Last Thanksgiving I wrote about Abraham Lincoln’s powerful proclamation that established Thanksgiving as a national holiday.

It is a shame that our culture concentrates on the story of the Pilgrim’s thanksgiving, when the holiday itself is also rooted firmly in the solemnity, terror, and self-affliction of civil war.

Thanksgiving should epitomize the virtue of being grateful and recognizing the merciful hand of God in our lives, especially amid the worst turmoil and affliction.

I have written about this before, but wanted to cover some of the same topics in the context of the issue in Utah of distributing “In God We Trust” posters to be displayed in the public school classrooms.

When those with more liberal views than I say that the nation as the founders established it was not a Christian Nation, they are superficially correct. However, the nation was arguably founded explicitly as a Theistic Nation, a fact which they often ignore or deny. And Christianity had an undeniable influence on the formation of the United States and its government even if it was not explicitly Christian. While there was to be no established religious sect or creed, the government and nation were expected to officially recognize the authority of a vague, generic Supreme Creator as the source and judge of their laws and actions and to recognize the necessity of His approbation of their collective actions.

I’ve been re-reading Richard Bushman’s biography of Joseph Smith, Rough Stone Rolling , and I just finished the chapter on the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon. When reading about the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, I recognized an interesting parallel to the early Norse and Anglo-Saxon origins of English Common Law that I had not noticed previously and thought I’d write a little about it.

The Classicist bent of our modern American education system often focuses on the real, but overemphasized contribution of the Greek and Roman civilizations to our modern legal system and government while unduly minimizing or ignoring the contribution from the medieval legal traditions of the Norse and Germanic cultures from which English Common law, and subsequently American law, developed.

I have not seen the movies “V for Vendetta” and “Children of Men” nor have I listened to “Year Zero,” the new album released this week by the explicit rock band Nine Inch Nails. And because I avoid movies and music with “R” rated or explicit content, I am not likely to in the future. However, from what I can gather from news reports, critical reviews, and conversations with people who are familiar with them, they all attempt to push into the mainstream a view that is popular among the most radical liberals and a few of the most reactionary conservatives: that current events, the War on Terrorism, and the policies of Conservative Republicans and especially the Bush administration are intended to overturn and replace our constitutional Republic with some kind of corporate oligarchy or Christian theocracy.

This view is rampant among the more radical, liberal or progressive blogs and forums.

I think that a conspiratorial view of current events and of history has a certain natural appeal. It plucks the same psychological strings that make gossip attractive and wide spread.

The story of the Pilgrims so dominates the Thanksgiving Holiday that other fascinating aspects of its history are often completely ignored. You would have thought that at some point in my education from elementary through college, someone would have taught about the origin of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, but no one ever did.

A year or two ago I bought an inexpensive edition of a collection of speeches by Abraham Lincoln published by one of my favorite sources for interesting books, Dover Publications . One of the speeches was an impressive declaration given in midst of the Civil War. In it, Lincoln recommended that the final Thursday of November should be observed as a “day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

Previously, other presidents had declared individual days for thanksgiving, but since Lincoln’s declaration in 1863, Thanksgiving has been recognized annually in the final weeks of November though the specific Thursday was changed from the last to the fourth.

I think that each Thanksgiving it is worth while to read Lincoln’s declaration. Here it is in full:

On May 26th, the prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his two counselors sent a letter to be read in all of the LDS congregations in the United States urging members to contact their Senators to support proposed amendments to the Constitution that would define marriage as only between a man and a woman to prevent the establishment of legal, homosexual marriage in the United States.

Since the release of this letter of counsel to the members, I have heard of several critics of the church, internal and external, who try to discredit the Church’s position against homosexual marriage as hypocritical in light of the Church’s own struggle against the United States government’s prohibition of the former LDS practice of Polygamy in the late 19th century.

These critics try to draw a parallel between the church’s fight to keep the government from prohibiting its religious practice of plural marriage and the modern fight by homosexuals to prevent the government from prohibiting same-sex marriage. “How can the church support government prohibition of same-sex marriage,” they ask, “when the church itself fought to prevent the government from interfering with their right to marriage in the 19th century?”

This criticism reveals a very superficial understanding of history and the church’s 19th century position in regard to congressional proscription of polygamy. Like the common comparison of the homosexual movement to the civil-rights movement, it is an effective rhetorical device with emotional appeal, but has little basis in reality. It is effective because it is superficially compelling and easily expressed in only a few words while an effective refutation of it requires a lengthy explanation.

Conspiracy theories have been and will continue to be a staple of politics. I suspect that the allure of conspiracy theories is tied very closely to the part of human nature that is drawn toward gossip. And like gossip, some conspiracy theories may even be true, or at least an exaggerated version of the truth. However, often such theories trick people into boxing with shadows when they could be expending their energy on other, real problems.

One persistent conspiracy meme that is prevalent among conservatives is the idea that the portions of the Great Seal of the United States, as seen on the reverse side of the dollar bill, contain elements that represent a Free-Mason or Illuminati conspiracy.

This is an unfortunate concept because it keeps conservatives from recognizing that, in the on-going conflict between conservatives and liberals over the appropriate role of Religion in Government, The Great Seal of the United States provides one of the best evidences of the conservative position.

What follows is a review of the history of the Great Seal, what it means, and why conservatives should embrace it as did the founders.

This evening, I am am giving an 8 minute presentation to my Spanish class. The professor will be evaluating my spoken Spanish grammar and pronunciation in addition to the written Spanish in the visual portions of my presentation and the summary I will give to each student. I hope it goes well. It has been great to review and improve my Spanish skills.

I have also enjoyed researching the topic of my presentation, an obscure portion of the fascinating history of Chile. For any of you who read Spanish, I am posting a summary of my research. I’m sure that there are grammatical and orthographic problems that I have missed, but deadlines wait for no one!

Orélie Antoine de Tounens
La historia peculiar de un “Don Quijote” francés en Chile

Considering all of the recent talk about the Patriot Act, I thought I resurrect a slightly modified version of an article I wrote some time ago, which I think helps explain my own position on the Patriot Act.

Take out a $20 bill and take a good look at the picture of President Andrew Jackson on the obverse side. Let’s review a little of the history of this controversial president, and then I’ll tell you what it can teach us about how to remedy our bloated and burdensome government.