Senate Christopher Columbus - legacy and separating facts from fiction

The term 'permanent contact' is so insultingly bland, implying that somehow both the 'Old World' and 'New World' benefited equally.

But good ol' John Wayne has this defense: "Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."

Lastly, Miles Davis wants to wish you all a merry Columbus Day:

""It’s like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of **** is that, but white people’s ****?"

 

You realize "turning point", "beginning", and "changes" are not always good, right? Those things can all be bad. They certainly weren't good for the people already here.

Also would not have guessed you were a fan of globalization.

 

Why are we replying

 

Wait until Mike hears about the advances in science given to us by evil Nazi medical experiments.

 

Every thread is the same boring thread

 

I don't consider time off to be a singular--or even the most important--metric of a holiday's significance or acceptance. Observance has always been about more than paid time off. I'm not sure why you want to center the discussion economically, when there are so many more dimensions to culture. Nor do I know why you continue to debate here, when I've tried to be clear about my overall message. Do you have any objections to that idea? If so, I'd be much more interested to hear what that might be. If not--I've already said you were correct that St. Patrick's Day is not a federally recognized holiday. I'm not even sure what else you want.

 

Edit:

Never mind, I decided to make this into a separate thread.

https://boards.theforce.net/threads/indigenous-native-american-peoples-general-discussion.50056730/

Tax:

I think that if anyone had read An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz then some of the stuff said here wouldn't be said at all.

Indigenous people weren't simply wiped out solely by disease, but by genocide.

 

I am reminded that apparently the land acknowledgments also can get contentious, and there are apparently two groups presenting themselves as the actual descendants of those indigenous to the Los Angeles area, and it's been some long-standing thing about which gets mentioned.

 

At age 7, I refused to acknowledge Columbus Day as a holiday in class because, as I explained to my teacher, I was in school.

 

I remember having it off at that age. Then college dropped a few holidays, like it and president's day (or more precisely, it moved them and observed them between christmas and new years to allow for a couple weeks closed)

 

I'm old, so at the time Presidents' Day didn't exist - it was Washington's Birthday / Lincoln's Birthday as two separate holidays.

Lincoln's Birthday wasn't acknowledged generally in Florida. Guess why that was!

Florida (which is a Spanish-given name) always had a weird historical relationship with some of the more unpleasant historical aspects of the area - a big festival around DeSoto over on the west coast, for instance - while glossing over some of the ugliest of the wars against Native Americans in US history (and that's saying something).
Meanwhile, the conservative at work was complaining about how the Seminole Indians have a monopoly on gambling in Florida and how it wasn't fair.

 

Columbus Day presidential proclamation, last year:

"“These extremists seek to replace discussion of his vast contributions with talk of failings, his discoveries with atrocities, and his achievements with transgressions... Rather than learn from our history, this radical ideology and its adherents seek to revise it, deprive it of any splendor, and mark it as inherently sinister.”

 

A viking mightve discovered US before CC

For ex concrete was invented by romans then it was forgotten only to be re-discovered later

 

And if any of those experiments were to have saved another life, is that worth it or not? Probably not the right thread. But a worthwhile discussion.

@Lowbacca_1977 - so you see no benefits at all or positives regarding Columbus. That’s fine. I and I’m sure others can see the positive aspects too.

Why not make it interesting then? You have the power!

 

I'm going to have to say, no.

 

Fair enough. It’s a sticky issue for sure. I can both sides of the debate though. What if your relative was saved by something learned due to Nazi experiments or possibly any other heinous acts? Would we not have likely discovered what they did at some point anyways using traditional, non violent means? Again, a good debate and plenty of good reasons for each side, IMO.

 

I mean, if the victims have already been cut up and butchered and they learned something from it...well we can't bring them back, and as disgusting as it sounds, if the knowledge is good for something then we may as well use it. But that doesn't mean butchering those people was right to begin with, or that those Nazi doctors weren't criminals.

 

The issue here is that you included, as part of your definition of "good stuff", the devastation of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. That's the issue here, when asked to define what "good stuff" is, you included an estimated 90% of the people that were living in the Americas dying to be part of your idea of what "good stuff" is.


It'd be rather like (in terms of impact) you arguing that one of the good things that the Nazis did was the Holocaust.

 

Agreed here. The awful deed has been done and while the thought of how the knowledge was gained makes your stomach turn, at least that knowledge could be put to good use. That’s the idea. No, it doesn’t get anyone off the hook for being mass murderers or anything of the sort. And, if we could go back and get those lives back whilst giving up the knowledge gained then I’m pretty sure it’d be a 100% agreed upon trade off.

 

I mean this is the downside of taking utilitarianism to an inhumane conclusion. You can practically justify any terrible thing. There is always going to be some places were we agree not to go. Otherwise you’ll be taking homeless people off the street and saving multiple lives with their organs.