Josh First's Blog

Being thankful is being American

Watching America’s wild riots since 2020, including recent pro-jihad protests demanding that America embrace evil, anti-Western values, you would be forgiven for thinking Americans had become largely self-entitled and unappreciative for all of the incredible bounties we have. College campuses are now full of upper-income white kids wishing hate on America, and upper-income brown kids wishing hate on white people, and no one showing appreciation for anyone who had prepared the way for all of the beneficence they all take for granted.

Note to uneducated young people: White Europeans created both your unique American freedom of speech and the fancy institutions you are at now, as well as all of the technology you practically live on, and they pay most of the taxes that run the military that protects you from direct foreign take-over so you can drink expensive coffees and pose and preen and virtue signal to your shallow ego’s fullest desire.

Nothing wrong with white people, and nothing is wrong with America. Can you identify a better, freer country with more opportunity for more people than America? I can’t, and you can’t, either. America’s young people must learn to be thankful for what they have and where they live, or they will lose everything they are taking for granted right now.

Being thankful and appreciative for what we each have was baked into the American culture from the beginning. Because the first few generations of Americans had to work hard for food and shelter every day, and the Europe they had fled was closed to upward mobility and meritocracy.

In Europe if you were born poor, you stayed poor. Only in the new America did we have “influencers” who gained popularity and income through their persuasive skills. That is the essence of capitalism, by the way.

Thanksgiving Day has its beginning in the thanks to God and to helpful American Indians given by the Puritans. Having fled violent religious persecution in Europe, the Puritans were starving. Despite being newcomers posing a potential threat, they were saved by their Indian neighbors, who taught them how to farm and hunt. Traditional Thanksgiving food that we eat today includes the foods eaten at the first Thanksgiving feast – wild turkey, squash, beans, and maize.

On October 3, 1789, after the brutal American Revolution and the War for Independence, America’s first president, George Washington, gave this Thanksgiving statement of appreciation below. May each of us Americans, and especially our foolish, spoiled young people who take so much for granted, read it and imbibe it, follow through on it, and express our thanks for everything we have – clothing, food, home, and smart phone, and the opportunity for so much more than anywhere else on planet earth.

By the President of the United States of America—

A Proclamation

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their Joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.”

Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of this country previous to their becoming a Nation—for the signal and manifold mercies, and the favorable interpositions of his providence, which we experienced in the course and conclusion of the late war—for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty, which we have since enjoyed—for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national One now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and in general for all the great and various favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions—to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually—to render our national government a blessing to all the People, by constantly being a government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shown kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord—To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and Us—and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.

Given under my hand at the City of New York the third day of October in the year of our Lord 1789.

  Go. Washington