It is good and proper to celebrate Columbus Day; it acknowledges Western civilization's role as a unique blessing to humankind

A buddy of mine, both of the Facebook and real-world varieties, is the inspiration for this post. He's a libertarian, which means there is no daylight whatsoever between our economic views, but a Grand Canyon-sized chasm between our views on foreign policy. The Venn diagram overlap is considerable, though. We both instinctively bristle at central planning and collectivist notions. (We also have food, music and other areas of life as bases for our friendship.)

Anyway, he posted this Medium piece by Michael Fitch, Jr. about Columbus Day and the standoff between the of-course-it-shoud-be-celebrated crowd and the social-justice / identity-politics bunch that celebrates "Indigenous Peoples Day" instead. It offers this way out of the impasse:

The problem, as usual, is when the State gets involved. The State is not the creator of organic culture, (which necessarily comes about through voluntary interactions within a community), but is the destroyer of culture as it compels individuals through force to recognize heroes and causes it decides you should respect. Indigenous People who, for their own reasons, resent the figure of Columbus as a reprehensible moral figure should not be forced to recognize him in a government they have never chosen to participate in. European Americans, who have spent centuries on this continent working to develop one of the most prosperous, innovative and successful nations in the history of mankind, should not be forced to feel guilt and shame for crimes they never committed by a government which they have never chosen to participate in.

The solution, as usual, is to remove the role the State is utilizing to manage the personal lives of its victims.

The people do not need the State to decide for them what to worship, how to worship, who to revere or when to remember. That role and responsibility belong to us as individuals to do so as we see fit. Our governing authority is our conscience and a monopolization of force isn’t required for us to remember what is dear to us.

By choosing either Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s Day, the State chooses for its victims what they should honor or revere. The Conservatives do so at the risk of causing offense to Native Americans and Liberals to delight at removing symbols of Western Civilization from public view. It is not only possible, but it is also preferable, to celebrate one people with taking away from another.

The Liberals want to take away from the Europeans. The Conservatives want to deny the Indigenous Americans. Libertarians, as usual, want everyone to do whatever they want as long as they aren’t hurting anyone.

I responded in a series of lengthy comments, to which he replied, "I sense a LITD post emerging from this."

So here goes:

Oh, man. As with libertarian views on so many things, I can see the arguments for this. But the fact is that the whole foundation of Western civilization - and its crowning achievement, the United States of America - rests upon certain traits of the human character that the West exhibited most prominently - in the case of Columbus, European explorers hiring crews and hopping into ships to check out this huge land mass they'd heard about. That insatiable curiosity that eventually took us to the moon.

That, of course, is not the end-all nor be-all of it. But consider the even more essentially Western contributions to human advancement: the Judeo-Christian strain that gave us our moral anchor, and the Greco-Roman strain that gave us the concept of representative democracy. The possibility of that reaching the shores of the New World became a reality due to these early explorers laying everything on the line to come check the New World out.

Short version: this Italian cartographer and sailor was indispensable to these two continents becoming Westernized. I think it's perfectly appropriate for our government to officially recognize that fact.

Think about the core thing that you guys (libertarians) and us folks (conservatives) agree on: the primacy of freedom as a condition for human well-being. Wasn't a thing anywhere in the New World at the time.

 I won't deny that it is touchy. To what extent are we going to allow government, with its monopoly on the legitimate use of force, to proclaim, "This is what we as a people should value"? But in this case, we are celebrating a significant milestone in the opening up of humankind's ability to even ask such a question.

Plus, the cat had balls. You can't deny that.