Because other people didn't believe like they did and those people thought that what the Pilgrims believed was scary."

Still contemplating in the way of six year olds, "Were they bad people?"

"The Pilgrims? No. They weren't bad people. They were just different. That's why we're different." I couldn't help but smile at that.

"Well, the Indians liked them. That's why they brought them food." Six year old logic.

"Yes, they did." And then we continued to read the book.

That conversation was still on my mind a few days later when I was contemplating what to write for a Thanks Giving post on the blog. Something up beat, since I felt my other posts were too often on the serious side. What to say about Thanks Giving on a milblog whose focus was war, politics and history?

Connections, my friends, connections.

Let's start from the beginning. No groans from the peanut gallery, please. I often find it ironic that we lament the "crass consumerism" that has seemingly infected our national holidays. Thanks Giving, we say, has thankfully escaped this. But, have you ever thought that Thanks Giving started with at least a dollop of "crass consumerism"? You know, long before the Pilgrims arrived, explorers "discovered" the American continent precisely because they were searching for a way to expand commercial trading routes to the east for such luxuries as silk, tea and spices. A fortuitous circumstance for us.

I for one am thankful for that original "crass consumerism".

The discovery of American was all about revolution, too. Think about it. Even the moment of discovery was "revolutionary". At the time of our "official" discovery in 1492, everybody who was anybody believed the world was flat. Galileo had been persecuted by the church for saying differently along with the idea that this world actually circled the sun, not the other way around. The explorers were expected to fail and return or fall off the other side of the world. It takes guts to fly in the face of convention.

Even if you went back to Eric the Red, the entire reason he and his followers left Scandinavia was because he was also a revolutionary in the most recognized sense of the word. He tried to overthrow the king, didn't he? [update: and the beauty of blogs and their roots in "democracy" comes forward as I am reminded in comments that Eric the Red was an "Icelander" and it was his son, Leif, who came to the continent. According to his biography, Eric the Red left Norway with his father who was exiled for revolt, not Eric. Eric was exiled for being a trouble maker. He did create settlements on Greenland and his "explorations" - more like raiding and pillaging - created the pathway for the first European colonizations of the American Continent.]

Revolutionary.

More "revolutionaries" were coming. Hearing of the bounty, open spaces, available land and a serious distance from certain governments, those we call Pilgrims made their way across the ocean. Some came to escape religious persecution while others were seeking their fortunes in the land of plenty. The perfect combination of idealism, adventure and capitalism. The American Way, yes?

Connections.

Most of our stories start out with the idea that the Pilgrims were persecuted for their religious beliefs, but rarely do the stories explain exactly who, what, where or why this persecution took place. Of course, the "who", "what" and "where" were the governments of the European continent. Monarchies. Kings and Queens. "Anointed by God" as the absolute rulers of men.

The "Puritans", the "Huguenots" and many others were persecuted because they were actually considered subversives. They preached "humility", "denying the excesses of the human flesh" and that all men could know God, have a relationship with Him without the intercession of other men. That men would be judged by their deeds as well as their professions of faith.

The monarchies and "the church" felt that these criticisms were aimed directly at them. And, they were to a certain extent. Actually, at the entire aristocracy and its waning feudal power supported by "the Church". Kings and Queens of that time were not exactly known for their humility or morality. Plus, they had a tendency to go to war with each other at the drop of a hat.

Most everything they did, the good, the bad and the ugly, they justified by claiming it was "divine right". Including imprisonment, torture (the real kind with racks, thumb screws, vices, hot coals and an advanced version of "water boarding") and summary executions of alleged enemies of the state. Let's not forget the burning of "heretics" at the stake that was still going on even as the Renaissance and the age of reason had taken hold. And there was that whole succession thing in England complicated by religious conspiracy and persecution .

The monarch's of Europe believed that the Puritans and others of that religious ilk were a serious threat to the establishment. The monarchs thought these religious zealots were preaching against their divine right to rule. The church thought they were undermining their position as the conduit to God and their power over European monarchies. It was a crack in the entire system of power that had held Europe together in some fashion for centuries against the continuous invasions of the Ottomans, the Mongols and various other barbarian hordes along with the multitudes of inter-kingdom wars.

This crack in society at the hands of "religious zealots" was just as dangerous in the minds of monarchs and cardinals. And it was fueled by inventions such as the printing press, that quickly and ably created hundreds of copies of the English bible, allowing every Englishman to read it and understand, along with hundreds of treatise on religion and reason.

Thus, persecution and the "great escape" to the New world where fear of a revolution became a self fulfilling prophesy two hundred years later.

Connections.

Two hundred years later, the ideas of the Pilgrims that had sat down at the First Thanks Giving, having been nurtured through hardship, developed independence and existed a fare distance from any real ability of monarchs to control subjects or their thoughts, gave birth to a revolutionary idea stated in the "First Document" and official Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

And, of course, the first amendment of the United States Constitution:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Yes. The first "shot heard round the world" that heralded the coming revolution was actually a musket ball taking out a turkey for the First Thanks Giving Feast. The survival of that colony meant revolution and the future creation of a government system that has often been imitated, but never duplicated.

In between that first Thanks Giving and the Revolution was a lot of history. It was this history, the spread of these ideas, the independence engendered by distance and the many hardships of frontier living that created the strength and character of our first Citizen Soldiers. Who, believing in that first principle, that they were equal and "endowed by their creator with unalienable rights", felt that it was right and proper to take out their muskets, line up on the village commons and resist.

Thursday - Thanks Giving and The Citizen Soldier