Columbus. Good or bad?

[Meathead]

Columbus was the first Republican.

He didn't know where he was going when he left.
He didn't know where he was when he got there.
He didn't know where he had been when he returned.
And he did it all on borrowed money.

He was an explorer idiot.

 

[Zebra]

and what about Pizarro?

 

[Zebra]

He was an explorer idiot.

he was!

 

[Zebra]

Columbus was a man of his time, was extraordinarily persistent in his campaign to get funding for an expedition to the Far East, and succeeded greatly in his failure to do that. It is entirely appropriate that the current people of the America's celebrate him and his accomplishments, an obvious fact, accepted for hundreds of years, that today's Leftists reject out of ignorance.

But the important thing to note is that the people and the cultures of the America's were doomed. It didn't really matter if Columbus got here first, the English, the Portuguese, or the Chinese. The indigenous people of the America's were thousands of years behind the more advance societies on earth, and the indigenous societies were destined to be defeated, one way or another. In fact, if you want to play mind games, if nobody had "discovered" America, they would STILL be living as primitives in a hunter-gatherer mode today because even if one "Injun" invented something useful, there was no good way of retaining that and passing it on, other than word of mouth. Consider, they had...

• No written language, and nothing to write it on, even if they did,
• No domesticated animals that could do work (horses were introduced by the Spaniards),
• No metallurgy, and hence no material that could be made into a durable blade, or a useful shield or projectile,
• Nothing resembling gun powder; nothing explosive,
• Not invented THE WHEEL yet,
• No mortar, which is essential in making multi-story buildings,
• No real medicine or surgery,
• No way of making BOARDS; they just looked for trees and branches of useful size and shape and bound them together, hence their water craft were all small and extremely limited in their use,
• No concept of the earth that was consistent with sea travel beyond line of sight.

Their religions were primitive and destructive of human advancement. They practiced human sacrifice, cannibalism, slavery, gross exploitation of women & children. Wars and battles were a constant, with the winners taking not only territory, but women and children. Defeated armies were often just slain en masse.

Even today, their refusal to simply assimilate into the large society holds them back, and they are apparently too stupid, collectively, to see it.

today is his day again!

 

[Zebra]

13 of 31 say good!

 

[Sunni Man]

As one erudite academic said, "Columbus was an agent of the inevitable".
Basically, the age of exploration had started and others had the same idea.
Columbus just happed to be the first to succeed.

 

[JoeB131]

As one erudite academic said, "Columbus was an agent of the inevitable".
Basically, the age of exploration had started and others had the same idea.
Columbus just happed to be the first to succeed.

You might have a point here. To some extent, Columbus is getting the blame for all the horrors Europe inflicted on the Indigenous peoples.

Of course, he did so some pretty awful things, and we can all agree (unless you are a racist) that what happened after him was pretty horrible.

 

[Dekster]

Things would have gotten a whole lot worse a whole lot faster for locals if Columbus had returned with ships full of gold instead of what was run of the mill laborers for that time period.

 

[Hector12]

I feel concern for American Indians that I do not feel for American Negroes. American Negroes are more affluent and in better health than African Negroes. American Negroes benefit by living in a civilization superior to anything Negroes have created on their own. It cannot be said that American Indians have benefited from the presence of whites.

Nor can it be said that whites benefit from the presence of blacks. If there were virtually no blacks in the United States, the crime rate would be much lower. The cost of our criminal justice system would be lower. The cost of our welfare system would be lower.

The downtown areas of our cities would not be slums characterized by crime and moral degeneracy. They would be centers of civilization characterized by museums, art gallies, libraries, theaters, concert halls, and atmospheric restaurants and taverns.

It would be possible to watch a movie or a play, or to attend a symphony convert or a ballet that ended at 10:00 pm, walk two miles to get home, and be perfectly safe.