"I just received the following from my generous Daddy: Dear Jack, Don't buy a single vote more than necessary. I'll be damned if I'll pay for a landslide." John F. Kennedy
November 27, 2019
By: Linda Case Gibbons, Esq.
It's a thankless job, and there's no pay check, but somebody's got to do it.
Fight for Freedom.
Four hundred years ago, in 1620, 102 people set sail from Portsmouth, England. They were Protestant Separatists, "Christian rebels," fleeing from religious persecution.
After several failed attempts in July, the ship sailed in September, not the most advantageous time.
The trip was memorialized in the movie, The Mayflower Adventure, and was described in the TV blurb as "a voyage in which the Pilgrims had a rough time."
Which is an understatement.
The two-month voyage was beset by storms and high seas, and they arrived at their destination in winter.
Living quarters were cramped, and all the food and water was gone before the end of the journey.
Unfortunately, the captain, Spencer Tracy, landed the ship at the wrong location, Cape Cod instead of Virginia. It was a bleak and forbidding place, without a grocery store in sight.
Only 52 of the passengers made it through the first winter. The rest, and half the ship's crew, died of a "contageous disease," a combination of scurvy, tuberculosis and pneumonia.
And yet, when the ship's captain offered them passage back to England, they were adament. To a man.
They were staying.
It was an admirable event in our country's history, one we celebrate as Thanksgiving.
The Indians did help them adjust to the difficult environment, despite what Barack Obama says about the harm done by the Pilgrims to the "indigenous people."
They co-existed. And, yes, these colonists were white, and they were Christians. That's the way it was. Back in 1620.
The fight for Freedom has always been a fight between Good and Evil.
It is never easy, and it's never over.
Demonstrators in Hong Kong have been fighting against a foe bigger than themselves for the past six months. China.
It's a fight Americans understand. We've been there, and done that.
The battle in Hong Kong is against China's encroachment on rights granted to this former British colony under a pseudo-Constitution known as the Hong Kong Basic Law.
Under that Law, Hong Kong has enjoyed rights unavailable to Chinese mainlanders: A free press, freedom of speech, and the right to protest.
But Beijing is changing the rules.
While Hong Kong has the right, under the Law, to develop its own democracy, Beijing has now reinterpreted the Basic Law to say it has complete jurisdiction over Hong Kong.
This is a foe whose recently leaked documents disclosed that the Chinese government has routinely surveilled its citizens "to avoid possible terrorism," is locking them in secret detention centers, for a minimum of a year, and is using rape, beatings and torture within these secret prisons.
Yes. Everybody has a different take on what constitutes a fight worth fighting.
The early colonists decided they wanted to be out from under England's thumb, so they engaged in a war against the greatest army in the world at that time.
The residents of Hong Kong feel the same.
How can we tell what's good? What is evil? What is an important cause?
President Trump thinks it is important to equalize trade between the U.S. and other countries. Securing our borders against illegal immigration.
Making promises that he keeps.
Tokyo Rose Adam Schiff believes in concentrating on impeaching a president he hates.
Sen. Chuck Schumer is fighting to stop separating children from their families.
On airplanes.
And if you liked Hanoi Jane when she perched atop a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, smiling among Viet Cong soldiers, you'll see she still sees "injustice" the same way.
She still sees America the same way. And her fights are the same as they have always been. Whatever's fashionable.
Now the 81-year old actress is protesting and happily being arrested in the fight for Climate Change.
And she's buying what AOC is selling.
"I'm doing this because I recognize we are in the middle of a terrible crisis, and we don't have a lot of time," she said. "We have 11 years to try to turn this around."
Fashions change, but people never do.
On this Day of Giving Thanks, not every American is grateful for the greatest gift of all: America.
George Washington University Professor David Silverman isn't. He recently wrote a book which claims Thanksgiving should be a day of mourning.
It's called, "This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, Plymouth Colony and the Troubled History of Thanksgiving.:
(I wonder if he sent Obama a signed copy?)
But there are those that respect America's history, and look forward to making America strong again.
Making America proud again.
Making America safe again.
Making America great again
And celebrating Thanksgiving as the wonderful American holiday it is.
Hold the line, America.
Where We Go One, We Go All
Stay strong, Patriots.