Look Who’s Bashing Columbus

By Bill Donohue, Catholic League president 

We live in a time when some politicians think it is perfectly acceptable to allow a baby who survives a botched abortion to die unattended by medical staff. All across the nation, child abuse in the schools is rampant—we are telling young kids they can switch their sex as quickly as they can turn on a light switch, offering puberty blockers and chemical castration to get the job done. Moreover, they can do so behind the backs of their parents, with the approval of the National Education Association.

 

We have just come off a respiratory illness that killed over one million Americans and yet we are now legalizing marijuana—while continuing an “anti-cigarette” campaign in the schools. Students are now coming to school stoned. We are allowing, even enabling, people from other countries to crash our borders, bringing untold amounts of fentanyl with them.

 

Our cities are run by politicians who rescue cats and dogs from extremely cold weather while allowing mentally deranged human beings to freeze to death on the sidewalks, all in the name of civil liberties. Crime is out of control and there is no accountability for even violent crimes. The homeless defecate in the streets, harass passersby, and demand that their “rights” be protected.

 

And these same politicians—all of whom are liberal Democrats—have the audacity to pretend that they come to the table with their hands clean, insisting we either erase Columbus from history or demonize him, all the while romanticizing so-called indigenous peoples. It’s enough to make any sane American who knows anything about history reach for the vomit bag.

 

Native Americans did not originate in America: they migrated here from Asia. The idea that they lived in some kind of Garden of Eden—living peacefully—until the white boys showed up is pure poppycock. The fact is there is nothing noble about the “noble savage.” Indeed, he is more savage than noble.

 

Harvard professor Steven Pinker, who is not a victim of political correctness, describes what life was like throughout most of history.

 

“Cruelty as entertainment, human sacrifice to indulge superstition, slavery as a labor-saving device, conquest as the mission statement of government, genocide as a means of acquiring real estate, torture and mutilation as routine punishment, the death penalty for misdemeanors and differences of opinion, assassination as the mechanism of political succession, rape as the spoils of war, pogroms as outlets for frustration, homicide as the major form of conflict resolution—all were unexceptionable features of life for most of human history.”

 

What about indigenous peoples? Pinker concludes that they “were far more violent than our own.” He cites the work of noted anthropologists who learned of “population-wide rates of death in tribal warfare that dwarf those of modern times.” Bernard Bailyn, the famous Harvard historian agreed, saying, they did not live in a “terribly peaceful world.” In fact, “They were always involved in warfare.”

 

None of this is to excuse any wrongdoing by Europeans—many of them were just as vicious. But it is to say that we need to get over our childlike image of Native Americans and stop with the Columbus bashing. It makes no sense morally or historically, and this is doubly so for those who come to the table today with filthy hands.