Being ungrateful and not being able to apologize when wrong are two deadly relationship characteristics of any person. Anyone with these two characteristics would be gone as a friend in my book. Christopher Columbus has been disparaged and insulted from the very beginning with the Spanish authorities for whom he brought fame and fortune. Indeed, he was treated like a criminal, arrested and jailed in Spain. At his funeral, no Spanish official attended. He died without honor, or thanks. Jesus made this statement about being a prophet; “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.”(Mark:6).
For many in the United States, Columbus is now persona non grata; his holiday of October 12 has been cancelled. After the George Floyd riots, thug rioters destroyed numerous statues. Abraham Lincoln is number one with 193 taken down, George Washington is second with 171 and Christopher Columbus is third. Much of this is done by people who are totally ignorant and ungrateful of what these great men did or accomplished. There are cities and countries named after Columbus, as in Ohio and Georgia but if you asked some of these rioters for whom were these cities and countries named for, they probably could not answer it. During the Iraq war, General David Petraeus, who defeated the insurgency and saved many of our troop’s lives, was reviled by the Democrats who opposed George Bush. They called him General “betray us.” These are not serious people. They are not grateful nor able to apologize; they are the worst of any citizens.
We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. In the United States, we stand on the shoulders of the most brilliant men who have ever lived: The founders of our country; people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton and others such as Abraham Lincoln. We owe a debt of gratitude to these men, yet in the recent past, clueless people have tried to erase these men, simply for the fact that they once owned slaves, or do not meet the today’s “woke” standard. If any of these people had any knowledge of history, they would have known that owning slaves in those days was like owning a car today. It was a custom of the day. You cannot measure a society of the past with today’s measure; it must be done in context. As Jesus said to the those who wanted to stone the woman caught in adultery: “let him/her who is without sin, throw the first stone.” No one did.
Today history is not taught in schools, or at least it is done poorly or not at all. Children are taught to be “woke” instead and use “the right pronoun.” How would you like it if the doctor who is to perform brain surgery on you, never learned how to do it, but was taught “wokeism” instead? This is what happens when we fail to teach history, we have spoiled rotten people who destroy statues. Mao Zedong erased thousands of years of great Chinese history so he could remake China in the image of communism. All those who came before him were deleted.
If you send someone to do a random street interview on any street or university campus and ask questions about our forefathers, I will guess that very few would answer correctly. Who was Christopher Columbus? An explorer or someone who oppressed indigenous people. Well, look at any society and see if they committed some sins? What was their final product? Did the United States oppress any people? Perhaps, but with whom can you compare what the United States stands for today? Cuba, North Korea, Russia? These tyrannical countries oppress people to this day. Have you tried visiting Russia or North Korea? Chances are you would end up as a hostage, like the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovic and Paul Whelan, the ex-Marine currently in Russian jails. Which country has a clean record on sins? Let the one who is without sin throw out the first stone. Why are people from all over the world crashing our borders to get in? Is it because the United States is an oppressor or because this is where you will find freedom and prosperity? Why is no one storming North Korea or Cuba? They have free health care there.
In the late 1980s a very fine documentary was done and broadcast on public television, called “The Magnificent Voyage of Christopher Columbus. Broadcast on PBS by WGBH Boston and nationwide in the early 1990s. The Original was seven hours long. A two-hour summary is still available on Amazon for less than $5. This is what should be shown in schools. Click here for the link. Somehow, I don’t think many woke teachers would do this. Some may. I’ll cross my fingers.
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