They’re tearing down America — one tradition, one institution, one standard, one statue at a time. The latest victim, aside from the posterity that may be robbed of glorious Western culture, is a Christopher Columbus statue that for 45 years had stood in Los Angeles’ Grand Park, until some lesser angels with grand ambitions wouldn’t stand for its presence. So intense is their hatred, in fact, that they appear to want the statue destroyed completely, never to be seen again.
As Los Angeles Magazine reported November 10 in “Downtown L.A.’s Christopher Columbus Statue Is Being Removed for Good” (for ill, actually):
In October, the bronze statue depicting Christopher Columbus at Grand Park was completely hidden from view during Los Angeles’ inaugural celebration of Indigenous Peoples Day. Today it was announced that the statue will be permanently removed on Saturday, November 10.
Beginning at 8:30 a.m., Angelenos are invited to gather for “a news conference and removal of the statue […] near Stanley Mosk Courthouse between Hill Street and Grand Avenue” in DTLA, according to an email advisory released by the office of Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell.
“It’s a natural next step of eliminating the false narrative that Columbus was a benign discoverer who helped make this country what it is,” O’Farrell says over the phone. “His statue and his image is really representative of someone who committed atrocities and helped initiate the greatest genocide ever recorded in human history, so the fact that his statue is coming down is the next step in the natural progression.”
Whether O’Farrell is merely ignorant or actually a liar is unknown, but the false narrative is his. First, Columbus helped “make this country,” period. Without his voyages of discovery, Europeans never would have “bravely migrated” to the New World “in search of a better life,” as the Left puts it when speaking of illegal aliens; this means there wouldn’t have been any Founding Fathers and, hence, no United States. (Was that logic too painfully white, male, and linear?)
This may please the Antifa ne’er-do-wells who protest shouting, “No borders, no wall, no USA at all,” but it’s a fact. Of course, someone after Columbus would no doubt have discovered the New World had he not done so, and then we’d be honoring (and now dishonoring) that man.
That is, unless the Chinese somehow got here first and made North America the farthest reaches of its empire. Regardless, the American Indians were a stone-age culture in 1492 — some entity was eventually going to conquer their lands.
Even more outrageous is the “genocide” accusation. First, some claim Columbus was a victim of false accusations regarding his treatment of New World natives, as I explain in the comprehensive essay “Killing Columbus: Seeking the ‘Undiscovery’ of America.” But then there’s the bigger picture. As I wrote in that essay:
There certainly were a great number of American Indian deaths after the Europeans’ arrival, but most of these were due to disease, notably smallpox. This often occurs when new populations mix for the first time because one (or more) may not have an immunity to disease carried by another. This phenomenon has killed countless millions throughout history, including Europeans. For example, the Black Death, which wiped out one-third to one-half of Europe’s population during medieval times, came from Asia. Smallpox itself likely originated in Egypt and once killed 30 percent of its victims in the Old World; in fact, it might have hastened the decline of the Roman Empire, even claiming one of its most famous emperors, Marcus Aurelius.
Note, too, that germ theory wasn’t even proposed (let alone proven) until 40 years after Columbus’ death. Thus, he is being condemned for creating a phenomenon that he could not possibly have even understood.
As for our lack of understanding, few today grasp the magnitude of Columbus’ accomplishments. Aside from his actions leading to the birth of a nation that would vanquish the Nazis and Soviets and spread representative government the world over, they also led to what’s known as the “Columbian Exchange.” As Biography.com explained in 2014:
Columbus’ expeditions set in motion the widespread transfer of people, plants, animals, diseases, and cultures that greatly affected nearly every society on the planet. The horse from Europe allowed Native American tribes in the Great Plains of North America to shift from a nomadic to a hunting lifestyle. Wheat from the Old World fast became a main food source for people in the Americas. Coffee from Africa and sugar cane from Asia became major cash crops for Latin American countries. And foods from the Americas, such as potatoes, tomatoes and corn, became staples for Europeans and helped increase their populations.
…The overwhelming benefits of the Exchange went to the Europeans initially and eventually to the rest of the world.
To fully gain perspective, however, it must be reiterated that 15th-century Europeans had no idea the New World even existed. Its discovery was akin to someone today finding and visiting another planet, more magnificent than Earth herself, on the other side of the sun. Fanciful? Well, that’s the magnitude of Columbus’ achievements. It was a seminal point in man’s history.
Yet today’s civilizational self-rape is a seminal point in ours. Statues of Columbus, Confederates, and others are being torn down while those of our Founding Fathers are in the crosshairs. Western history, traditions, and culture are demeaned in media, entertainment, and academia. The aforementioned O’Farrell isn’t even satisfied with merely removing Columbus from public view in Los Angeles; he wants the statue “deaccessioned.” This apparently means you wouldn’t be allowed to view it anywhere — not even in a museum.
But just as with the French revolutionaries’ new calendar (starting in 1789), China’s Red Guards in the ’60s, and the ’70s Khmer Rouge and their “Year Zero,” this is what cultural “devolutionaries” do: wipe away the past so they can socially re-engineer the future.
As to this, there are now five statues of Bolshevik Revolution father Vladimir Lenin in the United States, one of Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Ché” Guevara in New York City’s Central Park, and one of Star Wars character Yoda in San Francisco’s Presidio Park.
But the last is appropriate in a time when we’re exchanging facts for ahistorical fictions. As for hating Columbus because some misdeeds attended his triumphs, you may as well lament that your parents met because they made some mistakes while raising you. Since there’d be no “you” without their meeting, this attitude would only be taken if you hated yourself. This provides a strong clue as to why the cultural devolutionaries despise the fact that Columbus met the New World.
Photo of Grand Park Christopher Columbus statue: palewire / Wikimedia Commons
