Ms. Hakakian, perhaps today your book is *most* inspiring to those who were born and raised in America. The individualist morality that permeates American culture is so well perceived by you, but so lost on New York Times bestselling authors: https://paultaylor.substack.com/p/part-4-antiracist-anti-enlightenment
Economic inequality isn't a bug in the system, it's a feature, one that allows for and encourages starting somewhere and then learning, growing and achieving your way to bigger and better things. There is a dysfunction in a society where college grads think they are immediately worth six-figure incomes simply for getting passing grades.
All beginning workers have much to learn, and they need incentives to continue their education about life. Unequal outcomes exist even between siblings raised in the same environment. There is no "fair" wage, there are simply options that everyone can choose among, in order to get oneself to the economic place desired. It works well and has worked for two centuries for the impressive immigrants who have come to America because it is a country where anyone can "have a go" in the words of Dierdre McKloskey. Read her stuff, it's excellemt.
It’s true, I agree, that many Americans take the blessings of America for granted. And some of them—I’m looking at you, Ilhan Omar—are ingrates who revile the country while helping themselves to its bounty.
It’s sad that the list of Thanksgiving traditions now includes lectures from obnoxious Wokesters about the existential evil of Fascist Amerikka. Not sad for me, of course—my family and I will celebrate this most American of holidays in the traditional style. But how tragic for the Woke! Just imagine AOC and her Squaddies, sitting around the table, agonizing over the horrors of life in this country while consuming their locally sourced organic gruel! Yes, I know, I have a heart of stone, but the thought of their misery makes me smile…
There is economic inequality, but often overlooked is where it is the most severe - in liberal strongholds. Throughout history, the Democrat party has been the party most interested in social injustice: from slavery, to abortion (as a means to keep the population of blacks down), to minimum wage laws (to keep blacks from getting jobs), to civil rights (Republican support of it was much higher than Democrat support), to courting the black vote during elections but ignoring them once elected, and on an on.
To be clear, when I stated the Democrats are the party most interested in social injustice, I meant that they were the party most interested in PROMOTING social injustice.
As son of parents who were fortunate to escape Hungary in 1938 (from where my first cousin, uncles, grandmother would be sent to their deaths) I am particularly grateful for my parents' choice to select America as their destination. Without special connections, one of my kids landed position on White House staff, the other began a vibrant NGO in California's Central Valley. Every year at our Thanksgiving Dinner (oft-times to the sighs of guests) I read Lincoln's proclamation. Here it is in full:
Abraham Lincoln Online Speeches and Writings
Home | News | Books | Speeches | Places | Resources | Education | Timelines | Index | Search
Proclamation of Thanksgiving
This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America's national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders similar to this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.
Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." She explained, "You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution."
Prior to this, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other Northern states. President Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale's request immediately, unlike several of his predecessors, who ignored her petitions altogether. In her letter to Lincoln she mentioned that she had been advocating a national thanksgiving date for 15 years as the editor of Godey's Lady's Book. George Washington was the first president to proclaim a day of thanksgiving, issuing his request on October 3, 1789, exactly 74 years before Lincoln's.
The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November "as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise." According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln's secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary how he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
A very wonderful read. I have many immigrant friends who have fled various authoritarian prison-nations ... Vietnam, Iran, China, etc. I listen to their stories, and marvel that my fellow countrymen can't see the danger of authoritarian tools such as the focus on economic inequality.
I'm quite amazed at the liberally educated—Nassem Taleb's IYI—who fail to realize our economic inequality is a symptom of our success; that this symptom is instead a sign of liberty. As my friends—refugees from Communist Vietnam—relate, in Vietnam anyone can have a coffee cart. But if someone were to open a coffee shop, the corrupt government officials want a cut ... a piece of ownership. Another friend related how his father-in-law tried to open a cement block making plant. The government forcibly took partial ownership. At every stage of growth the government took more ownership of the cement block plant. Finally the father-in-law no longer controlled his own small cement block plant. He gave it all to the government, lost his investment, and the corrupt officials sold it all off for scrap. You'll hear the same stories out of Venezuela, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. The whole economies and societies suffer the loss. One family has lost it's investment, the local economy lost jobs, the region lost access to building materials.
The most amazing failing I see in the very well educated IYI set, is their misunderstanding of the quantification of business ownership. The fact that Jeff Bezos' company is worth some big billions of dollars, and Jeff's controlling share is likewise worth some big billions of dollars doesn't equate to Jeff having a mountain of dollars sitting in a basement vault ala Ocean's Eleven. Yes, Jeff could be forced out of his role as CEO, his controlling interest in his company could be taxed away ... but does that put a single penny into anyone else's hands? No, the government will slurp those funds away, control of Amazon will transfer to the hands of someone far less capable—Does anyone remember Scully and Apple Computer ... Anyone? For those who don't know that history, Steve Jobs handed the CEO position of Apple Computer to John Scully. It ended with Steve Jobs fired, Apple Computer in bankruptcy, thousands of people laid off; their homes lost to default; marriages broken; families destroyed. Steve Jobs bought Apple back out of bankruptcy and rebuilt it even better than it was. The moral of the story, is that only a very few people are capable of running a company—we identify them by their success. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built Apple Computer from a garage hobby into the most innovative company ever. Only someone of the calibre of Steve Jobs is capable of running this kind of company. If your heavy handed Maoism wrests away the control of a company, it is likely to fail. Again, the economic failure of a company involves the economic failure of each and every employee and their families as well. As I said before, the rank and file—suddenly disemployed—will suffer far more-so than the C-suite. That is the awful results of your socialism, reducing the livelihood of everyone down to equality in poverty.
The overeducated—sit, as Orwell says concerning Men With No Chests—unable to connect the cerebral world with the physical world. Adopting the catchy phrase of the permanently disaffected which when enacted leads a prosperous country to ruin. Look at Zimbabwe, Venezuela, *Vietnam.
* Vietnam was a food exporter all through the war. Only after the Communists took over did food production fall so low that the government ordered every family to begin farming. Later anti-Maoist reforms increased food production.
Economic inequality has grown over time (since around 1970). However, is it really an 'existential threat'? American democracy has thrived in periods of low inequality and periods of high inequality. A greater threat to American democracy (in my opinion) is institutional paralysis. My favorite comment on this is "China is very good at building dams, the US is very good at enforcing PC. Which country will dominate the 21st century".
It's a good essay. Wish people would calm down about word choice, issues about her reference to economic equality. Read the essay! She's happy, dare I say grateful to be in the USA. Happy Thanksgiving to Bari Weiss who has had the courage to dump the NY Times and give us this wonderful, well edited, thoughtful, exciting online magazine which I am more than happy to pay for.
Holy sh*t, there are an awful lot of mean-spirited assholes in this comment section, and in reply to a wonderful article. Damn, people. What you think you're here for, I can't fathom.
Very profound! Happy Thanksgiving tp all Americans! Pres Lincoln was wise to institute this holiday, making your country the only one on earth that sets aside a day to give thanks to God!
Ms. Hakakian, perhaps today your book is *most* inspiring to those who were born and raised in America. The individualist morality that permeates American culture is so well perceived by you, but so lost on New York Times bestselling authors: https://paultaylor.substack.com/p/part-4-antiracist-anti-enlightenment
Economic inequality isn't a bug in the system, it's a feature, one that allows for and encourages starting somewhere and then learning, growing and achieving your way to bigger and better things. There is a dysfunction in a society where college grads think they are immediately worth six-figure incomes simply for getting passing grades.
All beginning workers have much to learn, and they need incentives to continue their education about life. Unequal outcomes exist even between siblings raised in the same environment. There is no "fair" wage, there are simply options that everyone can choose among, in order to get oneself to the economic place desired. It works well and has worked for two centuries for the impressive immigrants who have come to America because it is a country where anyone can "have a go" in the words of Dierdre McKloskey. Read her stuff, it's excellemt.
Equal under the law is just. Economic equality is theft committed by the government.
What a wonderful article. Thank you.
Happy Thanksgiving...
It’s true, I agree, that many Americans take the blessings of America for granted. And some of them—I’m looking at you, Ilhan Omar—are ingrates who revile the country while helping themselves to its bounty.
It’s sad that the list of Thanksgiving traditions now includes lectures from obnoxious Wokesters about the existential evil of Fascist Amerikka. Not sad for me, of course—my family and I will celebrate this most American of holidays in the traditional style. But how tragic for the Woke! Just imagine AOC and her Squaddies, sitting around the table, agonizing over the horrors of life in this country while consuming their locally sourced organic gruel! Yes, I know, I have a heart of stone, but the thought of their misery makes me smile…
There is economic inequality, but often overlooked is where it is the most severe - in liberal strongholds. Throughout history, the Democrat party has been the party most interested in social injustice: from slavery, to abortion (as a means to keep the population of blacks down), to minimum wage laws (to keep blacks from getting jobs), to civil rights (Republican support of it was much higher than Democrat support), to courting the black vote during elections but ignoring them once elected, and on an on.
To be clear, when I stated the Democrats are the party most interested in social injustice, I meant that they were the party most interested in PROMOTING social injustice.
As son of parents who were fortunate to escape Hungary in 1938 (from where my first cousin, uncles, grandmother would be sent to their deaths) I am particularly grateful for my parents' choice to select America as their destination. Without special connections, one of my kids landed position on White House staff, the other began a vibrant NGO in California's Central Valley. Every year at our Thanksgiving Dinner (oft-times to the sighs of guests) I read Lincoln's proclamation. Here it is in full:
Abraham Lincoln Online Speeches and Writings
Home | News | Books | Speeches | Places | Resources | Education | Timelines | Index | Search
Proclamation of Thanksgiving
This is the proclamation which set the precedent for America's national day of Thanksgiving. During his administration, President Lincoln issued many orders similar to this. For example, on November 28, 1861, he ordered government departments closed for a local day of thanksgiving.
Sarah Josepha Hale, a 74-year-old magazine editor, wrote a letter to Lincoln on September 28, 1863, urging him to have the "day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival." She explained, "You may have observed that, for some years past, there has been an increasing interest felt in our land to have the Thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritive fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom and institution."
Prior to this, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times, mainly in New England and other Northern states. President Lincoln responded to Mrs. Hale's request immediately, unlike several of his predecessors, who ignored her petitions altogether. In her letter to Lincoln she mentioned that she had been advocating a national thanksgiving date for 15 years as the editor of Godey's Lady's Book. George Washington was the first president to proclaim a day of thanksgiving, issuing his request on October 3, 1789, exactly 74 years before Lincoln's.
The document below sets apart the last Thursday of November "as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise." According to an April 1, 1864, letter from John Nicolay, one of President Lincoln's secretaries, this document was written by Secretary of State William Seward, and the original was in his handwriting. On October 3, 1863, fellow Cabinet member Gideon Welles recorded in his diary how he complimented Seward on his work. A year later the manuscript was sold to benefit Union troops.
Washington, D.C.
October 3, 1863
By the President of the United States of America.
A Proclamation.
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President: Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
Good for you! A fine tradition indeed.
Lovely essay. Happy Thanksgiving to every one!
A very wonderful read. I have many immigrant friends who have fled various authoritarian prison-nations ... Vietnam, Iran, China, etc. I listen to their stories, and marvel that my fellow countrymen can't see the danger of authoritarian tools such as the focus on economic inequality.
I'm quite amazed at the liberally educated—Nassem Taleb's IYI—who fail to realize our economic inequality is a symptom of our success; that this symptom is instead a sign of liberty. As my friends—refugees from Communist Vietnam—relate, in Vietnam anyone can have a coffee cart. But if someone were to open a coffee shop, the corrupt government officials want a cut ... a piece of ownership. Another friend related how his father-in-law tried to open a cement block making plant. The government forcibly took partial ownership. At every stage of growth the government took more ownership of the cement block plant. Finally the father-in-law no longer controlled his own small cement block plant. He gave it all to the government, lost his investment, and the corrupt officials sold it all off for scrap. You'll hear the same stories out of Venezuela, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. The whole economies and societies suffer the loss. One family has lost it's investment, the local economy lost jobs, the region lost access to building materials.
The most amazing failing I see in the very well educated IYI set, is their misunderstanding of the quantification of business ownership. The fact that Jeff Bezos' company is worth some big billions of dollars, and Jeff's controlling share is likewise worth some big billions of dollars doesn't equate to Jeff having a mountain of dollars sitting in a basement vault ala Ocean's Eleven. Yes, Jeff could be forced out of his role as CEO, his controlling interest in his company could be taxed away ... but does that put a single penny into anyone else's hands? No, the government will slurp those funds away, control of Amazon will transfer to the hands of someone far less capable—Does anyone remember Scully and Apple Computer ... Anyone? For those who don't know that history, Steve Jobs handed the CEO position of Apple Computer to John Scully. It ended with Steve Jobs fired, Apple Computer in bankruptcy, thousands of people laid off; their homes lost to default; marriages broken; families destroyed. Steve Jobs bought Apple back out of bankruptcy and rebuilt it even better than it was. The moral of the story, is that only a very few people are capable of running a company—we identify them by their success. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built Apple Computer from a garage hobby into the most innovative company ever. Only someone of the calibre of Steve Jobs is capable of running this kind of company. If your heavy handed Maoism wrests away the control of a company, it is likely to fail. Again, the economic failure of a company involves the economic failure of each and every employee and their families as well. As I said before, the rank and file—suddenly disemployed—will suffer far more-so than the C-suite. That is the awful results of your socialism, reducing the livelihood of everyone down to equality in poverty.
The overeducated—sit, as Orwell says concerning Men With No Chests—unable to connect the cerebral world with the physical world. Adopting the catchy phrase of the permanently disaffected which when enacted leads a prosperous country to ruin. Look at Zimbabwe, Venezuela, *Vietnam.
* Vietnam was a food exporter all through the war. Only after the Communists took over did food production fall so low that the government ordered every family to begin farming. Later anti-Maoist reforms increased food production.
Atlas Shrugged...
Economic inequality has grown over time (since around 1970). However, is it really an 'existential threat'? American democracy has thrived in periods of low inequality and periods of high inequality. A greater threat to American democracy (in my opinion) is institutional paralysis. My favorite comment on this is "China is very good at building dams, the US is very good at enforcing PC. Which country will dominate the 21st century".
It's a good essay. Wish people would calm down about word choice, issues about her reference to economic equality. Read the essay! She's happy, dare I say grateful to be in the USA. Happy Thanksgiving to Bari Weiss who has had the courage to dump the NY Times and give us this wonderful, well edited, thoughtful, exciting online magazine which I am more than happy to pay for.
Holy sh*t, there are an awful lot of mean-spirited assholes in this comment section, and in reply to a wonderful article. Damn, people. What you think you're here for, I can't fathom.
Right? It's getting ridiculous
No, you don’t need to damn anyone and try to shut people up. We are here to share our thoughts and sentiments. Respectfully.
Maybe so you can reach your Nirvana of scoldiness?
I have always been impressed with immigrants appreciation and love of our country. It is inspiring!!
Bari, I must commend you for the efforts you make to share and highlight other writers. It is very kind!!
Happy Thanksgiving to Bari, Nellie, and all of the Common Sense readers.
Very profound! Happy Thanksgiving tp all Americans! Pres Lincoln was wise to institute this holiday, making your country the only one on earth that sets aside a day to give thanks to God!
Love Abe!!