Jack of Harts

In this season, I’d like to give thanks for having many family and friends nearby. I’ve had more invitations for joining people for dinner than I can shake a stick at. And that is an awesome problem to have. It beats the alternative by a country mile. But we should never forget to also give thanks for all the brave soldiers who can’t spend time with their family this weekend because they are deployed far from home. They make it safe for us to celebrate and give thanks.

As we’re approaching Thanksgiving, we should remember the First Thanksgiving. The Pilgrims came to the New World to create a new community where they would share everything equally and work equally. And promptly spent the winter starving to death because the best of them worked as little as the least of them, and so they didn’t harvest enough food for all of them. They chose to give up their social equality plan after that and apportioned both the land and the harvest thereof to each family. After that, they brought in more food than they knew what to do with. And so they had a great big party with the local Indians and gave thanks to God for the bounty of food that would see them through the winter without starving. That was our First Thanksgiving.

It is a tale as old as time. A candidate the system doesn’t like is nominated for a position the system doesn’t want them in, and allegations of sexual impropriety get published in system-friendly news outlets. Usually with someone under the age of 18. I’ve seen it all my life. I know there’s usually nothing to it. You know there’s usually nothing to it. But we’ve all given them the benefit of the doubt that maybe, just maybe, this time they aren’t just making it up. Maybe it’s not just the system making up a charge to keep someone they don’t want placed in a position they don’t want them in. Well, after the last decade, I don’t give the system the benefit of the doubt anymore. I just assume they are lying. They have to prove the opposite now.