The Quiet Conservative October 12, 2009
Happy Columbus Day!
This is the day we used to celebrate Christopher Columbus discovering America. Now we know it as a
day of sorrow for evil European male hegemony. Nasty white people were busy pushing their culture
on unsuspecting indigenous people who wanted nothing more than to live in harmony with nature. At
least that is what I gathered from the Associated Press article on Yahoo titled "A Darker Side of
Columbus Emerges in US Classrooms." If you must, look the article up and read it. I usually allow
such bilge to pass and only occasionally am drawn in to point out the obvious failings of writers to do
even basic research. This almost was the case with this AP article. Or, I could go in depth in the
article where people paid to be educators of children are instead indoctrinators of socialism, liberalism,
multiculturalism, or whatever 'ism' hates America and its history. I could lament how the Associated
Press used to be a syndicated news service and now is something so much less.
Instead, it is Columbus Day. So I will celebrate Christopher Columbus, the day, and America by giving
you just a bit different perspective of the man in his times. Something the delicate politically correct
revisionists won't in the public arena. I will give you a history lesson, (Don't worry, its short.)
The discovery of America by Columbus doesn't begin with the voyage in 1492, but with the birth of
Mohammed in 570 A.D. The rise of the cult of Islam was spread with conquest. The Koran or the
sword was the option as this plague swept out of the tribal wars of Mecca and Medina and spread its
destruction across the East. When any liberal or public school graduate thinks of Turkey, Syria, Egypt,
or even Palestine, they think of Muslim nations. It wasn't the case. Before the coming of Islam these
areas were Christian. One by one the nations with the religion of salvation, love, and mercy were
conquered and put to the sword by the religion of submission or death.
As the lights went out across the ancient world- where they have now been dimmed for over a
thousand years, the desire for conquest continued. In 642 the Library of Alexander scrolls, still fabled
for the knowledge of the ancient world, were burned by Muslim conquerors to heat bathwater for
troops. Across the lands like locusts this cult spread up into the Balkans, down into India, across into
China, and westward over Spain and Sicily. Finally the high tide of conquest and slaughter ended with
the Battle of Tours (France) in 732 when Charles Martel crushed the Muslim invaders. Do you
remember when that battle occurred? The fact you do not face East five times a day comes from this
turning back of barbarism. The date was October 10, 732. Did you see it mentioned in the news
Saturday? I didn't. Nor will you. This is a short history lesson so it wouldn't do to tell you how the
Crusades were actually in response to Muslim aggression and not the other way around. Nor would it
do to describe the Renaissance as kicked off by intellectuals fleeing Muslim conquest and settling in
Europe. You will have to find older textbooks that predate revisionism to find those facts.
So what does that have to do with Christopher Columbus and the discovery of America? Everything.
You see, Islamic hordes invaded Spain and conquered most of it. It took eight hundred years to take it
all back ending with the final expulsion of the Berbers from Grenada in 1492. Now a unified Spain
under a Catholic monarchy controlled the country. Enter Christopher Columbus, from Genoa, Italy.
That's right, he wasn't Spanish. But that is a side point to the issue of the history lesson. What is
important, but not mentioned anywhere by anyone even remotely concerned with political correctness,
is why did Christopher Columbus sail west across the seas with three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the
Santa Maria?
In 1453 the Ottoman Turks finally conquered Christian Constantinople, shutting down the trade route
from Medieval Europe from India and the far East and plunging the Middle East into its final darkness.
The Muslims now effectively cut off Europe from the rest of the world. What Europe wanted was a
sea route to the East not controlled by Muslims. The previously known routes now meant slavery or
death. Christopher Columbus, seeking patronage, applied to the Catholic Monarchy for that patronage
for his theory of a sea route to Asia.
There is a modern myth that people at that time believed the Earth was flat. It is a modern myth.
People in Columbus's era knew full well the Earth was round. Any person watching a ship sail over the
horizon knew it. It was well known in writings hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus. In St.
Thomas Aquinas's work Summa Theologica written in the 13th century, he mentions in passing the
Earth being round as if everyone knew that. But what wasn't known to Europeans when looking out
to sea was what was over that Western horizon.
This is the point where we get to celebrate Christopher Columbus. He took three ships with no
knowledge of what was over that horizon, with no modern navigational aids and no map, and sailed
over that horizon into the unknown.
Revisionists can smear the man now that he has been dead for over five hundred years, but they do so
only to show how small and smug they are. The AP article has academics talking about
multiculturalism and smallpox and slavery. But they do so with a 21st century hubris and intellectual
dishonesty. Take a moment today to look up Christopher Columbus. Read about his life and the life
and times in which he lived. Read about the politics, the fighting, the greed, the maneuvering of the
powerful for position. There is a lot more than a quick hit piece by the AP there to digest.
Then, celebrate the man and the day. Think of exploring. Think of what is beyond the next horizon.
Think of if you would have the courage and the drive to go over that horizon with no knowledge of
what you would meet. If some mealy mouthed revisionist wants to denigrate Christopher Columbus,
simply ask: "What have you done?"
Happy Christopher Columbus Day!