A friend of mine runs a small construction business in the Midwest. He invested a lot of time and money on a project to build retirement duplex villas for another company. He carefully studied the plans, negotiated all specifications, turned in several bids, signed the contract, hired professionals, rented equipment, and took his crew to the site to break ground. Within minutes, local labor union bosses and their goons surrounded the construction workers.

This year I dedicated several columns to Friedrich Hayek. In his masterpiece, The Road to Serfdom, Hayek dispelled the myth that societies move in the direction of ever-increasing bureaucratic control because of unstoppable material forces.

My daughter woke up during the night with fever and a sore throat. We went to the emergency room where a nurse recorded her temperature as 102 F. Two doctors came a few minutes later and looked at the paperwork. They scratched their beards thoughtfully for a few seconds and smiled. "Don't worry, kiddo," said one. "We know just what you need. Look, I have this very special thermometer. It belonged to my Grandpa John. With its easily adjustable scale I can make your fever go down to 98.6 F in a jiffy."

I saw a young man carrying a sign that read: "People before profits." The guy had joined "Occupy Chicago" crowd, chanting passionately against the greed of the wealthiest 1 percent of his fellow Americans. It is unlikely that many of the protestors are foolish enough to claim that Gates and Buffett are guiltier of covetousness than plumber Joe or nurse Jane. But I wish that the Occupy Wall Street supporters were better educated on the functioning of our capitalist society.

Have you been surprised by the acts of vandalism during the Occupy Wall Street "events" across the country? Perhaps you will remember the many occasions when President Obama reaped political dividends by posing as a modern day Robin Hood, and the fact that all rotten ideas have rotten consequences. Or perhaps the following story will teach us something.

"Liberalism is freedom, and what we do with freedom is charged to our account," wrote Richard Neuhaus in a commentary of Pope John Paul II's encyclical Centesimus Annus.

It's Thanksgiving week, and while my wife is exchanging recipes for roasted turkey and my kids are jumping in the piles of leaves in our backyard, I am counting both the blessings that the Lord keeps bestowing upon this nation and the ungrateful responses of an increasing number of people who receive them.