Here beginneth the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof:

The Desolate Wilderness

So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

When they came to Delfs-Haven they found the ship and all things ready, and such of their friends as could not come with them followed after them, and sundry came from Amsterdam to see them shipt, and to take their leaves of them. One night was spent with little sleep with the most, but with friendly entertainment and Christian discourse, and other real expressions of true Christian love.

The next day they went on board, and their friends with them, where truly doleful was the sight of that sad and mournful parting, to hear what sighs and sobs and prayers did sound amongst them; what tears did gush from every eye, and pithy speeches pierced each other’s heart, that sundry of the Dutch strangers that stood on the Key as spectators could not refrain from tears. But the tide (which stays for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and His blessing; and then with mutual embraces and many tears they took their leaves one of another, which proved to be the last leave to many of them.

Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.

Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.

If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world.

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And the Fair Land

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.

So the visitor returns thankful for much of what he has seen, and, in spite of everything, an optimist about what his country might be. Yet the visitor, if he is to make an honest report, must also note the air of unease that hangs everywhere.

For the traveler, as travelers have been always, is as much questioned as questioning. And for all the abundance he sees, he finds the questions put to him ask where men may repair for succor from the troubles that beset them.

His countrymen cannot forget the savage face of war. Too often they have been asked to fight in strange and distant places, for no clear purpose they could see and for no accomplishment they can measure. Their spirits are not quieted by the thought that the good and pleasant bounty that surrounds them can be destroyed in an instant by a single bomb. Yet they find no escape, for their survival and comfort now depend on unpredictable strangers in far-off corners of the globe.

How can they turn from melancholy when at home they see young arrayed against old, black against white, neighbor against neighbor, so that they stand in peril of social discord. Or not despair when they see that the cities and countryside are in need of repair, yet find themselves threatened by scarcities of the resources that sustain their way of life. Or when, in the face of these challenges, they turn for leadership to men in high places — only to find those men as frail as any others.

So sometimes the traveler is asked whence will come their succor. What is to preserve their abundance, or even their civility? How can they pass on to their children a nation as strong and free as the one they inherited from their forefathers? How is their country to endure these cruel storms that beset it from without and from within?

Of course the stranger cannot quiet their spirits. For it is true that everywhere men turn their eyes today much of the world has a truly wild and savage hue. No man, if he be truthful, can say that the specter of war is banished. Nor can he say that when men or communities are put upon their own resources they are sure of solace; nor be sure that men of diverse kinds and diverse views can live peaceably together in a time of troubles.
But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere — in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.

We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.

And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

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Annually on Thanksgiving, since 1961, The Wall Street Journal has published two editorials.

“The Desolate Wildnerness” is the opening passage from “the chronicle of those memorable circumstances of the year 1620, as recorded by Nathaniel Morton, keeper of the records of Plymouth Colony, based on the account of William Bradford, sometime governor thereof,” whose bust appears at the upper right.

“And The Fair Land“ is an essay written in 1961 by Vermont Royster, who was then the editor of the Wall Street Journal.

Barack Hussein Obama defended his decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammad as a civilian by declaring that the outcome is preordained: KSM will be convicted and put to death. Attorney General Eric Holder, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, made a similar statement under questioning from Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat: (Emphasis LCs)

Kohl: Mr. Holder, last week you announced that the department will bring to Guantanamo [sic in transcript] detainees accused of planning the 9/11 attacks to trial in federal court in New York, as we’ve talked about this morning. On Friday you said that you’d not have authorized prosecution if you were not confident that the outcome would be successful. However, many critics have offered their own predictions about how such a trial might well play out.

One concern we have heard from critics of your decision is that the defendants could get off on legal technicalities, in which case these terrorists would walk free. Does this scenario have any merit? If not, why? And in the worst case scenario that the trial does not result in a conviction, what would be your next steps? 

Holder: Many of those who have criticized the decision–and not all–but many of those who have criticized the decision have done so, I think, from a position of ignorance. They have not had access to the materials that I have had access to.

They’ve not had a chance to look at the facts, look at the applicable laws and make the determination as to what our chances of success are. I would not have put these cases in Article III courts if I did not think our chances of success were not good–in fact, if I didn’t think our chances of success were enhanced by bringing the cases there. My expectation is that these capable prosecutors from the Justice Department will be successful in the prosecution of these cases.

Kohl: But taking into account that you never know what happens when you walk into a court of law, in the event that for whatever reason they do not get convicted, what would be your next step? I’m sure you must have talked about it.

Holder: What I told the prosecutors and what I will tell you and what I spoke to them about is that failure is not an option. Failure is not an option. This–these are cases that have to be won. I don’t expect that we will have a contrary result.

“Failure is not an option”? Is Eric Holder aware that Obama friend and confidant domestic terrorist William Ayers was set free because of prosecutorial error?

Obama and Holder make irresponsible assurances that KSM will be convicted (and, according to Obama, “put to death”) make a complete mockery of due process and the US Constitution. Nothing is more fundamental to America’s criminal justice system than the presumption of innocence, and if terrorist detainees are to be treated as criminal defendants, they are entitled to that presumption. Enemy combatants have no rights to the US Constitution while Obama and Holder have more respect for our enemies than regard for US law.

Prosecutorial ignorance, Marxist/Fascists indeed!

See also: Osama bin Laden – You Have the Right to Remain Silent

For the sake of political expediency, Obama and Holder are refusing even to make a pretense of respect for due process. If KSM & Co. are convicted and put to death, America’s critics and enemies will point to Obama and Holder’s assurances in arguing that the defendants were subjected to sham justice. Nice work restoring America’s moral standing, Mr. President.

Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) bribed her way to healthcare “reform” and who knows what the mountain of promises must look like after a Saturday night live vote for Socialism. One vote from a RINO in Louisiana and now the Liberals are screaming “bi-partisan.

Maybe Representative Cao (R-LA) should consider a party switch if he thinks his vote for political expediency and fear of a career change required him to vote yea because he was standing up for his constituents with his “yes” vote, citing “exploding” health care costs in his district and the need for more accessible care. We wonder if Mr. Cao ever read the bill or if his political career was more important.

“I have always said that I would put aside partisan wrangling to do the business of the people. My vote tonight was based on my priority of doing what is best for my constituents,” Cao said. 

Cao won in an upset election last December, ousting embattled Democratic Rep. William Jefferson — who has since been convicted on federal corruption charges. Mr. Cao should understand that he voted for a corrupt bill and is following corruption in his path in politics.

According to The Times-Picayune, he said over the summer that “voting against the health care bill will probably be the death of my political career.” We’ll do our best to oust him from Congress or at the very least show him the path out of the “big tent” GOP. RINOs need not apply.

“Thanks to the … amendment, taxpayer dollars will not go to supporting elective abortions, and for thousands of my constituents, this was a top priority,” he said. “By incorporating this amendment into the health reform bill, my colleagues and I made this bill better, and that is an achievement of which I will always be proud,” Cao said in a statement.

Who is Cao fooling or his he simply one more fool taken in by Pelosi promises only to realize he has been duped into selling himself and the America taxpayer down the river to hell?

Subsidies will soar, the Federal government will continue to find ways to use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions and the government will have no choice but to ration medical care, starting with the aged and grievously ill.

Using abortion as a playing card for votes the House Healthcare bill to hell provides complete power to government if ObamaCare becomes law. Every decision of what to insure or not—when an MRI can be used, or whether a stage-four breast cancer patient can get Avastin or some future expensive drug—will become subject to political intervention over moral disputes or budget constraints. Heretofore, these decisions have largely been made between a doctor and patient.

This is the real “right to life” issue and anyone thinking government healthcare is the correct medical decision is buying into Liberal ambition to power entitlement and increased loss of freedom and liberty as written in the US Constitution.

Blue Dog Democrats who claim to be deficit hawks sold their soul to Pelosi and taxpayers will suffer with loss of quality healthcare and burdening costs as the national deficit climbs faster than Jack’s beanstalk.

North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad called the House bill ”a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of” in an interview with the Washington Post in late October.

In an effort to provide cradle to grave entitlements and massive government takeover of personal decisions one can only hope the future of ObamaCare is the grave. Hopefully as this fiasco moves to the Senate it will be pronounced dead on arrival along with Liberal ambition and RINOs like Rep. Cao who see their political careers before the US Constitution. Indeed!

The following story is from Patriot Post and Mark Alexander. It is too important not to place here for anyone who stops by. The mainstream media picks and chooses what they wish to call news while fawning over Barack Hussein Obama and not engaging in facts.

Here is Mr. Alexander’s essay:

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“Equal and exact justice to all men…” –Thomas Jefferson

Editor’s Note: PG suggested — this essay contains graphic descriptions of a brutal crime.

In 1775, John Adams wrote, “There is in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong, a love of truth and a veneration of virtue … if the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice…”

Adams understood that a shared penchant for justice and virtue is essential to liberty, and depends upon the ability of people to discern between right and wrong.

Today, it is evident to every astute social scientist (and most anyone with common sense) that among definable American subcultures the capacity for distinguishing between right and wrong is severely diminished.

The origin of these deteriorating standards for justice and virtue is rooted in the dissolution of the family, and the failure of our places of worship and our schools to instill those values necessary for self-government — self-government being the foundation of family-government and that being the foundation of social responsibility.

U.S. urban centers, and to a lesser extent suburban and rural areas, are now home to generations of sociopaths who do not value your life, simply because they do not value their own.

Making matters worse, the MSM perpetuates a virtual blackout of news regarding select sociopaths, while trumpeting allegations and speculations of others. This results in a distorted popular understanding of the extent of the social degradation around us.

Three years ago (March 2006), the Leftmedia spent a year relentlessly convicting in the court of public opinion three white Duke University lacrosse players for a “hate crime” — the alleged gang rape of a black woman named Crystal Gail Mangum. Millions of dollars in defense-lawyer fees later, it turns out that there was no evidence and that Mangum was a liar. The real victims were, in fact, the accused men: David Evans, Reade Seligmann and Colin Finnerty. (All charges were dropped, but there has been no apology yet from 88 Duke professors who jumped on the bandwagon, condemning Evans, Seligmann and Finnerty in an open letter before the first day of their trial.)

Four weeks ago, Barack Hussein Obama interrupted a live media propaganda confab promoting his administration’s most critical national initiative (nationalizing health care) in order to accuse a white Cambridge, MA, police officer, James Crowley, of “acting stupidly” for arresting Obama’s black friend, Henry Gates. That accusation was followed by similar knee-jerk pronouncements of racism by the black governor of Massachusetts and the black mayor of Cambridge. Under such heavy-handed political and media pressure, all charges against Gates were dropped.

The Gates’ story dominated the national media headlines for a couple weeks, until it was determined that the officer’s actions were, in fact, justified. Obama attempted to make amends by tossing back a few beers with the Gates and Crowley in the Rose Garden, but BO offered no public apology. (Narcissists do not apologize, they just reinterpret the facts.)

This week, there is a trial underway which is racially charged, but, unless you were reading The Patriot back in 2007, chances are you have not heard of this one since it involves a savage black-on-white crime, rather than MSM feeding frenzy accusations of white-on-black crimes.

I am referring to the brutal torture, mutilation and murder of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom by four black men in Knoxville, Tennessee.

In the event you were not a reader in ’07, allow me to recount this horrendous incident … because you won’t see or hear it from any MSM news outlets.

On 6 January 2007, Channon (age 21) and Christopher (age 23) were out for a Saturday dinner date, after which Channon called her mom to report that they were on the way to visit friends. But Channon and Christopher never arrived at their friends’ house — nor returned home.

The next day, the mutilated and burned remains of Chris Newsom were found along a railroad track. Two days later, Channon’s mutilated body was recovered from a trash bin.

Channon and Chris were in Channon’s Toyota 4-Runner when they were carjacked. They were taken to a nearby house, brutally gang-raped, mutilated and then murdered. They were subjected to lengthy torture in each other’s presence.

Newsom was raped, his genitals were cut off, and then taken to the railroad tracks where he was shot execution-style. The perpetrators soaked his body with an accelerant and burned his body.

Christian was kept alive for a while longer, repeatedly raped, mutilated, had cleaning solution poured down her throat in an attempt to destroy DNA evidence, and then stuffed inside a trash can where she suffocated to death.

This appalling attack is more than a case study in sociopathic evil. It is a case study about which stories the MSM headlines and which they do not. Yes, there are some 17,000 murders committed in the U.S. each year, but this double murder was clearly far more barbaric, far more monstrous, than most.

Regrettably, there is nothing new about the racial aspect of this story, which may explain why it was not national news. Although blacks represent just 12 percent of the U.S. population, black perpetrators are convicted by a jury of their peers in more than half of all murder and manslaughter cases. Additionally, per-capita black-on-white crime is far more prevalent than the inverse.

The underlying social factors contributing to such racially unbalanced crime statistics have been delineated by many conservative black leaders and academicians. However, their solutions — most notably promoting family unity, faith-based programs, better schools and individual responsibility and accountability, contradict leftist political objectives, which seek to maintain black folks’ status as wards of the state. (The modern Democrat implementation of a plantation system.)

Charged in the torture/murder of Chanon and Christopher were Eric Boyd, Letalvis Cobbins, Lemaricus Davidson, George Thomas and Vanessa Coleman.

In April 2008, Boyd was convicted in federal court of being an accessory after the fact, but the MSM was too busy fawning over the candidacy of Barack Obama to report that conviction. (Boyd’s case is on appeal.)

“One down. Four to go,” said Channon’s father, Gary Christian.

He and Channon’s mother, Deena have been present at all the proceedings. “We do this for Channon,” said Deena. “We’ve been through the worst. We and the Newsoms have lost our children. We can endure anything.”

This week, the trial of a second defendant, Letalvis Cobbins, is underway, but it’s safe to say that the prosecution of this defendant will pass without a satellite news-link truck anywhere in sight.

I draw your attention to this case not only to mourn the murder of this young couple, but also to call attention to a despicable political double standard which includes the MSM’s complicity in advancing that standard.

In 1998, three white men in Jasper, Texas, beat a black man, James Byrd, then chained him to the back of a pickup truck and dragged him three miles to his death. Not surprisingly, Byrd’s murder received national media attention — as it should.

Clearly, hate was a motivating factor in the Jasper case, but it was also a motivating factor in Knoxville, though not a “hate crime” as defined by federal law. So, why do white-on-black hate crimes invariably result in a media feeding frenzy, while black-on-white hate crimes receive nary a mention?

What about the double standard when it comes to race-hustling poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton (who fabricated the Tawana Brawley rape hoax)? The only difference in racists such as Jackson and Sharpton and those in the KKK is that the latter are not Leftmedia celebs.

To that end, my colleague Walter Williams posited this query: “What have we heard from the NAACP, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and others who rushed to judgment and outrage as they condemned whites in the cases of the ‘Jena 6′ and Don Imus when he referred to the Rutgers ladies basketball team as ‘nappy-headed ho’s'? Where were the national news media and public officials? You can bet the rent money that, were the victims black and the perpetrators white, Knoxville would have been inundated with TV crews, with Jackson, Sharpton and other civil rights spokesmen and politicians from both parties condemning racism, possibly blaming it all on George Bush…”

As for the defendants in this case, Knox County has already paid in excess of $350 thousand to prosecute and defend these monsters. Based on the eyewitness account of defendant Vanessa Coleman, the question before Cobbins’ jury, and those yet to be empanelled for the other defendants, is not one of guilt or innocence, but guilty of what charges.

Those found guilty will be treated to either life imprisonment, with all entitlements, or life on death row for maybe a couple decades — all at a cost to taxpayers of more than $100 thousand per year per convict.

Martin Luther King, in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail, proclaimed, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

The MSM blackout of this crime is a grave injustice.

To the families and friends of Channon and Christopher, we share your grief and will continue this vigil with you until justice is served.

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Mark Alexander
Publisher, PatriotPost.US

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LC Note: It is unconscionable this is not a national story. When the racial shoe is on the other foot, right or wrong, it becomes 24/7 news. Real journalism is dead. Indeed!

See Also