Bradley J. Birzer
Christopher Columbus is without a doubt responsible for the Columbian Exchange—which through human agency recreated the lost world of Pangea. But was Columbus the first to discover America?
The memory—and especially the statues—of Christopher Columbus have taken quite the beating over the last half-century. The great Lakota activist, Russell Means, once called him worse than Hitler, and the various Leftist movements of present-day America seem to concur. Some Italian-Americans have defended the Renaissance-era Genoan in their local neighborhoods and communities, but groups such as the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus and the Daughters of Isabella have remained silent. Many in our present day are claiming that “silence is violence,” and in the case of poor Christopher Columbus, this is blatantly and tangibly true. The silent watch as the mobs deface our Columbus memorials. What they might do with names such as the “District of Columbus” or “Columbus, Ohio” remains to be seen. And poor Lady Liberty. She has been known as “Columbia,” the goddess of liberty. The recent movement against Christopher Columbus seems to have rendered her into and reduced her to nothing but a two-bit whore.
As I watch these incredible outbursts of violence, I am reminded of Fisher Ames’s not-so-tactful comment in 1806:
Our disease is democracy. It is not the skin that festers—our very bones are carious, and their marrow blackens with gangrene. Which rogues shall be first, is of no moment—our republicanism must die, and I am sorry for it. But why should we care what sexton happens to be in office at our funeral? Nevertheless, though I indulge no hopes, I derive much entertainment from the squabbles in Madam Liberty’s family. After so many liberties have been taken with her, I presume she is no longer a miss and a virgin, though she may still be a goddess. » Read More
https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2024/10/who-actually-discovered-america-bradley-birzer.html