Epic Conservative Fail For Thanksgiving!!!Do these "conservatives" have no shame?  They will distort anything from our common heritage and history to suit their political agenda.  Just in time for Thanksgiving, Joseph Farah decides it is appropriate to write an article where he makes the ridiculous claim that the Pilgrims originally set up a communist system for the Plymouth Plantation and, as it faltered, they turned toward the Bible and adopted a free market system.   Even better, there is a very similar article that can be found on the web from 10 years ago and Farah failed to give any such acknowledgment.  Sounds like a little bit of copyright infringement/plagiarism to me. 

Granted, the plagiarism means little to me since the story itself is ridiculous.  So, let's get into the claim here about the Pilgrims being communists when they first came to Plymouth:

Before leaving Europe the Pilgrims entered into a contract, dated July 1, 1620, that would have all profits of their "trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means of any person or persons, remain in the common stock until division."

In other words, the settlement at Plymouth Bay was the first New World experiment in communism – long before Karl Marx supposedly invented it.

Ooooh, sounds pretty damning, doesn't it?  Let's get honest here.  The Pilgrims had decided they no longer wanted to live in Holland and needed money to come to America.  In order to raise the funds to travel, they formed a joint stock agreement whereby individuals would buy a share in the travel and get an equivalent share of the profits stemming from the enterprise.  In other words, the Pilgrims created a joint enterprise.  Or, you can call it a partnership or corporation or whatever, but it is a creation of the free market.  Since when are joint enterprises and profit sharing agreements communist?  What a joke this Farah is.  Under his reasoning, Exxon is the largest communist enterprise in the world, with Walmart catching up.

And, to keep the desired narrative going, Farah makes the claim that the Pilgrims turned to the free enterprise system (which, by the way, joint enterprises are a part of) after reading the Bible:

As William Bradford wrote in his journal: "And thus they found the Lord to be with them in all their ways, and to bless their outgoings and incomings, for which let His holy name have the praise forever, to all posterity."

Nevertheless, Bradford remained troubled by the colony's inability to prosper. He found the answer by studying the Bible and revisiting the notion of private property and incentivized hard work.

Okay, where exactly in the Bible did Bradford find this love of private property.  Yes, Bradford may have spoke of the Lord, but the Pilgrims mentioned the Lord in every single thing they did.  Hell, they probably thanked the Lord when they created their initial joint enterprise to come to America.  Please, someone cite for me the part of the Bible that inspired Bradford.  Personally, I would think that economic survival inspired Bradford more.  But, what do I know - I am not an idiotic birther who copies stories from others and who has no understanding of contract law.