The Pilgrims didn't have a lot to give thanks for during their first years at Plymouth. Their fields yielded small crops, and the settlers went hungry. Why? Did bad weather, disease, or some other calamity befall them? Not really; socialism did. As settlers relied on others for their daily bread, their loaves, and thus their bellies, became smaller.

"To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism," writes Richard Maybury. "He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines."

We have a lot of things to be thankful for today, not the least of which is America's tradition of rejecting socialism and embracing the free market.

How true, how true. So, why is it that the Socialist model continues to be experiemented with even though it hasn't effectively worked since its inception?

And in this country where we have the best and most favorable working system, why do some of our more 'pink' pols continue to push Socialist philosophies?