Columbus was a pretty loathsome person

I believe you're thinking of Mussolini. German trains always ran on time.

I think that was Mussolini

I guess they weren't marching

[quote]1. You don't know anything about the people marching. To just assume that everybody on earth benefited from European colonization is the kind egocentric dishonesty that this march would like to change.[/quote]
I see they're mostly white-ish folks who look like they'd be from around here and have signs in English. The rest I infer from context. I said nothing about 'everybody on Earth,' just about people currently residing in the Americas. But sure, I'll extend my claim to that too. America in particular has done more good on the whole than bad. By a big margin.
[quote]2. "limiting principle" is just another "Tu Quoque." What aboutism is the refuge of the factless.[/quote]
It's neither. It's a serious question about the intellectual underpinnings of this protest. My assertion is it has none. My implication is that movements without intellectual foundation are worth ignoring. Because in this country, we like to aspire to make decisions on merit rather than on emotion.

Thought I had discovered that all arguments were round with no beginning or end as long as you mention Hitler.

Again, the whole Columbus thing is nonsense. Day after tomorriw I'm going to work and claiming that it's November 9th.

And I'm invoking Stevil's law.

All arguments officially end when you mention Caligula and Columbus in the same thread. After all, they're both Italians. Oh, wait a minute... :-)

There were in fact people living in 1492 who thought murder, rape, plunder, and slavery were wrong.

But even assuming you could take the average of all morality in Columbus's era, he was still a really bad person by that standard.

And you don't have to lay all the negatives of 500 years of colonialism solely at his feet to understand that he committed real and terrible crimes, directly, in his life time, that harmed actual people.

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/columbus_day

Let's examine some of those lunchbox claims:

They would have no more contributed to the progress of humanity than the uncontacted tribes in the heart of the Amazon.

I refer you to the Iroquois Confederation. Their system of government was a direct inspiration for our own Constitution, as has been acknowleged by the US Senate.

And let's not pretend that the natives were living in some idyllic pacifistic eden in 1491....

The Taino that Columbus encountered and ravaged were, in fact, living in just such a peaceful Eden until he arrived. He goes on at some length about how peaceful and easily enslaved they were. The war, horror, and pain that wiped them out were inflicted on them by Columbus and his men.

Columbus massively shaped the world we live in today.

As I said elsewhere, Columbus was an idiot who stumbled on some islands full of people who were helpless to defend themselves against brutal thugs wielding advanced technology. The Americas had been repeatedly discovered before he blundered into those islands, and would certainly have been found by someone else without his involvement.

You do realize that these events aren't just for the people of the particular ethnic group they are celebrating?

Would that have been allowed as a comment if it was a reference to Jews or blacks?

If the shoe fits? Why not?

I grew up in an Italian-American community. The manufactured affection for Columbus Day, IMO, is a reaction to historical and no longer extant bigotry against Italian-Americans. At a time when they were widely thought of as second-class citizens, Italian-Americans glommed onto an "All-American" holiday as a way to not only celebrate their heritage, but encourage others to celebrate it as well -- this despite the fact that Columbus was not an "Italian" and wouldn't have even known what the word meant. It was simply the easiest way, under the circumstances, to say, "See? Italians are okay." That need has not existed for at least a generation now. It's time to let this one go. Columbus was an execrable human being and not worth celebrating.

Like PT Barnum used to say, after all.

If you're referring to "There's a sucker born every minute," you're wrong about that, too.

No modern historian takes seriously the routine attribution of this slogan to P. T. Barnum.

Guess you're the sucker, if you think Barnum said that.

For Carnegie there is still debate as to whether his philanthropy was out of guilt or out of religious training, simply what wealth were expected to do or if he was capable of vicarious brutality and murder and yet felt some authentic altruism. On the other hand it can be argued that the profit Carnegie enjoyed was made on the backs of his employees who probably did not enjoy the lifestyle that he enjoyed. So is it fair to use his name when he did not suffer to earn the profits that he used to memorialize himself? I'm not taking a position either way but believe that these are important questions that at least deserve consideration.

When a Nobel prize is awarded does the award include an explanation that the award is to balance out the profit that Nobel made from creating what could and has been used as a weapon to kill people? If not then the prize is hides the guilt that led to its creation.

These are only two examples. Are there any heroes who are pure, who have not done harm? Is money enough to hide from history the harm that supposed heroes did?

Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic. That may make him a hero. He also supported Hitler. Not so heroic. But is Lindbergh's not so nice side taught when Lindbergh's name comes up in a school lesson?

Henry Ford is praised with making affordable cars and developing mass production. When school kids are taught about Ford are they also taught that he hated Jews?

The slaver Columbus was unrepentant. Has Rome fully repented of centuries of torture, totalitarianism, barbaric acts such as castrating boys to create castrati? Are all Catholics repented for the torture of the inquisition? How about repentance for failing God and humankind for not marshalling all the moral and organizational forces of Catholicism to stamp out before it grew into a monster early 20th century European fascism? Or the dictatorships of South America?

However, I do wonder why Columbus has a holiday? He was only one of many explorers. He didn't discover "America." Amerigo Vespucci Day would be more accurate. I do support a day honoring the human beings and civilizations that existed on this continent before Europeans arrived. Celebrating in the popular intellect (granted a problematic space) the civilizations that existed here before Europeans is needed if we are to have a full understanding of human culture. But then US Americans, beyond highly educated, are weak and deficient where understanding other cultures is concerned. If that were not the case then the fear that leads to bigotry might not be so prevalent.

I also fully agree that monuments to the Confederacy debacle are wrong. Monuments to the Civil War are right. The people on the wrong side are recognized. The hagiography of Confederate "heroes" shows that bigotry and a deeply set and wrongful government for the few, against the many and a pro-class system is still strong in the nation 100 plus years after the Civil War.

None of this is simple. But it all is worthy of discussion.