Columbus Day

Some perennial thoughts from Instapundit (and Jim Bennett).

I agree that Columbus gets too much credit, and I don’t disagree that his behavior was depraved by modern lights. But the Carib Arawak were hardly the noble savages that the SJWs would have us believe. They had themselves subjugated the Taino, killing, raping, assimilating, into a brutal patriarchal society that practiced human sacrifice and, by some accounts, cannibalism. So it’s amusing to see all the whining about Columbus in that context.

20 thoughts on “Columbus Day”

  1. Years ago a rancher friend of mine took me to the site of an Indian tribe completely wiped out by the Sioux. Dances with the devil more like it. Noble Indians, are the ones that get murdered for their peaceful agricultural ways.

  2. “But the Carib Arawak were hardly the noble savages that the SJWs would have us believe. ”

    Nobody was/is, and that’s a key fact of life the SJW’s either forgot or willfully ignore. This is why Pajama Boy would get instantly slaughtered by any number of evil people from all around the world, and it’s not because the evil people were troubled as children.

    We, in the US have lived for so long with so much peace and plenty (just LOOK around in a grocery store) that half of us think this is the norm.

    The SJW’s have this perfection fetish which is why Pajama Boy would simply not understand why, as his head was being chopped off.

    1. LOOK around in a grocery store?

      Sure, by historical and world standards it is a Cornucopia, but have you looked at the prices? Meat has doubled if not tripled in price in a time of supposed zero inflation. I used to buy beef all the time but now it is a once-a-week treat.

      I watched a young woman ahead of us at the supermarket purchase $90 of not all that much food. It did not even look like a week’s worth, and what would that amount to, $5000/year? Suppose you are working at minimum wage, what is that, 15K/year, and how much does that net after Social Security and Medicare tax, and you still have to pay for rent, electric, clothing, transportation. I suppose one would qualify for Medicaid or Health Care subsidy.

      Obviously were I making minimum wage I would be more careful in my purchases. I am more careful about my purchases. That evening we spent under 6 dollars at Whole Foods, treating ourselves to a $3 loaf of fresh baked bread and $2.79 for a jar of their house-brand peanut butter, the only purchases we allow ourselves there, and we spent about $10 at the store with $90-lady on some coffee, a small amount of on-sale deli ham, and a big tray of seriously on-sale chicken thighs.

      We purchased what by any standard is an enormous amount of food for $16, but you have to shop very carefully to do that. If we were under any serious financial pressure, and given the cost of clothes-shelter-heat-electricity-gas-taxes, we would shop even more carefully.

      Yeah, I guess most of us are well-fed, well-dressed, well housed, with reasonably reliable automobiles and even some money left for cell-phone plans and cable TV. But everyone is out there to sell you something, some high-priced snack food or prepared item at the supermarket, a premium phone and cable plan, payments on a fancy car. Heck, we regard running water as a birthright, which is a luxury in most parts of the world. But a friend who lives in the country told me he was quoted 20 K (as in 20 thousand dollars) to redrill his well that was acting up. Luckily, another guy recommended just running a hose until the well ran clear.

      We lead an unparalled comfortable life, but it is precarious. Even if you are frugal and save some of your money, it is not really wealth as we once knew it but simply a ledger entry in a computer file someplace that you could exchange for a ledger entry in some one elses computer file for some good or service that costs you a good chunk of your accumulated ledger entry. And if your money is in a mutual fund (a wise investment you are told), you just turned over your ledger entries keeping you alive to some financial pirate on a vague promise.

      And the gummint can come around at any moment and assess taxes on your shelter, your wage income, dip into your ledger entries because “you are rich and deserve to pay your fair share”, or simply manipulate the ledger entries making them worth a whole lot less in the name of “helping the economy”, which means all those folks wanting to dip into your pocket (er, computer ledger entries) to give you stuff you may or may not need.

      And that I am paid more than minimum wage means that I am in effect dipping into a whole lot of your ledger entries. And that we are dipping into each other’s ledger entries, I guess, is called The GNP or The Economy.

      Happy Columbus Day!

      1. “LOOK around in a grocery store?”

        Yes Paul, look.

        Firstly, I sell my filet mignon at 3 cents a pound…when I don’t have any. Point being that there was a time not so long ago that the cornucopia wasn’t there at all.

        Secondly, you can afford to buy the stuff at the grocery store. Not so long ago there wasn’t a middle class..there were the rich and there were the surfs and if grocery stores existed back then the serfs would not have been able to buy anything in them.

        ” That evening we spent under 6 dollars at Whole Foods, treating ourselves to a $3 loaf of fresh baked bread and $2.79 for a jar of their house-brand peanut butter, the only purchases we allow ourselves there, and we spent about $10 at the store with $90-lady on some coffee, a small amount of on-sale deli ham, and a big tray of seriously on-sale chicken thighs.”

        Not so long ago you wouldn’t be able to get peanut butter at any price, nor that coffee the lady bought.

        Go make fresh baked bread. See how much tie it takes you. Even if the quality was as good (maybe you know how to do that well, I dunno), you’ve still used the better part of an afternoon.

        Instead you are perfectly capable of spending $3 on a loaf of fresh baked bread. And your time – much more valuable – is better spent on something else.

      2. “We purchased what by any standard is an enormous amount of food for $16, but you have to shop very carefully to do that.”

        Coupons. Find which stores have the best deals on what products. Shopping day will require more stops but you will save more money. Find a senior citizen to hit up Fred Myer or Krogers for you on the first tuesday of the month for the 10% discount.

        I would say learn to hunt and fish except that gear, gas, and other supplies wipe out any savings.

        1. My roommate in Seattle was my hero. He made half my salary pushing shopping carts but had twice my money. Once a week he took me to the buffet on double coupon day… I think they had to pay us to eat there!

  3. What bothers me about Columbus is it’s as if we were celebrating Eugene Cernan instead of Neil Armstrong. Actually, it’s worse than that, because at least Cernan (Apollo 17 commander) was part of the same program, and a contemporary of Armstrong, when Cernan set foot on the moon.

    Columbus is often thought of, falsely, as the European discoverer of the Americas. The fact of the matter is that the first known, undisputed European colony in North America was begun 452 years before Columbus was born (and longer still if we include Greenland as part of the Americas).

    1. Charles Babbage was the inventor of the computer in 1833, and is widely renowned as such. He never actually built one, though. And one was not actually built until 1941, when Konrad Zuse built the first fully programmable automatic electromechanical computer (with 22 bit words, and a 5 Hz clock speed). The only reason we know about Babbage is that he lived after the advent of movable type, when anything and everything was published.

      No one remembers the settlers of Vinland, because they didn’t establish anything permanent, and didn’t publicize what they had found (the colony having been lost prior to the invention of the printing press).

      The difference is that Columbus opened a floodgate to the West, while the Vikings didn’t. The guy who opened the floodgate deserves the recognition, not the guys who “first” got there and didn’t tell anyone.

      1. I have no problem acknowledging that Columbus was the one who initiated the exploration and colonization of the New World. What bothers me is those who say he discovered it.

        To put it in perspective, let’s say that, a few decades from now, some private company discovers a source of profit on the moon, which launches an era of lunar colonization. It would be right to hail their endeavor as opening the gate, but it would be intrinsically wrong to say they were first on the moon. That place in history will always belong to Armstrong and Aldrin.

        On the other hand… the left does find Columbus objectionable, so I’ll probably start thinking more highly of Columbus.

  4. According to Walter Russell Mead, Columbus Day was originally designed to express diversity.

    The day was made a holiday after years of lobbying as a way of recognizing the contribution of Roman Catholics and immigrants generally to American life. It is a holiday to celebrate diversity, not to commemorate the imperial outreach of Ferdinand and Isabella, a deeply regrettable couple who were notorious oath breakers, inquisitors and anti-Semites.

    1. “The day was made a holiday after years of lobbying as a way of recognizing the contribution of Roman Catholics and immigrants generally to American life. ”

      Wrong color of immigrants to make Democrats happy.

  5. Why 1492? because the moors (Islam) was run out of Spain that year.

    America was born fighting Islam.

      1. The Spanish had been fighting Islam for 770 years. Ferdinand and Isabella kicked out the Jews. A slight difference there, but you’ll take it none the less.

      2. Considering Democrats views on Jews, why bring this up? Don’t need to go back hundreds of years to find a negative example of anti-semitism, just go hang out at a Democrat rally.

        All I get from comments defending the conquest of the caliphates is that fighting back against them is/was wrong. It certainly explains Democrats current views though.

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