Monday is either Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day, depending on perspective. Scott S. Powell, a senior fellow at Discovery Institute, wrote an opinion piece defending the traditional holiday.
“The history of Christopher Columbus is actually less messy and more consequential than many of the other heroes of our national holidays,” he said. “There is not only a great deal to celebrate in Columbus, but the man embodied a range of attributes that are necessary to solving many of our contemporary problems and even saving our country from further decline and collapse resulting from groupthink, corruption and abuse of power.”
Minnesota Gov. Walz encouraged the idea to destroy the Columbus statue and told authorities to stand down as the Capitol grounds were vandalized.
The American story began with Columbus’s successful 4,000-mile-long sail from Europe across the Atlantic Ocean. His quest was twofold: To find a western passage to the Spice Islands and India, and second, to carry the good news of Jesus to people in new parts of the world.
By his late 30s he felt “called,” writing in his diary, “It was the Lord who put into my mind, [and] I could feel his hand upon me … that it would be possible to sail from here to the Indies.”
“Today’s woke culture, which has held Columbus accountable for the chain of disasters that followed in his wake in the Caribbean and South America, is not only unfair to him but it overlooks the essence of the man,” Powell said. “Not of Spanish culture, Columbus was at heart a simple but ambitious individualist — a seafaring explorer and evangelist. He had neither interest in founding colonies nor was he an effective leader and administrator of strong-headed hidalgos that undertook setting up colonial outposts at the behest of Queen Isabella.
“Seen as a bigger picture, Columbus Day is worth keeping and honoring for the simple reason that it celebrates beliefs and qualities of character that are foundational to America. It could even be said that Columbus Day is the holiday that commemorates the human character, attitudes and choice of action that made the other American holidays possible.”
–Alan Goforth | Metro Voice