Groucho: Now, Columbus sailed from Spain to India, looking for a shortcut. Chico: Oh, you mean strawberry shortcut? – Monkey Business
Columbus sailed his ships, the Niñteñdo, the Piña Colada, and the Santa Fe to the new world and then bravely tried to repel the landing Pilgrims. Or so I seem to remember.
Christopher Columbus was one of the first that they came for. Columbus was easy pickings, really.
Columbus lived and died five hundred years ago, nearly as long as it seems the Democrats have been trying to get Trump out of office. Columbus was an Italian before Italy was a nation, so getting support for Columbus isn’t all that easy. Besides, Columbus was an Italian working for the Spanish, which I imagine involved enough hand gestures to make eye protection necessary as far away as France.
But Columbus was the first hero that they came for because he represented something that the Left hates: Western Civilization.
In reading through several columns on why Columbus is bad, none of them focused on things that Columbus did, with the exception that he was too harsh to Spanish colonists, and some of the worst allegations were probably written by his mortal enemy, Agent Smith. No, most of the things that the writers blame on Columbus were based on events that were a result of the clash between Western Culture and the culture that previously existed in the Americas.
None of the articles noted that the people living in the Americas at the time were far more barbaric than anything brought to them by Europe – the Aztecs and Mayans and other tribes enslaved, murdered, and exploited each other on a scale that almost puts Sesame Street® to shame. The only real crime Columbus was guilty of was showing Europe how to get to a continent that was so technologically backward and immunologically compromised that it could be captured by half a dozen guys with swords and horses. It was like a flock of kittens in a room full of metal-bladed box fans, except the kittens had a better chance.
I want to resurrect the Aztec religion and start sacrificing vegans. That’s not a typo.
The war against Columbus isn’t about Columbus – it’s about a hatred for Western Civilization as a whole. The war is a desire to erase culture. Each time it occurs, it follows a similar path:
- Choose someone who is a cultural hero, preferably a primary face of the development of Western Culture. The person should be, ideally, revered. I mean, not as revered as me, but revered.
- Pick the worst things that they ever did, even if their life was otherwise a paragon of virtue. Note that it’s okay if what they did was socially acceptable back in the time and place it was done – the worst thing they ever did should be the only thing used to characterize the person. Jefferson founded a University, wrote the Declaration of Independence, and was President? You know he got caught double parking his buggy once?
- Never let up. Even if it comes out that (like in the case of Columbus) nearly every bad thing said about the guy was written by his mortal enemy, ignore it. Keep vilifying him, and blame him for every single consequence of everything he ever did, even if it happened after he died. It’s like blaming George Washington for Mount St. Helens because it erupted in the state of Washington.
One particular consequence of Columbus making his journey is that the United States exists. Yeah, he never made it to any part of what makes up the United States today, but he showed the Europeans who finally got around to colonizing what eventually became the United States the way to get here. Western Culture came, and expressed itself in a unique way: American Culture.
If George Washington were alive today, he would probably spend most of his time scratching at his coffin lid.
In the case of the United States today, one common claim by Leftists is that there is “no American Culture.” I’m certain that fish don’t know that they’re swimming in water, either. But that is certainly a lie. American Culture doesn’t seem like it exists because it is all around us in the United States, and happens to be one of our biggest exports while also being our biggest draw.
Overall, American Culture has been responsible for creating more technology and prosperity than most cultures that have ever existed. Has it done stupid things, things with negative consequences for millions of people around the world like set loose Adam Sandler or Bruce Springsteen? Certainly. But on balance, the world has been made much, much better by Western Civilization and the United States.
But the Left cannot abide by nations like the United States or, especially, Western Civilization. Both of these stand in the way of the Left – they are structures that impede the ability of the Left to control every aspect of your life, to create a logic and history that only agrees with what the Left says. It’s because they exist, they want to destroy them. Very directly they want to destroy your culture. They hold your values as obstructions. They want to disintegrate your family so your loyalty belongs to the Left. And they want to see you dead so that your ideas will die with you.
Stalin: There is no “I” in team, but there is “U” in gulag.
All of that starts with values and culture. To attack that, not only do they attack the culture of today though the infiltration of Leftist ideas (How To Spot Propaganda In 2020, Featuring Stonks) but also through the vilification of the past. What has been attacked?
- Statues – of Columbus, of Civil War leaders, of Lewis and Clark. They will not be done until every traditional American Hero is gone.
- The National Anthem – Bouncy© (that’s her name, right?) and Jay C™ were at the Superbowl® on Sunday. They sat during the National Anthem to protest the unfair nation that provided Jay C© with his meager billion dollar fortune. Heck, you can’t even raise a private navy with that pittance.
- Borders – Chants of “No Border, No Wall, No USA at All” are fairly subtle. I just wish I could figure out what they meant.
There are steps in the cultural erosion that we’ve seen so far, and the biggest attack has been against the Idyllic Decade, the 1950’s. The 1950’s were the last decade before everything went wrong.
Followed by the Jell-O® salad course, naturally.
It’s been attempted by the media, by movies, to re-write the 1950’s, just as the attempt to tear down Columbus started. Why attack the 1950’s? Because it was the high point in the life of the American family. Things were good:
- Postwar prosperity led to nearly universal employment.
- The wages of a single man were enough to support a family and raise children.
- Less than three percent of children were born to single mothers.
- Violent crime was less than half of today’s crime rate.
- The salary gap between a high school graduate and a college graduate has tripled since 1965.
- Boy Scout participation is half of 1950’s – and that was before the BSA folded to political correctness and saw a free-fall in membership.
- Kiwanis membership is half of 1950’s numbers.
- Church attendance in the 1950’s was nearly 90%. Now? Less than 40%.
Thank heavens Netflix® subscription numbers are up, since today 41% of children are born to unmarried mothers. Or there might be a correlation here . . . .
But what can you expect when reality is inverted in just the same way that the legacy of Columbus, skilled navigator, was inverted?
Family is now seen as bad. Rather than being a supporting structure that helps a child learn right from wrong via loving parental support and instruction television and movies would have you believe that family is a stifling, controlling, patriarchy that just doesn’t want you to be the individual snowflake you were meant to be. I mean, that’s what you’d think if you got your information by watching television or movies.
The best part? No limit on cats!
And churches? They’re evil. They’ve gone from places where you meet and discuss and learn about God to places where you learn nothing but intolerance from sweaty red-faced pastors and priests who don’t really believe in God. Oh, and these intolerant pastors and priests are all secretly sexually twisted, since anyone who believes in God and values must be, deep down, a deviant.
They pick the best features of the Leftists to showcase. They pick the best features of the civilizations that Leftists created, and then claim that it really work next time, while sweeping the bodies under the rug. They then pick the worst of their opponents and often stereotype them using their own worst tendencies. They want you to feel guilt for the things your ancestors did, when living by the standards of the day, while feeling no guilt themselves for the direct pain caused by their actions and ideas in the world today.
But, despite hardship, Columbus had a dream. He sailed west.
Statue or not – he was a hero.
Absolutely agree that Columbus was a true hero and all you have said about him being the first impaled by the oncoming leftist tip of the spear, or some twisted point like that.
It’s interesting, the national idea of “Columbus as a hero” and Columbus Day itself was originally a one-time-only political propaganda op by President Harrison in 1892 to quell unrest over (Italian) immigrants in the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_14,_1891_New_Orleans_lynchings
https://democracyjournal.org/arguments/why-columbus-day-happened/
Just wait, Columbus Day will be 1984-ized into El Día de la Raza like it is in the rest of the world.
https://imagine-mexico.com/dia-de-la-raza/
Word was he was really an excellent navigator, and they wouldn’t have made it back without him. Plus, look at that hat!
That’s the trouble with accomplished people – they make underachievers feel inadequate. Its true for individuals within a single family, and its true for entire demographics which would not have a voice were it not for the great, big bleeding hearts of lesser members of the achieving groups. If you ask me, the real cause of all the angst today is too many people with too much free time. It gives the resentful the opportunity to collect butthurt.
In Columbus’ day there was no social safety net, no Uncle Sugar, pregnancy out of wedlock was vilified rather than celebrated, and you either worked, sweat and struggled or you died. And Internet access was sketchy at best. Today, fully half of the adult population of this once-grand land wakes up gainfully unemployed, wholly dependent on the largesse extracted at gunpoint from the working half, who are understandably too preoccupied by their wage slavery to object.
This does not end well. The Saxon is waking up and learning to hate. The last time this happened on a large scale, a funny little monorchid vegan with an awkward moustache and strong ideas went rogue and enlisted 40 million of his closest pals to wage war against literally everyone else, because that’s what Saxons do when they get really, really pissed off. The left continues to twist the dragon’s tail, seemingly for lack of anything better to do with its abundant free time. And this Saxon dragon, for one, is rapidly losing his patience.
No, seriously, don’t MAKE me invade Poland.
Well said – and you can see right when it happened – the divorce rate and unmarried pregnancy graphs are stark.
Yeah, I have a German GPS. It only heads east.
They pick the best features of the Leftists to showcase.
All listed below.
Well, they really pick the best INTENTIONS of the Left. Results are so . . . unfair.
Told a couple of ex-bosses that judging results is really not a good measure.
I just want them to stop managing me. I was told I would not be managed . . . 🙂
https://nypost.com/2020/02/01/boy-scouts-bankruptcy-is-imminent-amid-sexual-abuse-scandals/
And the Boy Scouts are going bankrupt. Who could possibly have seen that coming?
Opie Odd
Yup. And membership has walked the plank after the decisions they made.
Point of order:
I’m spitballing here, but I’m pretty sure membership in the Boy Scouts tanked because parents were a wee bit uncomfortable with sending their kid off to camp to be raped and molested by their scoutmasters, and because the Scouts did a lot to cover it up, rather than staking the perpetrators out over anthills slathered in honey, and telecasted live.
Church attendance down too?
Catholics, stop me if you’ve heard this one…
And the biggest reason culture is under full-scale assault is because conservatives abandoned the arts and academia wholesale two and three generations ago. Seventy years later, they’re barely starting to realize that decision might have been world-class stupid and foolish, with permanent consequences.
Yes, the communistas are dancing on the mound at the open grave of culture now, and trying to push the doddering old thing into the hole still barely alive,before it finally kicks the bucket, but conservatives were the ones who dug it when they cast it adrift and orphaned those trying to save it.
Civilization doesn’t preserve itself.
Nah, BSA peaked in 69-72 era. Then a big nosedive from the peak of 7 million to about 4 million in 1980. It roused a bit during the 90’s, but then started to drop again in the mid-90’s. I think that drop was the molestation scandal. Then the 2010’s are mainly the SJW convergence, where “Boy” no longer means anything of the sort.
Yeah, I had a great graph that showed prior to the 1960’s everybody (90% plus) went to church. I’ve heard stories you couldn’t qualify for a mortgage unless your pastor vouched for you. That graph didn’t break it down by denomination during that time period, but I did chance upon a graph that showed Catholic attendance in 1960 was 85%, which had dropped to less than 70% by 1990. It’s now (2018 figures) down to ~40%. Protestants were less than 35% by 1990 . . . so, yeah.
Communists hate church – they are jealous of other gods.
Amen on not preserving itself.
Given the general state of most of what passes for Christianity today, showing up to church isn’t really much of an improvement over sleeping in on Sunday.
Bruce Springfield was absolutely necessary, as New Jersey residents have nothing else to be proud of. As for commies, I believe they are banker financed. Divide and conquer, nothing to see over there with Goldman Saks. The good news is they won’t be around much longer. Both commies or bankers.
Yup, they have been since Lenin’s day. Profit to be made!
Seems whenever I point out that the natives were outclassed in every way so conquest was inevitable, I get mocked or ignored.
(Gunpowder and the wheel trumps arrows and nothing…? Who could’ve predicted that. Almost like Stone Age tech might be a bit old and not up to date)
I also like to point out that if Europe hadn’t gotten here first, I figure the Russians or Chinese would’ve gotten here at some point.
They also had guns and wheels…and the natives still would’ve had neither even a few hundred years later.
Pretty much every civilization is the result of stronger/more advanced people conquering other people.
168 Spanish soldiers took down the Inca Empire.
In the 1950s, the 48 states of the USA had iron ore, copper, gold, uranium, and various other metals to mine, refine, and forge into stuff. We had oil, coal, and natural gas to make it happen. We had timber to cut. We had fertile soils and well-stocked aquifers to support agriculture, and we had well-regulated capital markets. One by one, each of these was stripped to exhaustion. Now, we’re left fighting over the scraps. It’s easier to be kind and cooperative when you’re helping each other exploit natural wealth and sell it to a world wracked by warfare, which exhausted its own resources centuries earlier.
We call China and India “lesser developed nations”, but in fact, they’re fully-developed kleptocracies, where graft and hustle have been perfected at every level. Unfortunately (for them), they can’t cheat viral biology.
Well, yeah, the 1950’s were pretty good that way – but even with a lower standard of living, outcomes are better with traditional Western values.
Update your browser.
Forests today are larger than ever in history. We ship wood products out, not in.
We currently feed ourselves and half the rest of the world, out of our own agricultural surplus.
And despite the fact that the country uses a wee bit more energy now than it ever did in 1950, we’re making so much for ourselves that we’re exporting it again.
All of these factoids are readily available on the same internet you’re on now.
So maybe less knee-jerk phony doom & gloom, and a little more fresh air from reality.
And throw away those mailers from Greenpeace.
Just saying.
If you can’t get your basic facts straight, your opinions have no chance whatsoever.
Meanwhile, here in Australia, it’s good old Captain Cook who is being vilified by ‘lefties, statues of him are damaged and vandalised, and all because he ‘discovered’ Australia and then went and told everyone he knew how good it was….instead of keeping it a secret. (When the Hawaiians found out about his loose tongue, to keep him quiet they did the civilised thing and ‘cooked’ him….)
I’m not sayin that the Hawaiian natives weren’t abused by Cook, but they weren’t exactly in harmony with nature themselves, either. Just ask the 20,000 birds they abused.
https://www.hakaimagazine.com/article-short/feather-cloak-captain-cook/
Yup, that’s it. If it wasn’t Cook, it would have been someone else (likely still British).
Cook was amazing.
In general, the people who rail against Western civilization, itself a proxy term for “wypipo”, are the same people who have benefited the most from living in Western civilization rather than whatever civilizations their families fled from. I don’t give a ton of credence to the opinion of someone who would never have experienced running water, any electrical appliance or anything other than subsistence level living if it weren’t for Western civilization. Yes your ancestors 200 years ago were enslaved but you aren’t going to get eaten by a crocodile while trying to gather muddy water from a river so on the whole I think you are better off. The push to erase Western civilization is most irksome because of the sheer ingratitude of the people pushing it.
It requires one to believe in a history that never existed. Kinda like bad science fiction.
In the 1950s, the 48 states of the USA had iron ore, copper, gold, uranium, and various other metals to mine, refine, and forge into stuff. We had oil, coal, and natural gas to make it happen. We had timber to cut. We had fertile soils and well-stocked aquifers to support agriculture, and we had well-regulated capital markets.
Today, we still have all of those ores, we still have oil, we still have coal and they say there’s enough natural gas in one basin (Permian) to run the country for 300 years with growth. We have more timber to cut – there are more trees in the US than there were a hundred years ago. Yes, we have marginally less of some of those but we have dramatically better extraction technologies. The only reason we import “rare earth” metals from China is the government rules here make mining more expensive than importing them.
The problem we have is the leftists pushing government into saying we can’t do any of the above because we might inconvenience a bait fish or a bird – although it’s fine if we incinerate birds in flight with a solar power station or bludgeon them to death with a wind turbine. If certain migratory birds fly into your car while moving, or a storm knocks an egg out of a nest in your backyard, you could be going to prison.
oops – hit the button accidentally (I blame a lack of coffee).
There is a very deliberate attempt to discredit and destroy the west that can be traced back to the communists in the early 20th century. The Frankfurt school communists realized they couldn’t overpower the US, so they’d destroy us by rot from the inside. “The long march through the institutions” has been going on for almost a hundred years.
It’s pretty much all over except for the part that causes the most bloodshed. Although the millions of aborted babies may disagree with that aspect.
I find it interesting that the birth rate of the so-called baby boom after WWII didn’t even match the birth rate of the early 20th century or late 1800s. It’s only big in comparison to the 1930s – a terrible depression kinda makes people reluctant to have more mouths to feed – and in comparison to the birth rate after the pill and then legalized abortion. And yet it’s the heart of the inter-generational strife that will contribute to societal breakdown, again courtesy of the Frankfurt school. “Divide and conquer” is as old a tactic as there is.
And the FIRST thing the communists did when they took Spain? Legalize abortion and make marriage illegal. It’s like there’s a pattern . . . .
Hear! Hear!
Sometimes the elites win whatever happens.
The 1% gain if smoking is illegal because the ruling class can fill their private prisons.
The globalists also win if smoking is legal because the ruling powers can make money from cancer treatments.
The ruling class wins if no one is allowed to go outside to stop viruses because the 1% can control people.
The globalists also gain if people have the freedom to go outside because people might get sick.