It’s time for the Left’s annual anti-Columbus bash. And once again, we will see the total injustice of leftism, their hatred of Western Civilization, their desire to destroy so they can build their godless “New World.” Columbus actually found a new world, one that we rejoice to live in. I doubt we’ll want the “new world” the Left has in mind.
The problem here with the Left is their fallacious judging — and usually condemning — of everyone who lived “in the past,” especially if that person had anything to do with Christianity or Western Civilization. And it’s pure hypocrisy. I seriously doubt they are going to want people 500 years from now judging them by the standards of that future age — the current Left’s butchering of children, their unscientific transgenderism, their aborting of millions of human beings, women with penises, men getting pregnant, etc. We should be extremely careful about judging previous generations by our standards. But the Left makes an ideology out of it.
There are, indeed, certain timeless, eternal, God-ordained moral truths by which all men, at all times, can and should be evaluated. Murder, theft, rape, adultery, among other things, have generally been considered sins among all cultures in human history (with few, mostly leftist, exceptions). Many beliefs today which the Left judges previous generations (race, slavery, “exploitation”, etc.) were not viewed in the same light by the peoples of their times, people who had not reached our (supposed) level of sophistication and civilization (our “sophisticated civilization” which murders babies and butchers children). We condemn slavery; almost no culture, prior to the 19th century, did. Thus, to denounce previous generations by moral ideas that have only gained widespread acceptance in the last 200 years or so is a gross injustice to earlier peoples. Neither George Washington nor Christopher Columbus lived in the 21st century, and neither can be assessed by our standards, except in those matters where eternal principles of right or wrong are in view, things they, too, knew were evil.
Columbus was not perfect, even in his own age; all humans are fallible. What made Columbus great was, well, he changed history and the world. Rarely in history has one person ever done that. There is no more important date in the past millennium than 1492. It is obviously the watershed from which all subsequent history, to our very day, flows. Of course, 1492 did not happen in a vacuum, but Columbus did do something nobody else had done and which changed the entire world forever. Even the people who hate him are a product of what he did. What made Columbus different was his daring, his boldness, his desire to succeed, great qualities all.
When Marco Polo returned from his famous trip to China in the late 13th century, Europe was ready. The “Dark Ages” were over, and a new era of trade and commerce was dawning. Marco Polo came along at just the right time. He brought back tales of the Orient, the riches to be found there, and European merchants drooled. “How can we get to the Indies (China and the Orient)?”
Marco Polo had gone by land, a dangerous, expensive, and time-consuming trek. The Europeans thought it best to try to find an all-water route, around Africa, to the Orient. So, led by tiny Portugal, they began sailing down the African coast.
At the time, Europe had no clue how big Africa was. It wasn’t until 200 years after Marco Polo, in 1497 to be exact, that Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama made it all the way around Africa and landed in India in 1498. An all-water route had been found!
But notice the date — 1497. In 1492, that route still hadn’t been discovered. So, Columbus thought, “We haven’t found the Indies yet by going east; what say we try by going—the other way? West!” It was a brilliant, daring, courageous ploy. Nobody else thought of it…or tried it.
The old idea we were all taught in grade school that everybody in the 15th century thought the world was flat, and they would fall off the edge if they sailed too far, is simply untrue. Columbus knew the world was round. The ancient Hebrews and Greeks knew that. The problem in Columbus’s day was that, because navigation techniques were still primitive, ships didn’t like to sail out of sight of land. Hence, they navigated down the coast of Africa, keeping land in view as much as possible. Da Gama’s dash from the coast of Africa to India was bold. Columbus’s voyage across the Atlantic was…incredible. In another word, great.
Columbus, of course, didn’t find what he was looking for. He thought he had discovered the “Indies,” so he called the dark-skinned people who met him “Indians.” Cleveland and leftists are insulted by that, but that tells you more about the insufferable small-mindedness of Cleveland and Leftists than about Columbus. What he did, despite the (understandable) mistakes he made, was bold, audacious, and, as noted before, changed the world. We are all the offspring of Christopher Columbus. I’m not ashamed of that. He was a far greater man than any sniveling Democrat alive today has ever thought about being (or Leftist college professor).
Columbus’s age was different and needs understanding. Europeans saw nothing inconsistent about the dichotomy of plundering the Indians and trying to convert them to Christianity. That was simply the “zeitgeist” of the world they lived in, and we should try to comprehend it, not blatantly condemn it — until we get the logs out of our own eyes.
Columbus found a “New World.” And as we once were, before Leftists took over, deceived us endlessly, and destroyed the truth, we ought to be thankful for him opening a door that has led to the greatest civilization the world has ever known — the United States of America.
Love it or get your carcass out.
Columbus — some of us still salute you.
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