Acton Institute Powerblog Archives

Post Tagged 'thanksgiving'

November 17, 2015

How Property Rights Saved the Pilgrims

This week school children across the country will be hearing the tale of the Pilgrims and the first Thanksgiving. You probably heard a similar story when you were in a kid that went something like this: The Pilgrims sailed over to America from Plymouth, England on the Mayflower. Continue Reading...
November 27, 2014

Black Friday: A day of hyper generosity?

For many, Black Friday epitomizes everything nasty American hyper-consumerism. Stores everywhere are plagued with overly aggressive shoppers, each stuffed to the brim with carb-laden Thanksgiving chow and yet ever-more hungry for the next delicious deal. Continue Reading...
November 26, 2014

The Thanksgiving Proclamation of George Washington

In October 3, 1789 in New York City, President George Washington proclaimed Thursday the 26th of November 1789 a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer” devoted to “the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.” Continue Reading...
February 04, 2014

Stewardship and Thanksgiving

Today at Ethika Politika, I reflect on what it might look like to adopt thanksgiving as one’s orientation toward human experience and society: We may think of gratitude … as an appreciation of the joy that uniquely comes from what is virtuous and the recognition of “what God has done or is doing.” Continue Reading...
December 13, 2013

Business and Askesis

Today at Ethika Politika, I look at the busyness of the Advent season through the lens of Orthodox Christian asceticism in my essay, “Busyness and Askesis: An Advent Reflection.” The Advent season in the United States is typically ransacked by shopping, parties, visits with family, and the like. Continue Reading...
November 27, 2013

Pilgrims, Property Rights, and the Source of Stewardship

Each Thanksgiving brings with it another opportunity to pause, meditate, and express our gratitude for the great blessings in life. As one who recently welcomed a new baby boy to my family, it seems particularly evident this season that the greatest blessings are not, after all, material. Continue Reading...
November 27, 2013

Amazon, Kmart, and the Moral Limits of Shopping

Good now, sit down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch So nightly toils the subject of the land, And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, And foreign mart for implements of war; Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task Does not divide the Sunday from the week; What might be toward, that this sweaty haste Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day: Who is’t that can inform me? Continue Reading...
November 25, 2013

How to Help the Working Poor on Thanksgiving

Want to help the working poor this Christmas season? Nicole Gelinas has a free-market suggestion: Don’t shop on Thanksgiving. More than half a decade on, we’re still missing 976,000 jobs — and we’re missing 12 million jobs if you figure that jobs should grow as the population grows. Continue Reading...