Monday, October 14, 2013

The end product of political correctness

Daniel Greenfield has an attention-worthy post at Sultan Knish today on just what those denigrating the Italian cartographer and sailor Christopher Columbus have as their ultimate aim.
Among other things, he points out the irony of La Raza being mostly comprised of the descendants of Spaniards who colonized Mexico and Central America.
The main point of his essay, though, is that the push to attach shame to Columbus Day is to destroy America's legitimacy:

 But this is about more than one single 15th century Genoan with a complicated life who was neither a monster nor a saint. It is about whether America really has any right to exist at all. Is there any argument against celebrating Columbus Day, that cannot similarly be applied to the Fourth of July?
If Columbus is to be stricken from the history books in favor of ideological thugs like Malcolm X or Caesar Chavez, then America must soon follow. Columbus' crime is that he enabled European settlement of the continent.

If the settlement of non-Indians in North America is illegitimate, then any national state they created is also illegitimate.

It is easier to hack away at a nation's history by beginning with the lower branches.

And he points out another irony that ought to sadden anyone who respects scholarly standards of historical inquiry:

The final note of politically correct lunacy comes from a headline in the Columbus Dispatch about the Columbus Day festival in the city of Columbus, Ohio. "Italian Festival honors controversial explorer with its own Columbus Day parade".

Once the great discover of America, Columbus is now dubbed "controversial" by a newspaper named after him, in a city named after him .And if he is controversial, how can naming a city after him and a newspaper after the city not be equally controversial? 

Citizens of the most righteous nation in human history are, bit by bit, accepting the invitation to hate their own heritage.

1 comment: