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Remembering Why Columbus Day Matters
IBD Editorials ^ | October 8, 2010 | ROSARIO A. IACONIS

Posted on 10/08/2010 5:02:15 PM PDT by Kaslin

Christopher Columbus lives.

Indeed, contrary to the assertions of radical revisionists, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea matters. For it was Columbus' epic discovery of a vast terra incognita that began the Age of Exploration — and sparked the bold voyages of his fellow Italian navigators: Giovanni da Verrazzano, Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot) and Amerigo Vespucci.

A contemporary of Leonardo da Vinci, Cristoforo Colombo hailed from the land John Milton called "the seat of civilization and the hospitable domicile of every species of erudition." And as an exemplar of the Italian Renaissance, Columbus brought with him the reborn fruits of classical Roman humanism, pragmatism and governance — gifts that inspired the Founding Fathers as they forged our res publica.

In fact, Roma Aeterna lies at the heart of America's laws, system of government and the very republic to which we pledge our allegiance.

The founders were steeped in the history of Rome's republic and empire. Indeed, according to historian Rufus Fears: "They crafted our Constitution to reflect the balanced constitution of the Roman Republic, with the sovereignty of the people guided by the wisdom of the Senate, with a powerful executive in the form of the commander in chief, the consul."

When Caesar Augustus became Rome's first emperor-imperator, his authority over a vast domain — stretching from Scotland to the Sudan and across the desert sands of the Middle East — derived from the executive power of the consul of the old republic.

John Adams believed that the "Roman constitution formed the noblest people and the greatest power that has ever existed."

(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial
KEYWORDS: christophercolumbus; columbus; columbusday
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1 posted on 10/08/2010 5:02:17 PM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Leftists hate Columbus about as much as they hate our Republic.

They have far more respect for Aztec sacrificial slaughter and other assorted forms of oppression and cruelty.


2 posted on 10/08/2010 5:06:58 PM PDT by Soothesayer (“None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license...")
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To: Soothesayer

Isn’t that the truth


3 posted on 10/08/2010 5:08:53 PM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: Kaslin

Columbus was “O.K.”...but Pizarro and Cortes were real assholes.


4 posted on 10/08/2010 5:11:00 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th
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To: Kaslin

Let’s hear it for Cristobal Colon..


5 posted on 10/08/2010 5:13:00 PM PDT by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
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To: Repeal The 17th

By 21st century standards, perhaps they were, but they lived 500 years ago and were courageous examples of their kind. Cortes burned his boats. Literally. You and I may not approve of their methods and their ruthlessness, but to their contemporaries they were conquering heroes. And to their contemporaries, they did nothing wrong.


6 posted on 10/08/2010 5:21:22 PM PDT by La Lydia
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To: Soothesayer

Well leftists hate him because he brought disease and that terrible European culture to these shores destroying the pristine beauty and simple love of nature of the native peoples, don’t ya know. That is narrative. Repeat it enough and it becomes the truth.


7 posted on 10/08/2010 5:23:59 PM PDT by mc5cents
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To: Repeal The 17th

Christopher Columbus was a navigator, colonizer, and explorer from Genoa, Italy, unlike Cortes and Pizarro who were both Spanish conquerors


8 posted on 10/08/2010 5:25:41 PM PDT by Kaslin (Acronym for OBAMA: One Big Ass Mistake America)
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To: La Lydia

“...they did nothing wrong...”
-
Be careful, now.
Was “accept Catholicism or die” wrong?


9 posted on 10/08/2010 5:26:20 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th
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To: Repeal The 17th
but Pizarro and Cortes . . .

They were both from a rough, low-class neighborhood, the Extremadura—the absolute outlaw-outback of Spain. Hard, mountainous desert. Not like the cosmopolitan Genoa of Columbus. Don't know that much about Pizarro, but Cortes was probably the only man who could have brought down the Aztecs—the predator people of Mexico who had finished their merciless conquest of Mexico only a half-century before he arrived—and the other Indians loved him for it.

Once Cortes won (and he nearly didn't), he fought like crazy to bring down the corrupt carpetbaggers who arrived from Spain to exploit the Indians. Cortes suffered brutally at the hands of those liars and thieves until, back in Spain, he was finally vindicated.

He was a rough man with his faults, but Cortes was self-disciplined, serious about his faith, and utterly heroic for what he achieved. Such as saving 10 million or more people from the cannibal empire he confronted when he landed, and bringing them to Christ. Mexicans love their periodic socialist revolutionaries, but to this day, they proudly retain Cortes's language and his faith.

10 posted on 10/08/2010 5:30:44 PM PDT by SamuraiScot
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To: Repeal The 17th
"And to their contemporaries, they did nothing wrong."
11 posted on 10/08/2010 5:33:02 PM PDT by La Lydia
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To: Kaslin
The reason Columbus is important is he saved European Civilization from falling to Islam. The land based silk road from Europe to Asia had long been cut off by Muslims, stopping trade with Asia and helping send Europe into the dark ages. Once the Moors were kicked out of Spain, the great explorers were funded to find a sea route to Asia.

Columbus did not discover India, but he discovers the New World, where Europeans could build colonies, increase their populations, transplant their culture, and get supplies and wealth, uncontested by Muslims. Others did discover trade routes to Asia.

This invigorated Europe, helped cause the current age of science and trade which eclipsed Islam, and not until now was Europe threatened by muslim invasion.

12 posted on 10/08/2010 5:46:55 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: mc5cents

and the Native Americans where united with all of nature “like the blood which unites one family”. It’s not like they ever had endemic warfare, frequent kidnapping, mass extended torture, or wholesale massacres of rival tribes. Nope. They were sooooo peaceful.

Pffft hahahahaha!


13 posted on 10/08/2010 5:47:40 PM PDT by Soothesayer (“None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license...")
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To: Kaslin
Bobadilla got what was coming to him in that hurricane, and Columbus didn't even lose an ounce of his personal gold!.

Columbus had divine intervention throughout his life, and was one of the greatest figures in recorded western history.

14 posted on 10/08/2010 5:55:15 PM PDT by Rome2000 (OBAMA IS A COMMUNIST CRYPTO-MUSLIM)
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To: Kaslin
Columbus may be superfluous as the Portugese explorer Cabral while leading an expedition to India swung to the West of Africa and discovered Brazil in 1500. No one knows if it was accidental or intentional as some hypothesize that the Portugese were vaguely aware of lands to the West due to their earlier voyages of discovery.

In fact the King of Portugal was so intrigued by Columbus's proposals of a voyage to the India via the West that while he officially spurned Columbus, he sent at least 4 expeditions to the West. They may have sighted land or perhaps seen evidence of landfall.

15 posted on 10/08/2010 6:00:49 PM PDT by Eternal_Bear
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To: Soothesayer
Leftists hate Columbus about as much as they hate our Republic. They have far more respect for Aztec sacrificial slaughter and other assorted forms of oppression and cruelty.

It should be obvious that the Leftists intend to place themselves at the top of the (sacrificial) pyramids. Look at the oppression and cruelty they already promulgate.

16 posted on 10/08/2010 6:32:18 PM PDT by sionnsar (IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|TV--it's NOT news you can trust)
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To: Repeal The 17th
Columbus was “O.K.”...but Pizarro and Cortes were real assholes.

Yeah, but the Aztecs were worse. Their neighbors helped Cortez.

17 posted on 10/08/2010 6:38:48 PM PDT by GreenLanternCorps ("Barack Obama" is Swahili for "Jimmy Carter".)
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To: SamuraiScot; LibreOuMort
He was a rough man with his faults, but Cortes was self-disciplined, serious about his faith, and utterly heroic for what he achieved. Such as saving 10 million or more people from the cannibal empire he confronted when he landed, and bringing them to Christ. Mexicans love their periodic socialist revolutionaries, but to this day, they proudly retain Cortes's language and his faith.

Thank you for this. I need to read more history.

18 posted on 10/08/2010 6:38:48 PM PDT by sionnsar (IranAzadi|5yst3m 0wn3d-it's N0t Y0ur5:SONY|TV--it's NOT news you can trust)
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To: La Lydia

I’d have to agree with that...


19 posted on 10/08/2010 6:53:19 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th
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To: SamuraiScot
Such as saving 10 million or more people from the cannibal empire he confronted when he landed, and bringing them to Christ.

Unfortunately for this theory of the saving Spanish, the population of what is now Mexico declined by at least 90% in the century after the Spanish showed up.

To be fair, most of this was due to the merging of the Old and New World disease eco-systems, something nobody at the time had a clue was happening or how to prevent.

But the Spanish colonists, with Cortes mostly an honorable exception, mercilessly oppressed the Indians. Read Las Casas if you don't want to take your history from a modern, possibly liberal historian.

20 posted on 10/08/2010 6:55:06 PM PDT by Sherman Logan
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