How’s that for a dramatic beginning to a story? Years ago, when I used to give a lot of talks to high school classes, this was one of my favorites. It always got the students’ attention. And I have to admit, I also enjoyed seeing some liberal teachers get so upset with me they almost lost their lunches.

Here’s the story I told those students in those long-ago presentations.

The Pilgrims who arrived at Plymouth Rock in 1620 were incredibly brave and hardy souls. They were motivated by the noblest of virtues. They vowed, each and every one, to be as selfless as possible—to always put the needs of the group first. They agreed to own everything in common and to share everything equally.

And their naïve piety almost killed the entire colony.

We all know how the adventure begins. A group of devout Christians, seeking religious freedom for themselves and eager to "advance the Gospel of the Kingdom of Christ" in the New World, sets sail from Plymouth, England in 1620. An investment consortium known as the Merchant Adventurers of London paid the expenses for the trip, including chartering the Mayflower and its 40-man crew.

The deal was simple: The Pilgrims agreed to establish a colony in northern Virginia where they would plant crops, fish the waters and hunt in the forests. They would return a certain percentage of each year’s bounty to London until their debt had been repaid.

Things went wrong from the start. First, the syndicate changed the deal, drastically reducing the amount they would loan the Pilgrims. The brave adventurers were forced to sell many of their own possessions, and much of their provisions, to pay for the trip. As a result, they landed in the New World badly short of supplies.

Next, the small ship they had purchased in Holland, which was to accompany them to America so they could fish the waters off the coast, had to be abandoned in England.

Shortly after they set sail, the ship, badly misnamed the Speedwell, became "open and leakie as a sieve," as its captain reported. They returned to Dartmouth, where the boat was dry-docked for three weeks as repairs were made.

But to no avail. After leaving Dartmouth, the group sailed less than 300 miles when the captain decided the Speedwell "must bear up or sink at sea." This time the ships put in at Plymouth, England, where it was decided to go on without the Speedwell. On Sept. 16, 1620, the Mayflower set out alone to cross the Atlantic.

A month later, when they had reached the halfway point, fierce storms battered the ship and threatened the lives of passengers and crew. Many wanted to turn back for England. But if they abandoned the journey, they would lose everything they had invested. The Pilgrims decided to trust in God and sail on.

Despite the storms, the hazards, the crowding and the poor food, only one Pilgrim died during the voyage, a young servant. His death was balanced by the birth of a son to Stephen and Elizabeth Hopkins, who named their child Oceanus.

There were 102 passengers on board the Mayflower—50 men, 20 women and 32 children—along with a crew of 40. The captain set a course along the 42nd parallel, a bearing that would carry him to Cape Cod. From there he intended to swing south and follow the coast to northern Virginia.

A little over two months later, on Nov. 19, land was finally sighted and the captain turned the ship south, toward Virginia. However, they soon encountered such "dangerous shoals and roaring breakers" that they turned back to Massachusetts. It was then that the grumblings of dissent turned into a full-fledged roar. Many of the passengers insisted on landing in Massachusetts, where "none had power to command them."

The Pilgrim leaders decided to meet the explosive situation by asking each male on board, except for the crew, to sign a formal document that would lay "the first foundation of their government in this place." Thus the Mayflower Compact was born.

The Pilgrims were a diverse lot. Many of them were illiterate. Yet in creating the Mayflower Compact they showed an extraordinary political maturity. They agreed to establish a government by the consent of the governed, with just and equal laws for all. Each adult male, regardless of his station in life—gentleman, commoner or servant—would have an equal vote in deciding the affairs of the colony. Of the 65 men and boys on board, all but 24 signed the agreement. The only ones who did not were the children of those adults who did sign, or men who were too sick to do so.

The first decision made under the covenant was to abandon efforts to reach Virginia and instead to settle in New England. The first explorers landed at Plymouth on Dec. 21, 1620.

Weather delays kept the majority from seeing their new home for nearly two weeks. On Jan. 2, 1621, work began on the first building they would erect—a storehouse.

Because provisions were so scanty they decided that the land would be worked in common, produce would be owned in common, and goods would be rationed equally. Not unlike the society Karl Marx envisioned of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Unfortunately, thanks to illness, injury and attitude, the system did not work. Pilferage from the storehouse became common. Suspicions of malingering were muttered. Over the course of that first, harsh winter, nearly half of the colonists perished. Four families were wiped out completely; only five of 18 wives survived. Of the 29 single men, hired hands and servants, only 10 were alive when spring finally came.

The colonists struggled desperately for two more years. When spring arrived in April 1623, virtually all of their provisions were gone. Unless that year’s harvest improved, they feared few would survive the next winter. The Pilgrim leaders decided on a bold course. The colony would abandon its communal approach and permit each person to work for his own benefit, not for the common good.

Here is how the governor of the colony, William Bradford, explained what happened then. This is taken from his marvelously readable memoir (if you can make adjustments for the Old English spellings), History of Plimoth Plantation:

The experience that was had in this commone course and condition, tried sundrie years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanitie of that conceite of Plato & other ancients, applauded by some of later times;—that ye taking away of properties, and bringing it in communitie into a commone wealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God.

For this communitie (so farr as it was) was found to breed much confusion & discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefite and comforte. For yet young men that were most able and fitte for labor & services did repine that they should spend their time & strength to worke for other men’s wives and children with out any recompense.

Once they replaced communal efforts with individual responsibility the differences were dramatic—and life-saving. Men went into the fields earlier and stayed later. In many cases, their wives and even their children (some barely past the toddler stage) worked right alongside them. More acres were planted, more trees were felled, more houses were built, and more game was slaughtered because of one simple change: People were allowed to keep the fruits of their own labors.

The Pilgrims arrived deeply in debt to the London merchants who sponsored them. They worked for more than 20 years, as individuals and as a community, to pay off the crushing burden. In 1627, they borrowed money to pay off the Merchants Adventurers. By 1645, they had paid off the entire debt to the company which had advanced them the sums to pay off the Merchants.

When their debt had been paid in full (at the astronomical interest rate of 45 percent per year), the company that had advanced the sums wrote the Pilgrims:

Let it not be grievous to you, that you have been instruments to break the ice for others who come after with less difficulty. The honour shall be yours to the world’s end.

As we celebrate this coming Thanksgiving Day, some 380 years after the Pilgrims celebrated the first of this uniquely American holiday, let us remember the sacrifices they made… the devotion they showed… and the lessons they learned.

Until next time, keep some powder dry.

—Chip Wood

*New Calendar Features Conservative Women. Many thanks to all of you who had kind things to say about my Straight Talk interview with Michelle Malkin. Permit me to note she is as pretty as she is smart—as you can prove for yourself by getting the 2010 Great American Conservative Women calendar. A fundraiser for the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute, you can see the calendar at www.cblpi.org. Other women featured this time include Anne Coulter, Star Parker, Bay Buchanan and Carrie Prejean.

*What Happened to Global Warming? That’s the provocative headline over a story on the British Broadcasting Corporation website. The article notes that climatologists have not been able to confirm any global warming in the past 11 years, despite a measurable rise in carbon-dioxide, which is blamed for much of this non-existent problem. By the way, the Met Office (the British weather service) says that over the next decade, at least half of the years will be hotter than 1998—so far the warmest year on earth since records were kept.

*A Rush to Loan Uncle Sam Money. The latest Treasury auction three weeks ago, for a record $123 billion in U.S. debt, was oversubscribed by nearly $250 billion. The five-year notes, which will pay just over 3.5 percent, were especially popular with central banks, foreign governments and other eager lenders. Let’s see if this remains true for the rest of this fiscal year when the profligate federales will need to borrow an additional $1.2 trillion to cover the deficits they’re accumulating.

—Chip Wood

Although this country had managed to survive without a central bank for the first 140 years of its existence, that all changed when Congress approved the Federal Reserve Act the previous December. (For an account of the conspiratorial manipulations that led to the passage of this bill and its consequences, see G. Edward Griffin’s masterful study, The Creature From Jekyll Island.)

The Fed’s friends in Congress promised that it would be a passive institution, working behind the scenes to prevent future bank panics. Instead, it soon adopted an interventionist policy. Today, it is actually praised in many quarters for controlling interest rates and regulating (read: increasing) the U.S. money supply.

Since the creation of the Fed 95 years ago the dollar has lost 98.5 percent of its purchasing power. Sadly, most Americans have been convinced that greedy businessmen cause the steady rise in prices. Tell them that higher prices are caused by a Fed that continues to flood the world with fiat currency and you’ll be greeted with blank stares and a change of subject.

—Chip Wood

Two years earlier President Ronald Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate (one of the many checkpoints into Communist East Germany) and declared, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" The wall was the last desperate effort by East Germany’s then boss, Walter Ulbricht, to stop defections to the west.

But by 1989, the Soviet Union and its various satellites were on the verge of collapse. Erich Honecker, East Germany’s brutal head of state since 1976, resigned. A day later, so did Bulgaria’s communist boss, Todor Zhikov. By Christmas of that year, most former Soviet satellites had gained their freedom, as a sort of reverse domino effect took place.

—Chip Wood

*And what our president shouldn’t have done. I’ll admit this could be a very long list. But I’m thinking specifically of his decision to renege on a commitment to attend ceremonies in Germany next week, marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. This was one of the greatest symbolic victories of freedom over communism in my lifetime. I’m sorry and a bit ashamed that our president thought going to Copenhagen to lobby for the Olympics in Chicago was more worthy of his time.

*The biggest deficit in 60 years. The U.S. Treasury Department reported that the budget deficit for fiscal 2009, which ended Sept. 30, hit the astronomical total of $1.4 trillion. The number is the most red ink we’ve incurred since World War II and represents 10 percent of the gross domestic product of this country. That’s our money they’re using to buy those votes, friends.

*The “Mouth of the South” on getting by. Ted Turner says things just aren’t the same for him anymore. He’s lost CNN, the Atlanta Braves, Jane Fonda and much of his money. But he adds, “You know, if you economize and don’t buy new airplanes or long-range jets, or that sort of thing, you can get by on a billion or two.” Thanks for the inspiring advice, Ted.

—Chip Wood

Thank you for reminding us that it’s not just Barack Obama’s policies that are often wrong; it is the people who surround him that are a large part of the problem.

Thank you for writing the bestselling book, Culture of Corruption, to give us the documented proof, as you put it, of the “tax cheats, crooks and cronies” with whom he has chosen to associate.

And thank you for granting an exclusive interview to Personal Liberty Digest, so we can remind our 500,000 subscribers of just how dangerous many of those people and programs are.

One of the first things Michelle and I discussed when we spoke was the mainstream media’s fawning favoritism toward Barack Obama and his administration and their relentless bias against anyone and anything to the right of Nancy Pelosi.

As just one example, Michelle described how the New York Times sold millions of dollars worth of Obama memorabilia during and after the campaign. I asked her, “Isn’t it a little unusual for a major media to profit so directly from a candidate?”

“You would think so,” was her sardonic reply. “But if you’ll take a look at my blog ( www.michellemalkin.com ), you’ll be able to see some of the actual merchandise, which really, literally deifies Barack Obama. There are glorious, glowing photos of the president with halos behind him. All sorts of political swag promoting his campaign and then the inauguration.”

And then she made this very telling point: “Imagine if a newspaper out there had been doing this during the Bush years—selling merchandise that glorified George W. and his candidacy. Why, the New York Times would have been all over it.”

By the way, one of the things the Times has not been all over is Michelle Malkin’s book. When we spoke, Culture of Corruption had been riding atop the NYT’s own bestseller list for almost two months. But the paper itself has never published a review of it. Imagine that. The newspaper’s own survey ranked her book No. 1 in sales across the country yet refused to even review it!

We talked for a while about the incredible bias and intellectual dishonesty of the left. Then I asked her if she detected a growing tone of desperation in their attacks on conservatives.

“I certainly do,” she said. “The left simply cannot help itself. They degenerate into ad hominem attacks and very ugly language, bigotry and intolerance. Even with their control of the White House and both branches of Congress they can’t contain themselves.

“We’ve seen this in their attacks and their rhetoric against the townhall protestors and the TEA Party movement. Their knee-jerk resort to things like the race card. It belies the promise that under Obama we were heading into a post-racial era in this country. We certainly are not. The first thing they do is accuse us of racism, whether it’s our criticism of healthcare legislation or Joe Wilson’s calling out of the president during his speech to a joint session of Congress. There is more than a smidge of desperation in their tactics.”

There are nine chapters in Culture of Corruption and every one of them is loaded with facts and anecdotes that need to be more widely known. But if there is one chapter that, by itself, is worth the price of the book and then some, it’s the second one, which she calls “First Crony Michelle Obama.”

As author Michelle puts it, “Star-struck liberal journalists swoon over Michelle O.’s bare arms, but it’s her bare-knuckles they should be watching.”

Here’s how the bestselling author put it during our discussion: “The mainstream media pays a lot of attention to Michelle Obama’s toned arms and what shoes she’s wearing. I pay a lot more attention to the political muscle she has flexed over the years. There’s been a lot of white-washing of her own political history. But what she does is marry a lot of the hard-left ideology—the class warfare, the politics of racial resentment—with the Chicago way of hardball tactics, cracking heads and cracking knuckles.”

Her book is loaded with carefully documented exposés of activities by both Obamas that will shock even the most cynical observer. If you doubt that, just turn to page 52 of Culture of Corruption and read the section that begins “Mrs. O. Screws the Poor.” I have to confess, even I didn’t realize what a sordid history the First Lady has.

Bring any of this up publicly, of course, and you can count on Obama’s defenders to smear you mercilessly. As Michelle Malkin put it when we talked, “These are the folks who called their opponents ‘political terrorists.’ That phrase was used not just by Democrat leaders, but of course by all their satellite organizations as well.”

One of the most powerful and dangerous of those satellites is the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)—a group that poured $60 million to $80 million into Democrat coffers to get Barack Obama elected. Their investment is paying off handsomely, as their legislative agenda is on the front burner of the White House. In fact, we just learned that SEIU president Andy Stern has been the most frequent visitor to the White House thus far this year.

“The SEIU not only uses these bully tactics,” Michelle told me, “they specialize in them. It wasn’t until some of their henchmen showed up at various town hall meetings that we saw actual violence.”

She then continued: “The SEIU, which calls itself the purple shirts of the purple army, has a long and proud history of thug tactics. Their president is quoted in my book about his organizing philosophy, where he says they prefer to use the power of persuasion. But if that doesn’t work, they will use the persuasion of power. That’s not just an idle threat, that’s a guarantee.

“It’s not just healthcare they want. Their holy grail is the card-check bill. If they get it, it will radically transform the political landscape. They now have 1.8 million members and they see card check as the way to vastly inflate their membership rolls and subsequently, of course, their campaign coffers.”

Bad as it has been, Michelle expects the use of terror and intimidation to get worse.

“Team Obama is notorious for that,” she explained, “going back to the campaign days of trying to stifle dissent through shear intimidation. Now they are using the power of government to try to silence their opponents as well.”

As we came near the end of our interview, I asked Michelle about the dedication of her book. “The book is dedicated to the whistleblowers,” she explained. “Many of them worked in the trenches for Barack Obama’s satellite organizations. They saw the raft of broken promises that he’s left over the past several months on transparency, ethics and accountability; core issues that transcend partisanship and ideology.”

And then she concluded, “If Barack Obama can’t deliver on these, what does it tell you about the era of hope and change? It tells you that it was a complete farce. That is what my book documents, extensively and comprehensively.”

As I said, there’s lots of scary stuff between the covers of Culture of Corruption. Michelle Malkin has done us all a huge service in compiling the sorry, shoddy record of the Obamas and those they have invited into their inner circle.

Since we spoke, her book has slipped a bit on the bestseller lists. If you don’t already own a copy, do yourself and your country a favor and order one. In fact, order several and loan the extras to some less-alarmed friends. Believe me, if they’ll read it, Culture of Corruption will act like a very loud alarm bell going off alongside their head.

Go wake them up! And until next time, keep some powder dry.

—Chip Wood

Among various special editions that have been issued, Neiman Marcus offered one in their 1978 Christmas Wish Book where every element—board, tokens, cards, dice and money—was made of chocolate. Then in 2000, F.A.O. Schwartz toy company produced a “One of a Kind” Monopoly set. The department store topped the hotels and houses with emeralds and sapphires. It also made the tokens of solid gold, and the money was real currency. For $100,000, you could take it home.

Before the collapse of communism you could buy a version of Monopoly in Russian, which strikes me as pretty ironic. And Mad Magazine once created an anti-Monopoly game, where the objective was to lose all of your money as quickly as possible.

The best-known edition of Monopoly is the original “Atlantic City” version. The city’s streets, railroads and utilities were chosen by Charles Darrow, the game’s inventor, long before Donald Trump and numerous casinos transformed the town. Boardwalk and Park Place were the most valuable properties, with Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues the least desirable.

If you managed to buy up all properties of one color (or all railroads, or utilities), you had a monopoly and could jack up the rents. The goal of the game, after all, was to bankrupt your opponents and grab all of their money. (Bet you never thought about the anti-capitalist philosophy behind the game, did you?)

One of the problems with Monopoly is that the game can take forever to play. (Hasbro, the game’s current owner, says the longest one on record lasted 1,680 hours.) Most contests today have a time limit—two hours at the national championships.

—Chip Wood

It was on Oct. 30, 1938 that Orson Welles produced a radio drama for CBS called The War of the Worlds. The studio duplication of a live newscast was so realistic that thousands of people did not realize the program was a play. Instead, they honestly believed that Martians had landed in a field in northern New Jersey and were dispatching everything the U.S. military sent against them.

Recordings of that original broadcast (available through most public libraries) sound convincing to this day. Check one out and see if you don’t agree.

And here’s some less frightening news: Statisticians tell us that Nov. 1 is the best day of the year to purchase stocks. This is probably because September and October are historically the worst two months of the year for the stock market.

Thus, they form a bottom from which the following six months, starting with November, have got to be better. Will that be true again this year? Time will tell.

—Chip Wood

In his address to the nation, Kennedy said that the United States would implement a blockade of Cuba until the missiles were removed. The next day, the Organization of American States passed a resolution unanimously approving the U.S. quarantine of Cuba—something that would never happen today. The measure authorized the U.S. to use military force to prevent the shipment of more offensive weapons to Cuba.

When a Soviet ship challenged the blockade on Oct. 24, all U.S. military forces went to DEFCON 2, the highest military alert ever reached in the postwar era. The U.S. and the USSR appeared poised for full-scale war.

Two days later, on Oct. 26, a deal was struck between the two powers. The Soviet Union agreed to remove its missiles from Cuba. Castro pledged not to accept any more offensive weapons. And in turn, the U.S. promised to stop any efforts to overthrow Castro or to invade Cuba. Forty-seven years later, the Castro brothers are still in power. And the Cuban people are still enslaved.

—Chip Wood

His very own Nobel Peace Prize. Imagine that!

And what has our president done to deserve this lofty honor? Why, in the words of an infamous “Saturday Night Live” sketch, nothing, absolutely nothing. I’ll come back to that hilarious skit in a moment. But first, let’s look a little closer at the curious timing of Obama’s award.

Did you know that the Nobel Committee’s own regulations require that all nominations be postmarked by Feb. 1? This means that—if the rules were followed—Barack Obama was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize a mere 12 days after he was sworn into office.

Twelve days in office and he’s already being considered for a Nobel Peace Prize? Give me a break! Does anyone anywhere really believe that this is how it actually happened?

Let me suggest something that strikes me as incredibly obvious: The Nobel Committee broke its own rules to give Obama the award. Can’t you imagine a committee meeting with someone shouting the Norwegian equivalent of “Rules? Rules? We don’t need no stinkin’ rules.”

And of course it’s true. When it comes to honoring one of their own, and advancing the cause of their dubious socialist schemes, the elitists of the international left don’t need no stinkin’ rules. They can do whatever they want. That’s why they hate the very idea of being bound down by the chains of a constitution. These power-hungry sycophants always and everywhere love monopolies and dictatorships, so long as it’s one of their own who is in charge. That’s why they are so enraptured with the United Nations.

But I digress. The plain and simple fact is that this year’s selection was rigged. This is far from the first time that the noble idea of a “peace prize” was prostituted to serve the ignoble ambitions of the left.

Do you remember in 1994, when the Nobel Committee gave the honor to a thief and murderer named Yasser Arafat? It’s true that Arafat shared the award with the then-prime minister and foreign minister of Israel. But still, giving a “peace” prize to the father of modern terrorism? Arafat gloated about using the most heinous murder of innocent civilians to advance his aims.

Oh, by the way, he also stole tens of millions of dollars from the very Palestinians he supposedly led to finance a life of luxury on the French Riviera and various world capitals. In a sane world, he would have been tried for murder and executed.

Instead, he was the most frequent visitor to Bill Clinton’s White House among all so-called world leaders. What a travesty.

If that wasn’t enough to make you rush to the nearest vomitorium, how about the winners in 1973? In case you’ve forgotten, that’s when Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and North Vietnam’s Lu Duc Tho shared the award for negotiating the Vietnam peace accords. If you remember that Communists describe “peace” as “when all opposition has been eliminated,” then you’ll have to admit the committee got it right: Kissinger and gang made sure all opposition to a communist takeover of South Vietnam got slaughtered. Way to go, Mr. Secretary.

But you don’t have to be a mass murderer, or even open the door to it, to be honored by the Nobel Committee. Slavish devotion to the left’s latest cause is often enough. How else would you explain the selection two years ago of former Vice President Al Gore? Even if you bought into all the skewed science and deliberate deceptions in “An Inconvenient Truth,” can you really contend with a straight face that he deserved a Nobel Peace Prize?

Well, okay, I’ll grant you. He has done more to earn it than our Teleprompter-in-Chief. But that’s not saying much.

By an extraordinary coincidence, two days before the award was announced, “Saturday Night Live” opened its Oct. 3 show with a skit skewering Barack Obama for accomplishing “nothing, absolutely nothing” since Inauguration Day.

In case you missed it, the sketch featured actor Fred Armisen portraying the president and delivering a very sober speech to the American public. Here’s just part of that delicious put-down:

“There are those on the right who are angry. They think that I’m turning this great country into something that resembles the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. But that’s just not the case. When you look at my record, it’s very clear what I’ve done so far—and that is nothing. Nada. Almost one year and nothing to show for it.”

As he spoke, a checklist of promises appeared on the screen—global warming, immigration reform, gays in the military, limits on executive power, torture prosecutions, closing Guantanamo Bay, withdrawing from Iraq, healthcare reform, and so on. Armisen, as Obama, admitted very honestly how little his administration had accomplished.

“Remember,” he said. “I can do whatever I want. I have a majority in both houses of Congress. I could make it mandatory for all gays to marry, and require all cars to run on marijuana. But do I? NO!”

He then closed with this wonderful admission: “So looking at this list, I’m seeing two big accomplishments: JACK and SQUAT!”

You’ve got to admit, sometimes the liberals get it right.

Until next time, keep some powder dry.

—Chip Wood