Categories
Common Sense general freedom ideological culture

Thankful for Tomorrow

Sharing

Tomorrow will be a day of Thanksgiving, a wonderfully unpretentious holiday in a terribly pretentious time.

Thanksgiving is a national celebration about simply having enough food to eat and about eating it together . . . and recognizing, at least for a moment, how great that is.

The “dining together” part is so important that enormous controversy has erupted in recent years as retailers jump the next day’s usual start of the Christmas season, “Black Friday,” by daring to open up on Thanksgiving Day itself. Many complain that stores are frustrating the feast by “forcing” their workers to work.

Last year, I made the point that families truly committed to eating a meal together could find a way to do so, and that workers are not “forced to work,” but actually enjoy a meaningful degree of freedom in when they work. And I remember being very grateful for the opportunity to earn a living by working on a holiday.

In fact, the abundance on our Thanksgiving tables every year is only possible through the freedom to work and produce and trade with each other. This American holiday is also about giving thanks for that freedom.

Freedom has, like it or not, led to long lines of eager customers waiting for those retail doors to open. I’m no big fan of shopping, but more power to those who are.

Still, freedom has also led to a full-throated public discussion — and backlash. A New York Post article credits social media with mobilizing public sentiment against stores opening on the holiday and causing some stores to roll back their hours.

Brian Rich runs Boycott Black Thursday, a Facebook page with over 100,000 likes. “We are not anti-capitalism,” says the Idahoan, who suggests shoppers spend to their hearts’ content on Friday, but celebrate “a good old-fashioned holiday at home” on Thursday.

I’m thankful stores can open if they wish and that customers have money to trade for products they want. And I’m mighty glad that we don’t have to shop if we don’t want to and that we can speak out freely against stores opening and in favor of folks spending more time with loved ones.

On Thursday, I’m grateful for all those in my family and my wife’s with whom I’ll get to break bread. On Friday, well, my youngest daughter will get me up way too early to take her shopping.

And, doggone it, as painful as it is: I’m thankful for that, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

3 replies on “Thankful for Tomorrow”

“In fact, the abundance on our Thanksgiving tables every year is only possible through the freedom to work and produce and trade with each other. This American holiday is also about giving thanks for that freedom.”

It sounds as though one of the guests invited to your Thanksgiving table will be your very distant relative Pollyanna. But even she may refuse your invitation this year.

The “abundance” at our tables decreases yearly as government-produced inflation eats away at our purchasing power. Every single aspect of our “freedom to work and produce and trade” and even to eat, drink, travel and enjoy life is surveilled, controlled, obstructed and regulated by “our” government. There’s very little freedom to enjoy life completely in our own manner as far as I can see. I think that it’s been so long since you’ve experienced it that you’ve forgotten what true freedom is all about.

You really are struggling unrealistically to find much for which to be thankful. But I have one suggestion: You should be thankful that there aren’t even more innocent people in our overcrowded prisons. Be thankful that the FEMA camps are are not yet full and hope, or pray, if you’re religious, that the trend is broken and things don’t get worse.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *