Nast and Thanksgiving

On this day:
1095
On the last day of the Council of Clermont, Pope Urban II appoints Bishop Adhemar of Le Puy and Count Raymond IV of Toulouse to lead the First Crusade to the Holy Land.
1520
After navigating through a strait at the southern end of South America, three ships under the command of Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan reach the Pacific Ocean, becoming the first Europeans to sail from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.
1729
Natchez Indians massacre 138 Frenchmen, 35 French women, and 56 children at Fort Rosalie, near the site of modern-day Natchez, Mississippi.
1893
Women vote in a national election for the first time: the New Zealand general election.

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“Human nature is shabby stuff, as you may know from introspection.”--deVries

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As much as the political left loves to use words like “change” and “revolution” as if they had a monopoly or a copyright on them, the actual track record of the left pales in comparison with the social revolutions created by the free market.

No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk but the free market walks the walk.--Sowell

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Senators Josh Hawley (R‑MO) and Peter Welch (D‑VT) introduced legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, with automatic inflation adjustments. Vice President JD Vance favors an $11 rate. In New York City, mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a self-declared socialist, wants a $30 minimum wage for the city. According to Welch, “Every hardworking American deserves a living wage.”

A wage is not a moral declaration—it is a price. Raise the price, and demand falls. When wages are mandated above the productivity level of the worker, employers have limited options: lay off staff, cut hours, reduce hiring, or replace workers with machines. Hazlitt’s summary still holds: “For a low wage, you substitute unemployment. You do harm all around, with no comparable compensation.”--WSJ

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Arendt wrote in her 1951 book, “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” that “the ideal subject was not the convinced Nazi, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction no longer existed. A most cherished virtue is loyalty to the leader who, like a talisman, assures that ultimate victory of lie and fiction over truth and reality.”

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Trump is selling watches on TV. While this might be reality, reducing democracy to its elemental, commercial nature, it is ugly.

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From Reuters: "The document reviewed by Reuters said Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved on April 23 of this year, three months after Trump took office. Lakanwal, 29, who resided in Washington state, had no known criminal history, the official said."
This will be politicized and outtraged words fired. But the basic problem, the safety and success of the American people will, as always, be sidelined to the advantage of our self-absorbed leaders.

This DC Guard shooting crystallizes the essential question in American government: what is the nation obligated to do, what is it forbidden to do, and what is it able to do?

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Nast and Thanksgiving

Thomas Nast was a Bavarian immigrant credited with developing the American cartoon. He arrived in the 1840s as a child and became the illustrator for Harper's Weekly. He developed the modern version of Santa Claus and the elephant as the Republican Party symbol. As such, this is a provocative drawing, from the Nineteenth Century.

Melanie Kirkpatrick’s 2016 book, Thanksgiving: The Holiday and the Heart of the American Experience:

 

{Thomas) Nast was an immigrant, having arrived in America from Germany when he was six years old, and “Uncle Sam’s Thanksgiving Dinner” reflected what Nast saw as the immigrant’s passionate affection for his new country and commitment to its democratic values….
At the head of the table stands Uncle Sam, who is carving a turkey. Around the table are seated Americans representing an array of races and religions, identified in many cases by their national dress. Among the guests are an African American family, a Native American, a Chinese man with a long queue, an Irish American couple, a Spanish woman wearing a mantilla and holding a fan, a bearded Muslim with a fez on his head. Nast presents the people in this portrait respectfully, not as caricatures. His message is that every American has an equal right to sit at the Thanksgiving table.