Columbus' true face

[airiefairie]

History is written by the winners - this is a well known principle. For example, October 11 was Columbus Day. Ever since the 18th century, Columbus' arrival on American soil in 1492 is being celebrated in the United States, all throughout Central America, the Caribbean, Spain, Argentina, Uruguay etc. But what is actually being celebrated? And if

Comments

[underlankers]

Eh, if Columbus were alive today and did everything he did then now, as an agent of the private sector all the libertarians would rationalize, minimize, bowdlerize, and excuse his atrocities while accusing any critics of corporate genocide as filthy red Communists, partying like it's 1969. The people on the Left would object to what he's doing not because starving people to death so that work makes them free is inherently a wrong premise in itself (keep in mind I do not qualify Social Democrats as Left) but *because* he's on the Right. His actual victims would be ignored save in maudlin pieces about 'Oh, how horrible' and the man himself would be a regular talk show guest on FOX News much like Pat Robertson and his blood diamonds, or Rios Montt, or any of the umpty-dozen little tinpot butchers the USA's propped up in the last few years. People would find him not morally wrong, in other words, in most cases except where pre-existing ideas combined to make him so

[kayjayuu]

Eh, if Columbus were alive today and did everything he did then now, as an agent of the private sector all the libertarians would rationalize, minimize, bowdlerize, and excuse his atrocities while accusing any critics of corporate genocide as filthy red Communists, partying like it's 1969.

Citation needed.

[404]

I doubt you'll get the response you are looking for.

[underlankers]

Pat Robertson and his making a shitload of money off of blood diamonds. Not to mention people like Rios Montt, Pinochet, the Shah, and all the other dictators the libertarians find hunky-dory who did things like what Columbus is infamous for. Libertarians and liberty do not tend to go together very well.

[kayjayuu]

Citation for Pat Robertson being a libertarian, outside of his recent statement supporting the legalization of marijuana. Which would make Washington and Colorado a hotbed of libertarianism.

Citation for libertarians supporting Rios Montt, Pinochet, the Shah, and dictators in general.

[underlankers]

Badlydrawnjeff is my citation for Pinochet. He's actually argued the man represented both political and economic freedom.

[luvdovz]

You keep rubbing that. Isn't it perhaps time to let it go already?

[underlankers]

Not when it's a discussion about how Columbus would be treated in the modern era. People like Columbus do nasty things all the time and get away with it now. There's nothing that says he'd actually be *tried* by the International Court.

[luvdovz]

Irrelevant to what I was addressing. I'm addressing your obsession with rubbing Pinochet into Jeff's face every time you can think of it. And it's pretty often that you can think of it - virtually any reference could cue your Pinochet-Godwinn-y Jeff-stabby side, it would seem.

[underlankers]

It's actually not Godwin's law in this case. You're the one that brought Hitler up. Not me. I was just noting that people in the modern age have no problem excusing the war criminals they like and bashing the ones they don't. How many of the anti-Americans on this community are willing to recognize that for all the USA's wrongs in Iraq Saddam was a greedy blowhard who used poison gas on Iranian soldiers and his own civilians and engaged in some fairly brutal torture? Instead we see a great many people who whitewash Saddam. Likewise we see libertarians all the time pretending that the likes of Pinochet were great, swell guys.

Columbus was just the precursor of the Caudillos of the Pinochet variety. My point is that Columbus, today, would just be one of the many war criminals whose actual deeds are subordinate to other varieties of wank.

The point about BDJ was intended to go into another thread, it was after I realized it was in the wrong thread that I was stuck with a point intended to go elsewhere.

[luvdovz]

Haha, I haven't brought Hitler up. But I was sure he was a breath away from your tongue anyway. And you never failed my expectation. It works like a Swiss watch.

There should be a law similar to Godwin's Law for the likes of Pinochet. Wouldn't that be hilarious?

it was after I realized it was in the wrong thread

Yes, that's usually what happens when we try to correct too many people being wrong on the Internet within a too short time. There's a certain limit to the bits of info the human brain could process and a certain number of words the fingers could type. ;)

[mahnmut]

But you weren't speaking of the International Court. You were speaking of badlydrawnjeff. Are you even able to hold to a thought for more than two consecutive comments?

[underlankers]

Actually I was speaking of the libertarian tendency to excuse Right-Wing dictators ala Pinochet, Peron, Franco, and Salazar, as part of a broader point that Columbus would be nothing more than a Saddam/Karadzic/Milosevic figure in the 21st Century. The points made likewise about people like Pat Robertson and company also got ignored as opposed to the one statement about BDJ that's actually happened

[mahnmut]

Dude, that's more than a year ago. That's exactly what I mean that you have years-old grudges that you keep rubbing into people's faces. Just let it go already, you're only looking like a stabby grudgey douchey grumpy old dude this way. Take it as a friendly advice.

[underlankers]

That's a fair point, but I was intending to make a broader point that got eaten and which I posted from memory below this one.

[mahnmut]

Anyway. I have a concert to catch.