Let’s Take Back Columbus Day

Let’s Take Back Columbus Day

October 8, 2009

by Thomas A. Bowden

More than a century ago, America celebrated the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s voyage of discovery by hosting an enormous world’s fair on the shores of Lake Michigan. This “World’s Columbian Exposition” featured statues of the great explorer, replicas of his three ships, and commemorative stamps and coins. Because Columbus Day was a patriotic holiday–it marked the opening chapter in American history–the newly written Pledge of Allegiance was first recited in schools on October 12, 1892.

Nowadays, however, an embarrassed, guilty silence descends on the nation each Columbus Day. We’ve been taught that Columbus opened the way for rapacious European settlers to unleash a stream of horrors on a virgin continent: slavery, racism, warfare, epidemic, and the cruel oppression of Indians.

This modern view of Columbus represents an unjust attack upon both our country and the civilization that made it possible. Western civilization did not originate slavery, racism, warfare, or disease–but with America as its exemplar, that civilization created the antidotes. How? By means of a set of core ideas that set Western civilization apart from all others: reason and individualism.

Throughout history, prior to the birth of Western civilization in ancient Greece, the world seemed impervious to human understanding. People believed that animistic spirits or capricious deities had supernatural powers to cure diseases, grow crops, and guide the hunter’s arrow toward his prey. To get the attention of these inscrutable spirits, people resorted to prayer, ritual, taboo, and human sacrifice, relying always on the mystic insights of shamans and priests.

This pervasive mysticism had practical consequences: festering disease, perpetual poverty, and a desperate quest for survival that made offensive warfare against human beings seem as natural as hunting animals. Such was the plight of America’s Indians before 1492–and such was Europe’s own plight, once the civilizations of Greece and Rome had given way to the mysticism of Christianity and the barbarian tribes.

It was Western philosophers, scientists, statesmen, and businessmen who liberated mankind from mysticism’s grip. Once scientists revealed a world of natural laws open to human understanding, medical research soon penetrated the mysteries of disease and epidemic, allowing us to look back with pity upon American Indians and other historical victims of diseases now preventable and curable.

On a much wider scale, the Industrial Revolution employed science, technology, and engineering to create material goods in profusion, so that even people of average ability could become affluent by historical standards. By demonstrating how wealth can be created in abundance rather than stolen by armed force, America and the West supplied a moral alternative to the bloody tribal warfare of past eras.

Western civilization’s stress on the value of reason led inexorably to its distinctive individualism. Western thinkers were first to declare that every individual, no matter what his skin color or ancestry, is fully human, possessed of reason and free will–a being of self-made character who deserves to be judged accordingly, not as a member of a racial or tribal collective. And thanks to John Locke and the Founding Fathers, individuals were recognized as possessing individual rights to life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness–rights that made slavery indefensible and led to its eradication, at the cost of a civil war.

A Book Every Military Strategist and Politician Should Read

A Book Every Military Strategist and Politician Should Read

WASHINGTON, October 6, 2009–Eight years after 9/11 and in the shadow of two protracted U.S. military campaigns in the Middle East, the enemy is not only undefeated but emboldened and resurgent. What went wrong–and what should we do going forward?

"Just War Theory" Is Unjust to Americans

“Just War Theory” Is Unjust to Americans

WASHINGTON, October 5, 2009–As U.S. military leaders continue to argue over troop deployments and tactics in Afghanistan, American soldiers continue to die and victory remains elusive. Why?

"Atlas Shrugged" Essay Contest Doubles in Size!

“Atlas Shrugged” Essay Contest Doubles in Size!

IRVINE, Calif., September 30, 2009–The Ayn Rand Institute announced a new record in submissions for its annual “Atlas Shrugged” essay contest. ARI received more than 4,000 entries this year, more than twice as many as last year’s record.

ARI credits the surge in essay contest submissions to the recent boom in “Atlas Shrugged” sales, along with the continued growth of ARI’s free books to teachers program. The ARI essay contest is part of a larger educational program that encourages high school and college educators to use the book in their classrooms.

How Do We Deal with Iran?

How Do We Deal with Iran?

WASHINGTON, September 28, 2009–Iran announced on Sunday that it has test fired several short-range missiles, just days after proclaiming that it has been building a second uranium enrichment plant. In response to this show of force, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates implied that the United States has no military solution to the problem, and added “I think there’s still time for diplomacy.”

The Ayn Rand Center Offers Blueprint for Freedom

The Ayn Rand Center Offers Blueprint for Freedom

WASHINGTON, September 25, 2009–Critics and the media have sometimes criticized the tea party movement for lack of a positive, cohesive message beyond the anger and outrage at current government policies. The Ayn Rand Center launches a new website offering the American people intellectual ammunition they need to fight the wave of big government that we are now witnessing:

http://www.principlesofafreesociety.com/

What makes a society free? What does it mean for an individual to be free—free to pursue his rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness? What must we now do to achieve the type of free society that our Founding Fathers envisioned?

Principles of a Free Society is a new Web site that explores Ayn Rand’s answers to these and many other questions. It presents and defines the principles that are necessary for a truly free society.

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Is Opposing Health Care Reform a Crime?

Is Opposing Health Care Reform a Crime?

WASHINGTON, September 22, 2009–The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services recently launched an investigation into an attempt by the health insurance company Humana to enlist its customers to fight proposed cuts to Medicare Advantage. The investigation was initiated at the urging of Senator Max Baucus, who said, “It is wholly unacceptable for insurance companies to mislead seniors regarding any subject–particularly on a subject as important to them, and to the nation, as health care reform. . . . I’m not going to let insurance company profits stand in the way of improving Medicare for seniors.”

According to Don Watkins, a writer for the Ayn Rand Center, “It is painfully obvious–and alarming–that Humana is not being investigated for its ‘marketing’ practices. It is being investigated because it had the gall to challenge the assertions of a member of Congress.

“The implication of Baucus’s statement is that Humana must be investigated for in effect defrauding its customers by misleading them about the nature of Baucus’s proposal. But what did Humana’s ‘fraudulent’ claim consist of? No one disputes the fact that the budget for Medicare Advantage could be slashed under the health care bills now in Congress. The dispute is over the effects this will have. Humana claimed it could potentially lead to some of its customers losing benefits–not an unreasonable view–but Baucus insists ‘The health care reform bill we released . . . strengthens Medicare and does not cut benefits.’

“Think of what it would mean for politicians–hardly notorious for their scrupulous honesty–to be able to punish Americans because our claims about the effects of a proposed law conflict with their assertions.

“In a free country, it is not a crime to question the claims of one’s political leaders. If Baucus’s action is allowed to go unchallenged, however, free speech is gravely threatened.”

Fighting for the People. . .of Afghanistan?

Fighting for the People . . . of Afghanistan?

WASHINGTON, September 23, 2009–In a recent statement by top U.S. commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, he criticized the U.S. military for being “preoccupied with protection of our own forces” in Afghanistan. He wrote that American forces should “share risk, at least equally, with the people” of Afghanistan. What makes our leaders think that they can ever win a war with this sort of philosophy?

The U.N. is Fundamentally Flawed

The U.N. is Fundamentally Flawed

WASHINGTON, September 24, 2009–Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s recent 90-minute tirade, and the anti-semitic ranting of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, both at the United Nations general assembly, are yet two more reminders of what’s fundamentally wrong with the United Nations.

“The fundamental feature of the U.N. is its policy of opening membership non-judgmentally to all nations–whether free or oppressive, peaceful or belligerent,” says Elan Journo, a fellow with the Ayn Rand Center.

“The U.N.’s policy of neutrality accomplishes precisely the opposite of its putative effect; it actually protects and bolsters vicious regimes.

“That the U.N. benefits evil regimes is a necessary consequence of its avowed ideal of neutrality. The willful refusal to discriminate between good and evil, between freedom and slavery, can benefit only the vicious. It is only an evil regime that fears moral scrutiny, that needs to conceal its crimes, and that struggles for a veneer of moral legitimacy. The U.N.’s policy of moral neutrality is precisely what evil desperately craves: a license to commit any depravity and escape with a reputation for being decent.

“No organization can resolve conflicts if it evades the objective difference between right and wrong, and perversely treats an aggressor as the moral equal of his innocent victim. The U.N. is far from a means to achieving peace. Because it arms and bestows a moral sanction on vicious regimes, it is an accessory to their incalculable atrocities and murders.”

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The Happiest Angry Mob

When you’re losing in sports or politics, it can’t hurt to see what the winning team is doing. So what are they doing? Protesting.

We should get off our “high ideals” and mount massive protest marches. After all, the Socialist Workers Party can lead tens of thousands against America defending herself.

So why can’t the tens of millions who love the Constitution and our founding principles inspire two million ex-military people, bikers, athletes, conservative Christians, and like-minded “average Americans” to march and shout in a grand circle around the Capitol in D.C, banging pots and pans and yelling, “Hey hey , ho ho, Socialism’s gotta go! If our servants in the Congress cower with fear that we might charge the building, so much the better. Not that we would, but it wouldn’t hurt if they thought we might.

I wrote that (with some now updated editing) six years ago, and though there’s always hope, I was never really sure we’d bring it off.

But this past Saturday, we did.
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