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6A Daily News – Tuesday, November 20, 2012 Opinion Time for Thanksgiving DAILYNEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer's home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Whether you believe Jim Nielsen, Doug LaMalfa, and Mitt Romney are best suited to repre- sent your interests or you sided with Charles Rouse, Jim Reed, and Barack Obama we can be grateful for the opportunity to cast our votes, and the grace to accept the outcomes. Our charge now is to ensure that our elected officials work diligently to negotiate, com- promise, and effectively legislate on our behalf. While the machina- tions of our democracy may be imperfect, frustrating, and some- times even downright disgusting, it is what we have to bind us togeth- er to craft and care for what I believe to be the greatest country on the face of the earth. and the emotional upheaval of such events it is both instructive and reassuring to reflect upon what we hold dear. Our constitution as amended with the Bill of Rights and the other 17 amendments is only as effective as our confidence in its ability to evolve with the times and reflect as fairly and effectively as possible the wisdom and wishes of all Americans – an admittedly daunting and impossible task, but one we nonetheless must accept and graciously use as best we are able. This leads me to reflect upon what might be considered more immediate gifts of living in this great land: freedom, food and facilities, fellowship and fun, and faith. Following a contentious election, a solemn veteran's day, elusive of our gifts, a complicated and delicate balance of "freedom to" and "freedom from" as Joe Harrop astutely suggested in his last column. Everyone wants to determine their own path but must do so based upon the lay of the land and accepted norms of behav- ior and respect for the rights of oth- ers. Americans can be grateful that these norms are codified in our constitution, expounded upon by elected legislators, and overseen by local, state, and federal judicia- ries to ensure equal representation, due process, and facilitate modifi- cation as appropriate. As a case in point, I am grateful for the freedom to share my thoughts each week with those having ability to see, comprehend, and react irrespective of whether or not we agree. Food is in my case perhaps the most challenging of our gifts, requiring me to moderate my con- sumption in deference to nutrition- al needs and physical challenges. While we can be grateful to have access to virtually unlimited sources and varieties of nutrition, many of us struggle to balance our needs with our desires, as evi- denced by our ever growing col- Freedom is perhaps the most available in America for lodging, manufacturing, merchandising, trans- portation, medical care, education, and recreation are in most respects sec- ond to none and things which we cannot take for granted. These private and public resources must be designed, con- structed, and maintained with care for our comfort, safety, and well being. Along with freedom and food, facilities are vital to continuation as a species, particularly our steward- ship to sustain the largest facilities of all, our planet and universe. Fellowship and fun, without them our world would be a lonely a desperate place. Only by shar- ing, working and laughing togeth- er do we cope with otherwise harsh realities of existence. We can be grateful for our families, our communities, and our nation as we learn to work together, laugh, and love one another. lective waist and weight measure- ments. This glorious gift of ample supply and widespread access to food is one that most of us have no diffi- culty appreciating but considerable challenge moderating. Facilities that are tific method and our ability to understand and manage the physical world for the benefit of mankind. Like it or not, we are all subject to the laws of physics and the chemi- cal and thermodynamic processes that surround us. Facts are the basis of the scien- Richard Mazzucchi Positive Point of life and assures us that the future can be bright despite our foibles and failures. It is faith in fellow man under God regardless of belief or nationality that gives solace and makes me grateful for the most precious gift of all, the gift of life, at this time for Thanksgiving. humility are the under- pinnings of our under- standing and applica- tion of facts, and we can be grateful that both are available to us in unlim- ited supply to the extent we pursue them. Faith, the most abiding of gifts to many, is what gets us through the difficulties Education and Richard Mazzucchi is a retired research engineer specializing in energy efficiency and renewable energy. He can be reached at living-green@att.net. STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Your officials Nielsen (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 6031 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Doug LaMalfa (R) State Capitol Bldg., Room 3070 Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: governor@gover- nor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2595 Ceanothus Ave., Ste. 182, Chico, CA 95973; 893-8363. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393- 0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Mont- gomery St., Suite 240, San Francis- co, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Pilgrim lessons: collectivism vs. free market Commentary themes over the last six years: the centrality of faith in God among our forebears, as well as the first attempts by the Pilgrims to eke out subsistence in unforgiving and harsh circumstances, including failure and near death. 2006 was a time of relative abundance, low unemployment and healthy eco- nomic growth. However, some troubling signs called for warn- ings: schools had little use for inculcating an understanding, let alone eagerness, to promote and appreciate the vitality of economic freedom and resulting prosperity; those on the left side of the spec- trum regaled us with their praise for universal, single-payer, collec- tivist "Medicare-for-all" health care. Thanksgiving has inspired two Thanksgiving columns in 2008 and 2010 recognized our econom- ic difficulties and prompted further warnings that those seeking bigger governmental solutions were still proclaiming the supposed superi- ority of centrally planned, tax-and- spend stimulus. Such policies, which resulted in the worst eco- nomic recovery of nearly all recov- eries, are revealed to anyone with- out partisan blinders to be utter failures. Those with the where- withal, means and ingenuity to start businesses, create jobs and thereby spread true economic wealth are reluctant for the same reasons that those long ago Pil- grims almost starved. rate regarding the hardship, sick- ness and death visited upon the English settlers at Plymouth during the bitter winter of 1620-21, their struggle to grow the seeds they brought, and how friendly Indians The traditional history is accu- taught them to plant corn. This modest harvest, together with fish and game they were fortunate to acquire from the land, was indeed shared with Indians at a feast pro- claimed by Governor William Bradford after the summer of 1621. However, history might have left us without America's Thanks- giving celebration, if the settlers had not abandoned collectivism. Though surrounded by nature's bounty, they would surely have starved and faded into the mists of oblivion along with the cause of their demise. Like many before and after, the Pilgrims sought a utopian ideal: "From each according to his abili- ties, to each according to his need." Communism, pure and simple, is what the Pilgrims established with rules that strictly enforced shared ownership and provision of needs. Their signed agreement said "All profits and benefits that are got by trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means" were to become part of "the common stock." In addition, "all such persons as are in this colony are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provi- sions out of the common stock and goods of the colony." It sounds appealing and idealistic to have no "private ownership" — everyone works for everyone's benefit and no one reaps rewards greater than another's. But someone decides what "rewards" each one "needs." Harder work gains nothing. Governor Bradford wrote about the predictable results, as the sys- tem "was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment. (DP: sound relevant?) For the young men that were most fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children with- out any recompense. "Attitudes declined as the strong, for their greater work, received no more than the weak, and wives found themselves resentful over working, essentially, for other men's wives, regarding it as tantamount to slav- ery." Crops, without which they would no doubt starve, were not only inefficiently pro- duced, but "much was stolen both by night and day," Bradford wrote of the 1622 harvest. (DP: like those who prefer benefits over work?) Unlike more recent totalitarian communism, they were free to change their course so in the spring of 1623 they tried…capitalism! "And so assigned to every family a parcel of land … This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise …." The acreage planted, and har- vested, increased seven-fold from 1621 to 1623. Bradford wrote of that next harvest that "instead of famine, now God gave them plen- ty, and the face of things was changed to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God" and shared with their Native American neighbors. No one would have remem- bered that first Thanksgiving if the colony, tethered to a failing eco- Don nomic model of depending on everyone's labor to provide for everyone's needs, had starved and faded into historical oblivion. The feast of abundance that they shared remains tes- timony to the superiority and efficiency of private enterprise to provide for individual needs. (With credit and thanks to Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, 2002, and economist Judd W. Patton, Belle- vue University) Polson The way I see it learned through hardship by those early settlers. "A democracy is always tem- porary in nature … and will con- tinue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy … is always followed by a dictatorship." (Alexander Tyler, 1787) "If the majority distributes among itself the things of a minority, it is evi- dent that it will destroy the city." (Aristotle) The Pilgrim lessons we need to remember and pass on to children are simple but profound: Thank God for our abundance, share it, and acknowledge infallible economic principles, Don Polson has called Red Bluff home since 1988. He can be reached by e-mail at donplsn@yahoo.com.