Columbus: The Far Left is Dead Right

I think much of the discomfort in acknowledging Columbus as a thug is the feeling that if he was wrong then we should fix it.

Which bring me to my question - if Columbus was as bad as you proclaim (and I think he was) what should we do about it?

Since Columbus' discovery directly resulted in the Treaty of Tordesillas (the precursor to the Treaty of Saragossa), and since both treaties were endorsed by the respective popes of the time, how about some anti-slavery indignation toward the Roman Catholic Church? Maybe even some calls for reparations from the Vatican?

After all, we wouldn't want to be moral relativists, would we?

Professor Caplan,

Your citation of Yoda, an interesting if idiosyncratic character from popular fiction, within a critique of Columbus, without whose efforts you would most likely not exist let alone hold the position you do, seems strange; decadent, almost.

The size of the gap between his time and ours means that whether or not we think Columbus was a good man or a bad man is neither here nor there. He did what he did, and what he did cannot now be undone. Did his actions ultimately do more hurt than harm? For you, certainly not. For some unsustainable Third World cultures, probably.

But even in his day it had been a long time since anyone had received a postcard from the Parthians, the Medes or the Elamites...

How could his 'bad' works be cured? By building a time machine in order to give the Caribs an MMR shot? Have you ever given a thought to how they might react to the sight of an economics professor running towards them and trying to stick a needle in their arm?

Would you levy a 'Columbus tax' on Spaniards?

You forget that Columbus and his ilk were true free marketeers. They were not in the exploration business for purely altruistic reasons - they were in it for the money. There was nothing that those guys couldn't teach today's globalists about offshoring.

If you feel you require absolution for benefiting from Columbus' voyage (though I can't think why you should), then ego te absolvo.

For good, you should always remember, is a point of view...

Columbus risked life and fortune to sail across uncharted waters and discover The New World. The achievement of greatness through daring and adventurousness is intolerable to the mediocrities who malign him, as it reminds them they are parasitic worms.

As for having an "Acton Day", such a proposal would surely be met with the objection that Acton was an outspoken supporter of the Confederacy during the Civil War.

This is why I read Libertarian blogs. Undistilled, sparkling, fresh, common sense. Bravo! Dr Caplan.

Hmmm...suppose at some future point in history, we come to regard the eating of sentient animals with the same revulsion we now regard slavery. How should history judge judge us? Should all of the good works of Bryan Caplan be dismissed because he enjoyed a burger now and then?

To me, it does not need to be either/or. We should both honor the leaders of the past for their achievements while at the same time condemning them for their crimes.

Not to defend slavery, but slavery was practiced world-wide. The American natives practiced it before and after the arrival of Columbus.

Also, it is likely that upwards of 90% of the American natives would have died as a result of peaceful contact with the Old World. Disease doesn't care if it travels with trade or with war.

Nonetheless, Columbus Day is a stupid holiday.

"How could his 'bad' works be cured?"

By not celebrating a murdering slaver with a national holiday.

"Columbus risked life and fortune to sail across uncharted waters and discover The New World. The achievement of greatness through daring and adventurousness is intolerable to the mediocrities who malign him, as it reminds them they are parasitic worms."

The same could be said of most of the self made evil men of history. That Columbus was very successful doesn't make him less evil. Lets all hear it for Stalin Day.

In the 15th century, Western superiority was not a given. The outcome of Columbus voyage could well be the building of a huge Aztec temple on the site of the Sevilla Catedral and the instauration of daily human sacrifices. Columbus operated his miniature boats with jailbirds and he arrived only because he was a sanguinary bastard. The Spanish crown recalled him as soon as could and sent the best corrupt functionaries that were available then in Spain.

Crasch has the right take on Columbus. The native of North America all practiced slavery, as well as the entire Muslim world as late as the 1960's. It's arrogant to condemn generations of ancestors for something we decided was immoral only recently.

As a member of the Choctaw Nation, located in Oklahoma, and the third largest sovereign Native American nation in the US, I recognize the crimes Europeans committed against the natives, but I'm glad we were conquered by Northern Europeans, instead of the Spanish and Portuguese as was Latin America.

Speaking of crimes against natives, Chris was a Sunday School teacher compared to the "great" President Andrew Jackson. He defied the Supreme Court and shipped thousands of Cherokee from Georgia to Oklahoma in the winter, causing thousands of deaths. The Cherokee commemorate it as the "Trail of Tears". He kicked the Choctaw out of Alabama and Mississippi, but we suffered much less.

BTW, we natives gave the Europeans tobacco. Are we also guilty of genocide, considering the millions who have died from lung cancer?

But if you took "hagiographies" out of most histories of the USA, precious little would remain. The sainthood of Founding Fathers would be somewhat reduced in numbers, I'd guess. The usual accounts of JFK would have to be revised. And FDR too, surely? "Happily, the fascistic inclinations of this rather characteristic 1930s figure were somewhat constrained by people, Congress and Supreme Court."

So if the conquistadors were "pioneers" of slavery - funny, I thought it had been around a while before them - why are the descendants of the conquistadors rewarded with special affirmative action programs in the United States on the basis of being "Hispanic"? They should go to the back of the line if decisions are going to be made on genetic grounds and on the basis of correcting historical wrongs, always a dubious and futile enterprise.

How can we make up for Columbus' and the Spanish conquistadors' misdeeds? For one thing, we can support the indigenous Amerindian politicians in Latin America, when they try to gain political power from the Hispanic upper classes in their countries.

People like Evo Morales (an Aymara) and Chavez are leftist in large part because we Liberal Democracies have supported the Hispanic overlords rather than the poor Amerindians. Especially in Bolivia, Peru, and Guatemala, the descendents of the indigenous Americans are an underclass, kept from opportunity, education, and political power, and treated little better than dirt. How different Latin American politics would be if the U.S and other Western democracies supported the ideals of democracy and freedom of opportunity in those nations! Instead, we support oligarchic dictators who will do the bidding of our corporations.

Martin Kelly writes:"Did his actions ultimately do more hurt than harm? For you, certainly not. For some unsustainable Third World cultures, probably."

Some unsustainable Third world cultures? The native Americans had been sustaining themselves just fine for thousands of years.

If you want to see an example of an unsustainable culture, you don't have to look further than our own (USA). Using natural resources at an unsustainable rate, while causing climate change and making water unfit to drink and air unfit to breathe.

I am not saying the native Americans were perfect, but unsustainability is not one of their culture's faults.

But if you took "hagiographies" out of most histories of the USA, precious little would remain. The sainthood of Founding Fathers would be somewhat reduced in numbers, I'd guess. The usual accounts of JFK would have to be revised. And FDR too, surely? "Happily, the fascistic inclinations of this rather characteristic 1930s figure were somewhat constrained by people, Congress and Supreme Court."

How could this be a bad thing? History needs less undeserving heros.

TDaulnay, be more cynical.