• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Seattle Changes Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples’ Day

Cardinal said:
If they had changed it to "A Jar Full of Peanuts Day" it would have been an improvement over "Columbus Day." Columbus was an amoral ****ing psychopath who (I genuinely hope) doesn't represent our present values.
Click to expand...

We celebrate all sorts of BS that happened in ancient times when practices aren't as they are today. It's history...probably should acknowledge that.
 
Ikari said:
We celebrate all sorts of BS that happened in ancient times when practices aren't as they are today. It's history...probably should acknowledge that.
Click to expand...

Um...what? I'm pointing out the real history behind Columbus beyond the childlike understanding we received from the 2nd grade Christopher Columbus plays most of us performed in ("in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, to prove the world wasn't flat, it was round as can beeeeeee").
 
Cardinal said:
Um...what? I'm pointing out the real history behind Columbus beyond the childlike understanding we received from the 2nd grade Christopher Columbus plays most of us performed in ("in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue, to prove the world wasn't flat, it was round as can beeeeeee").
Click to expand...

Yes, and how many other holidays are centered around periods when there was slavery, by people who were not good folk, or all sorts of other activities that revolved around death and destruction? It happened. Deal with it.
 
Gathomas88 said:
Yah-huh. :lol:

Where? In a few tribes out in the middle of no where?
Click to expand...

You obviously don't leave your house much.

Maya peoples - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Multiple countries, multiple groups - hardly "tribes".

No one cares, dude. Those groups are outliers, who have had little to no influence in shaping the majority culture which now exists in the Americas.

Again, it simply happens to be the case that that culture is overwhelming based around the history and traditions of the European colonists who took over the region, not the native peoples they conquered. Deal with it.
Click to expand...

More nonsense. Have you ever been outside of the US? South and Central America - where Columbus actually reached - were pretty much defined by Native cultures. It's in their celebrations, their historical figures, etc. You're really sounding ignorant now.

I'm sorry, but I simply disagree. There is plenty of reason to celebrate.
Click to expand...

Funny, you can't seem to cite anything other than "It happened!"

Hell! By your logic, why "celebrate" anything at all? There is no event in all of history which has purely served altruistic interests without having negative repercussions for someone else.
Click to expand...

6th attempt to create a ridiculous argument. Let's call this one the "Extremist position". Columbus' arrival to the Americas served a subsequently negative purpose. Trying to link it to events which happened later and had little to do with his arrival is laughable. So again, the facts:

1. He didn't discover the Americas.
2. He didn't know he'd arrived in the Americas.
3. His trip wasn't an exploratory one.

That is simply the nature of the world, and it's not going to change any time soon.
Click to expand...

Yawn. Call me back when you've got something of substance? K.

To Hilter, Stalin, and the Holocaust?
Click to expand...

The creation of Israel as a political state, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, downfall of fascism as an ideology, the list goes on. Again, all events which couldn't have happened because of Hitler, Stalin and yet we don't celebrate their actions. We celebrate later events on their own merits. I'm starting to think you're not being purposely obtuse. You're just dredging up arguments as you see fit.

To the contrary, I am of European descent, and so is my culture.
Click to expand...

Great, you're not an European though. You literally had nothing to do with Christopher Columbus. At all.

Do you imagine that we both simply materialized out of thin air?

I can and will honor that heritage. If you don't like it, tough sh*t.
Click to expand...

Great, don't expect others to not call bull**** on your whitewashing of history though. :shrug:

Are you seriously asking why we celebrate events that happened in the Americas and directly resulted in the creation of our country, and not events that happened half a world away, and did not?

Remind me again, who is being "obtuse" here? :roll:

You keep reposting this frantic screed of your's like it actually means something.

I'm afraid you are mistaken. :lol:
Click to expand...

Your refusal to answer the questions is all I need. From your ridiculous claims that Europeans discovered land that millions of people were living on to the asinine get over it rhetoric, you've been thoroughly exposed. Now you're trying to cower back and fall on the "I'll celebrate it if I want to!" Good. However, the point of this discussion is really a city acknowledging that Columbus was a murderous, psychopathic, merchant (not even an explorer) who didn't know where he was and shouldn't be honored for accidentally getting here and proceeding to murder people. If you don't like it, don't live in Seattle.
 
Ikari said:
Yes, and how many other holidays are centered around periods when there was slavery, by people who were not good folk, or all sorts of other activities that revolved around death and destruction? It happened. Deal with it.
Click to expand...

Are you trolling me? Because I don't normally associate you with trolling.
 
Deuce said:
I don't loathe you, or white people, or America, or myself.
Click to expand...

No, apparently, you're just ashamed of everything they accomplished and stood for, while, again, reaping every benefit imaginable from the society they created.

Yea... That's not a contradiction... At all. :roll:

You are the only one who has used the word. Acknowledging the past isn't damning the present. When you read about World War II, are you filled with hate for present-day Germans? Is it an attack on Germany? Do Germans who loathe Hitler also loathe themselves? I can condemn the actions of Genghis Khan, is that me also hating everyone descended from him? (Which, it turns out, is a huge percentage of the population because that guy got around)
Click to expand...

The Germany of WW1 and WW2 were destroyed, and ultimately replaced with different versions.

What you're doing here would be far more akin to refusing to celebrate the Allied role in winning WW2, because they used terror bombings and atomic weapons to do it.
 
Last edited:
Rainman05 said:
I cannot understand why you would seek to dismember that.
Click to expand...

Exactly. You can't understand why someone would seek to celebrate something that isn't one of the great white men of history. Nobody else deserves that kind of praise, right? Columbus represents adventure, bravery, and exploration. The native people here represent savagery. They run around half naked, don't own property, and can't manage to worship the right god. This whole discussion stems from the fact that our society makes white Christian men represent good things and everyone else represent bad things.
 
Paschendale said:
Exactly. You can't understand why someone would seek to celebrate something that isn't one of the great white men of history. Nobody else deserves that kind of praise, right? Columbus represents adventure, bravery, and exploration. The native people here represent savagery. They run around half naked, don't own property, and can't manage to worship the right god. This whole discussion stems from the fact that our society makes white Christian men represent good things and everyone else represent bad things.
Click to expand...

Nobody is taking that discussion into that direction.

If the natives wish to celebrate an iconic ideal of their own, they are free to do and should be encouraged to do so. Granted, their selection is somewhat more limited due to not having writing... or large permanent settlements where they built great works of art... and massive culture centers... and have ruins of those things or something left that would create some awe and inspire people... I mean the incas have beautiful remnants in the world which you can see, and so do the mayans and the aztecs to a lesser extent, not so much the amerindians... but that's a whole different discussion. Point is, if they want to share some great cultural heritage symbol or something with the rest, who is stopping them? It's still america isn't it? Tell you what though, nobody who subscribes to the cult of permanent offense will get anywhere except through the mercy of others. That's no way to get by in life.

Point is. And this is the kicker right here.
If you keep tearing down ideals and goals, like exploration, bravery and adventure, you will have very little left.
The USA isn't great with food. It's not great at healthcare. It's not what people view as the model of democracy though they do view it as the defender of democracy... it doesn't have a multi-millenary history to put its laurels on, it doesn't have ancient structures and mickey mouse isn't going to be a permanent attraction if it gets replaced by someone else.

What america has is spirit. And that spirit is symbolized in everything that Columbus (not the man in flesh and blood, Columbus the ideal) symbolizes, bravery, ideal, exploration and adventure. And ofc, that spirit also involves a lot more that are all intermingled there. Lose that and you lose america. It's why all the great successs stories that start with "I had nothing but the shirt on my back..." continue with "...when I came to america". If you want an opportunity, best bet to get it is in america. It's not guaranteed, but you can do stuff to make the dice roll in your favor.
Case and point, Elon Musk. He was born in South Africa but he went to america. Why? Because if you want to chase a dream, best chance you have of catching it is in america. Where did he start his groundbreaking businesses that will reinvent the world? In america. Also, because south africa is a dump and it's been going downhill for a while now.
And that's the same spirit Columbus embodies. He wanted to chase a dream and he chased it. Didn't matter what he had to do to chase it, go plead to wealthy patricians that ignored him or tossed him out, had to travel to another country, etc... He's did the most american thing, did everything it took to get an opportunity and when that opportunity happened, he grabbed it. And that's why you should praise.

It's never "I had nothing but the shirt on my back when I came to China" or any other country for that matter. It's always america.
And if you lose that, well, sucks. Coz there is no country you can look at that does that.
 
JoeTrumps said:
Seattle Changes Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day - TIME

gee, I wonder who's running things in Seattle? Where's my thinkin' cap?

I believe we can celebrate "Columbus Day" as the day when "America" first became possible-even if by coincidence. Columbus notwithstanding, even if he is the name attached to the day.

and I can imagine the speeches: Today, on indigenous people's day, we celebrate surrender, being tricked, and discovering that our stone age way of life could not exist when confronted with Renaissance/Modern peoples?
Click to expand...

Meh, we ought to just change it to Federal and Bank Employees get another paid day off holiday aka No Junk Mail Delivery Day.
 
Cardinal said:
If they had changed it to "A Jar Full of Peanuts Day" it would have been an improvement over "Columbus Day." Columbus was an amoral ****ing psychopath who (I genuinely hope) doesn't represent our present values.
Click to expand...

The indigenous people were also "****ing psychopaths", then. The Pre-European-settler Americas were not the pastoral utopia people seem to think.
 
Rainman05 said:
If the natives wish to celebrate an iconic ideal of their own, they are free to do and should be encouraged to do so. Granted, their selection is somewhat more limited due to not having writing....
Click to expand...

For instance, the Lakota Sioux can celebrate their Independence Day to commemorate the great cleansing of the Republican River Valley of the Omaha and Pawnee tribes.
 
:lamo I had no idea people were so passionate about Columbus day.

How exactly do those who are for it celebrate it?
 
jmotivator said:
For instance, the Lakota Sioux can celebrate their Independence Day to commemorate the great cleansing of the Republican River Valley of the Omaha and Pawnee tribes.
Click to expand...

Well sure... but i was thinking some less genocidaly and something everyone can share in. I mean, yes, I know what you're getting at and it's true, there is a selective blindness to people who discuss native americans thinking that they were a bunch of hippies that mean european guy came and dislocated. no, they were killing and raping each other, stealing food and women in hopes of eradicating the other tribe. And I mentioned this several times, but ofc, my respectable interlocutors never replied to that part, always prefering to delete it out of the commentary.


Usually, an independance day or such event, as it is in even in the case of the USA, is to celebrate the end of war, not the war itself and everything within it. It's just about the fact that it ended and there was a resolution to it.
For instance. The 100 years anniversary of ww1 was this year and people didn't remember it because we wanted to celebrate war but to serve as a reminder to not do another such war.
 
americanwoman said:
:lamo I had no idea people were so passionate about Columbus day.

How exactly do those who are for it celebrate it?
Click to expand...

I know many Italians see it as their St. Patrick's day.
 
jmotivator said:
The indigenous people were also "****ing psychopaths", then. The Pre-European-settler Americas were not the pastoral utopia people seem to think.
Click to expand...

Lame attempt to excuse forced conversions, conquest, enslavement and murder.
 
Gathomas88 said:
It not exactly hard to live a "healthier, easier" life than some scurvy ridden sailor who's been stuffed into a leaky, undersized floating wooden box in the middle of the ocean for the last six to eight months with nothing but maggot ridden half-rotten 18th century military rations to eat. :lol:
Click to expand...

Exactly... even when my Buddy Cpt. Cook changed things it still must have sucked...
 
Cardinal said:
Lame attempt to excuse forced conversions, conquest, enslavement and murder.
Click to expand...

The only difference with the "indigenous people" is there was no optional conversion.
 
Cardinal said:
What??

.....
Click to expand...

Murder, slavery and rape were the norm in native American conquest, the only thing on your list that doesn't fit the native American conquest profile is optional religious conversion to avoid the raping, murdering and slavery.
 
jmotivator said:
Murder, slavery and rape were the norm in native American conquest, the only thing on your list that doesn't fit the native American conquest profile is optional religious conversion to avoid the raping, murdering and slavery.
Click to expand...

Evidence of bad behavior of a victim doesn't excuse entirely separate crimes by an assailant. For example, there is no rational court that excuses a rapist because it can be demonstrated that the rape victim slept with multiple partners before the attack, or to excuse a mugger because it could be shown that the mugging victim prior to the attack cheated on his exams in high school. And this isn't solely about law, exactly, but an example of how rational and moral thinking operates. Otherwise, any attack on someone, no matter how egregious, could be justified if only the assailant could just demonstrate that the victim was naughty at some other point in their life. This runs entirely counter to how civilization can even function. With your way of thinking chaos would rule the day.
 
americanwoman said:
:lamo I had no idea people were so passionate about Columbus day.

How exactly do those who are for it celebrate it?
Click to expand...

We have a parade here in NY. Or maybe we had and stopped having it. Dunno.

Lots of Italians look at Columbus as the WOP St Patrick. I'm of Italian descent and I really don't care one way or the other to be honest. If my present employer gives me the day off I say thanks and sleep late. If not I go to work.

On the subject of whether he was an evil bastard or not. Sure he was. Most people back then were by our morality. Especially so for people who tried to get things done.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom