Should Columbus Day be celebrated?

[MaC]

We don't even get a day off here!

He's got the right idea.  You don't get the day off, you don't celebrate it.

[Defarge]

Yes, why not have a monday off?

[Brandon H]

And interestingly enough Columbus wasn't even Italian.

So you don't buy that Columbus was from Genoa or that Genoa was not Italy back then? I know there are several varying theories floating out there.

I take it you saw the special on the History Channel regarding this.

I had work today and I am a state employee. No one should have to celebrate anything they don't want to. But Columbus does deserve to have a holiday named after him as well as parades.

Columbus was most likely from eastern Spain. His family had royal connections and if they hadn't he would have never gotten the royal audiences he had.

[phk]

Columbus and a small group of treasure-seekers landed on a group of islands populated by a peaceful tribe called the Arawak and another called the Taino. Columbus told them to give him gold, and they did, since there was so much. But then Columbus started demanding so much gold that the Indians couldn't keep up. So Columbus got angry. After chopping off the hands of anyone who didn't fulfill their "quota" of gold, he began to hang large groups of Indian men, women and children and to burn others to death. Plantations soon sprang up across the Caribbean, which were worked by Indian slaves. In four decades, the entire Indian population of the Caribbean had been wiped out.

[dazzleman]

Yes, there's no reason to stop celebrating Columbus Day.

The politically correct attack on Columbus Day has made me want to celebrate it even more.

I don't buy into this America-hating left wing drivel that idealizes the Indians and excoriates Europeans without exception.  Follow that to its logical conclusion, and we should all leave, and turn things back over to the Indians.  The truth is no doubt far more complex than either the (a) Columbus was great brigade; or (b) Columbus was a genocidal murderer.

Attacks on Columbus by left-wing liberals are ultimately attacks on America itself.

[J. J.]

Get off my land, foreigners!

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yes, there's no reason to stop celebrating Columbus Day.

The politically correct attack on Columbus Day has made me want to celebrate it even more.

I don't buy into this America-hating left wing drivel that idealizes the Indians and excoriates Europeans without exception.  Follow that to its logical conclusion, and we should all leave, and turn things back over to the Indians.  The truth is no doubt far more complex than either the (a) Columbus was great brigade; or (b) Columbus was a genocidal murderer.

Attacks on Columbus by left-wing liberals are ultimately attacks on America itself.

Considering Columbus was alive almost 300 years before the country was even close to being founded, how can it be anti-American to hate him and how is it against the country to hate him?

He was a genocidal sh!thead, so I hate him. What's wrong with that?

[Jake]

Your reasoning.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

And what's wrong with it? I hate people who mass murder and enslave indigenous populations.

[Jake]

And why should those things disqualify him from having a day? Personally, I don't see why it isn't Raleigh Day or something, but if people get a day off on a Monday, take it and don't complain.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I didn't get today off though.

But if you want a holiday today, make it Leif Ericson Day.

[Jake]

Why? He has even less to do with America and few people know who he is.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Why? He has even less to do with America and few people know who he is.

He came to America a hell of a lot longer before Columbus did.

[Jake]

He came to Newfoundland around 1000. Columbus came to a few Carribean islands around 1500. Neither should have a holiday celebrated, but tradition disagrees.

[Hatman 🍁]

Happy Thanksgiving everyone

[??????????]

Columbus and a small group of treasure-seekers landed on a group of islands populated by a peaceful tribe called the Arawak and another called the Taino. Columbus told them to give him gold, and they did, since there was so much. But then Columbus started demanding so much gold that the Indians couldn't keep up. So Columbus got angry. After chopping off the hands of anyone who didn't fulfill their "quota" of gold, he began to hang large groups of Indian men, women and children and to burn others to death. Plantations soon sprang up across the Caribbean, which were worked by Indian slaves. In four decades, the entire Indian population of the Caribbean had been wiped out.

Except that 95% of that story is complete bunk. Columbus was STRONGLY against brutalizing the native peoples.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Calling it Columbus day doesn't make a great deal of sense, as he didn't have anything to do with the settlement of the United States. Then again "Anonymus Cod Fishermen Day" doesn't have quite the same ring to it does it?

[Nation]

F@#$ Columbus Day -- the only good thing about it is that I got to sleep in.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Lets just change the name to Discovery Day, noting Columbus as the most noted of several explorers of America.

[Max Power]

Lets just change the name to Discovery Day, noting Columbus as the most noted of several explorers of America.

That's actually not a bad idea.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

No, Native Americans discovered America and Columbus treated them as badly as any other filthy european of the time. 

Actually Columbus was against the mistreatment of the native population.

Eventually.... meh, whatever, I think it should be given to the Native Americans tho

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

For once CARLHAYDEN has a pretty good idea.

What's most funny about dazzleman's claim that this is all anti-American leftism is the state I mentioned that did change the name, South Dakota, is hardly leftist.

[angus]

Good idea Carl.  The thread has degraded into a discussion of who "discovered" the americas, the ethnicity of Columubus, and whether it's worth celebrating any of them.  Of course, it was begun on a fairly low note, with a bizarre claim that Columbus was genocidal and despicable, and the implication that one can't honor both Europeans and Indigenous peoples simultaneously.  anyway, you can't say Columbus, the first European to think he sailed around the world to the East Indies, discovered America.  Nor can you say Lief the Lucky, son of Eric the Red discovered America.  Nor is it fair to say that the Minions of Chinese Emperor of Zhu Di, who visited California and Mexico many years before Columbus discovered the continent.  Nor was it the Irish saint who navigated a craft to the Bahamas six hundred years before Lief the Lucky.  No, it was a group of Siberian hunter-gatherers who discovered America some twenty to thirty thousand years ago, as they crossed a land bridge in what is now the bearing straits.  These are the ones whose descendants would hunt to extinction the Mammoth some fifteen thousand years ago.  All of you know all of this, so what's the point of arguing about who "discovered" America or what the goals of the voyage were or what Columbus' ethnicity was.

The point is that, along with great Americans such as Washington and King, and noted foreigners like Jesus and Columbus, we also celebrate our nation's independence, Memorial Day, Turkey Day, and Labor day.  That's not very many postal holidays, really.  Give the guys a break.  Let 'em have Columbus day.  Call it whatever you want, but realize that the economy isn't going to grind to a halt just because they have a holiday.  If you were a postal employee, would you want the day off?  I say, if you're honest with yourself, you'd probably say that you do.

And, for some of us in flyover country, it's a chance to get ripped, listen to free music concerts, dance in the streets, and make cats wear tiaras and parade them around on leashes.  Nothing wrong with that, either.

[minionofmidas]

Good idea Carl.  The thread has degraded into a discussion of who "discovered" the americas, the ethnicity of Columubus, and whether it's worth celebrating any of them.  Of course, it was begun on a fairly low note, with a bizarre claim that Columbus was genocidal and despicable, and the implication that one can't honor both Europeans and Indigenous peoples simultaneously.  anyway, you can't say Columbus, the first European to think he sailed around the world to the East Indies, discovered America.  Nor can you say Lief the Lucky, son of Eric the Red discovered America.  Nor is it fair to say that the Minions of Chinese Emperor of Zhu Di, who visited California and Mexico many years before Columbus discovered the continent.  Nor was it the Irish saint who navigated a craft to the Bahamas six hundred years before Lief the Lucky.  No, it was a group of Siberian hunter-gatherers who discovered America some twenty to thirty thousand years ago, as they crossed a land bridge in what is now the bearing straits.  These are the ones whose descendants would hunt to extinction the Mammoth some fifteen thousand years ago.

Ah, but that means there was life in America before these guys came, so they didn't discover America either.

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Now, as a cat lover I see a helluva lot wrong with that.