Columbus Day; Indigenous Peoples Day

Today I am celebrating Columbus Day.  It is a Federal holiday.  It celebrates the courageous feat of a daring and persistent explorer Christopher Columbus who, with his 3 small ships the Pinta, the Niña, and the Santa Maria, discovered or rediscovered the land we now call America.  He found this place that the people of Europe did not know existed.

His discovery was enormous and something to be lauded in the same way that we laud the manned moon landing.  The consequences of this discovery were not all positive, and those people who were living here already, their ancestors having discovered it much earlier, suffered many negative consequences as the result of European exploration that one can argue would not have occurred but for Columbus’s journey.

But that does not diminish Columbus’s feat itself.  And, I celebrate his courage and ability to seek beyond what is known and to fearlessly go where he believed no one had previously been.  

Most every action has both foreseen and unforeseen consequences.  I do not believe that many of the negative consequences experienced by Native Americans were  foreseen or intended by Columbus.  For example, how would he have known that people living in this country would contract smallpox?  How is he responsible for the actions of Spaniards 100 or more years after his journey?

My state, like some others, has replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.  The intent is to celebrate those peoples that we refer to as Native Americans who believe that Columbus’s journey resulted in a variety of negative consequences for them.  I have no problem with the concept behind this.  I believe that Native Americans can and should express their perceptions of and feelings about Columbus and his consequences and should educate those of us who are not Native American about those views.

But, why do we have to blot out Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day?  Why not have both?  We can celebrate and learn about the feat of a great explorer on one day, and on another day we can celebrate and learn about the people who were living here before Christopher Columbus.  Both are a part of our country’s history.  And history is important not only as a way to understand the past, but to understand why the past unveiled itself as it did and what effects that past still has on us in the present.  And history can also help us to make more thoughtful and better decisions in the future.

Moreover, I think that the use of the word Indigenous is erroneous.  In my state we have several Pueblo Peoples as well as other Indian Reservations, all inhabited by people whose ancestors were in this country before Columbus, but who, it is believed, originally came to this country from elsewhere – mostly from Asia across the land bridge that once existed during the Ice Age. 

Indigenous means something that occurs naturally in a given place or environment.  Merriam Webster clarifies the difference between the terms NATIVE, INDIGENOUS, ENDEMIC, ABORIGINAL, all of which refer in one way to something or someone belonging to a locality. NATIVE implies birth or origin in a place or region and may suggest compatibility with it.  INDIGENOUS applies to that which is not only native but which, as far as can be determined, has never been introduced or brought from elsewhere.  ENDEMIC implies being peculiar to a region.  ABORIGINAL implies having no known others preceding in occupancy of a particular region.   

I would argue that the Native Americans whom the Indigenous Peoples Day is intended to honor, are not indigenous since they originally migrated to this country from elsewhere.  The better term would be Native or Aboriginal.  I think that this misnomer does not cloud the current understanding of the purpose of the day.  But, it does blot out another key fact of history – the fact that while the Native Americans were likely the first to settle in this country, they are not indigenous but simply arrived well before any others.

Many years ago, when I was in elementary school, I learned about Columbus and his great voyage of discovery.  I learned about the negative impact that his discovery had on many native peoples.  I learned about the Asian origins of our Native American populations.  I learned about the positive and the negative consequences of European settlement of this country.  But, this fuller version of history is no longer acceptable.  Instead we seem to want good guys and bad guys and no grey area in between.  We blot out those whom we have determined to be “bad” (in this case Columbus, making him the representative for every perceived evil of European exploration and conquest in this country).  We ignore facts that don’t fully fit our purposes or our narrative (for example,  that Native Americans are ultimately not indigenous, having migrated here from Asia centuries ago). 

History, like life, is complicated.  We can celebrate Columbus, his exploratory feat and the fact that without his introduction of this part of the world we likely would not have the United States of America, probably the greatest country ever and a shining beacon of democracy for the rest of the world.  And, we can understand that other consequences of Columbus's journey brought great pain to those people already living here; we can listen to their stories and try to understand their feelings and why they may not want to rejoice in Columbus and his “discovery.” 

But, that is the beauty of America.  We allow and are tolerant of many viewpoints.  We can have Columbus Day and we are free to celebrate or not.  We can also have Indigenous Peoples Day as a time to celebrate and understand those who lived here first.  We can have both.  America does not blot out one view, one piece of history, in favor of another.  It accepts all.  And we should too.  So, while I am not opposed to Indigenous Peoples Day, I am opposed to it replacing Columbus Day.  Both Columbus and our indigenous or native peoples are a part of our history to be both celebrated and understood.  Our feelings or judgments about one should not and cannot eradicate the other.

So, happy Columbus Day and happy Indigenous Peoples Day.  May you celebrate one or both or neither as you choose, but may you learn about the people and the history of both.

Being Played

The Democrats need you – every one of you.  They need you to give them back their power – the power that they have in the past and will in the future use only to further turning you into what they think you should be without consideration of your own thoughts and desires.  Their games include identity politics, name-calling toward those who don’t worship them, self-righteous disdain of anyone who supports anyone but them, working emotion against reason, and the creation of narratives that may or may not be based upon fact and truth to prove to everyone why they are better than the rest of us and why, therefore, we should hand them the reins of power over our lives.

Let’s consider their never-ending war against Trump, a man who they consider not good enough to be in places they would call home.  A man whose truth telling (and often abrasive) statements they cannot abide.  Trump, a man who beat their presidential candidate, not because Russia rigged the election, but because the American people saw fit to elect him (those same people whom the Democrats call deplorable, ignorant, stupid, racist, and many other negative epithets).  Those people, those “idiots” perhaps saw that President Trump would do more for them than the Democrats have ever been able to accomplish, in terms of economy, opportunity, and safety.

And, that is what the Democrats simply cannot deal with:  lowest minority unemployment ever, better jobs and opportunities for women and men, an economy that is creating jobs and more importantly hope.  A government that enforces all laws equally rather than play favorites based on identity or other criteria.  A country that is not afraid to stand up to other counties in the world to make us all safer.  A President that tells it like it is and then gets stuff done.

At a loss about how to handle this, how to recover their power, the Democrats, rather than cheer what is good and getting better in America, rather than learn from how and why things are looking up for so many Americans,  choose instead to try to destroy he who is leading this positive charge along with any and all that support him or simply do not join the Left in their unending hate and attacks against all that is good.

So, the Democrats are on a mission to convince you that the country is evil, the President is evil, and all who support him or his policies are equally evil.  That, you see, appears to be the only way that they might hope to regain power in 2020.

Let us consider their war.  There is the war on American history.  Because the country has not been perfect in the past, nor is it now, nor will it likely ever be, the Democrats would have us discard it as some evil place where only hatred has ever existed.  (I suggest here the known psychological factor that we see the world through our own eyes – hence, those who hate will of course see only hate).  They are incapable of seeing the many positives and all the hope that America has given to millions over the years. 

The most recent example:  one of the greatest achievements of Man – putting a person on the moon, is now dismissed as some sort of sexist adventure because there were not enough women involved in the project (no understanding that this was the 60s and there has been an evolution of women, their careers and achievements, since then – something that can happen because of and not in spite of our country and its government). 

The Democrats hope to foment enough hate of this country that you will award them the power to remake it completely placing all power in themselves and their hatred of all that America and its people stand for.

Then there is the war on the 2016 election.  The Democrats really thought they would oust the President based on collusion and conspiracy theories.  The evidence was not and is not there.  But, that does not yet stop them.  Indeed, this coming Wednesday they will try to wring something new, or something out of context, from Mr. Mueller that they can trade for impeachment, or at least a surge in their favor and against the President. 

Mr. Nadler has indicated he intends to take sentences out of the Mueller report, read them without the surrounding context, and ask Mr. Mueller if that would support a charge of obstruction or collusion or simply impeachment.  That’s like charging me and a friend for conspiracy to rob a bank for saying “that bank could be robbed easily” when, if context were revealed, we might simply have noted poor security compared with other banks in which we were considering placing our funds.  But, the real goal here is to convince you that the President, like the country he loves, is evil and therefore must be removed.

The border.  The Democrats love to use the border to assault the President, to call him racist, supremacist, Nazi, inhumane, and any number of other names.  Yet, it is their very actions that have created both the immigration and humanitarian crisis at the border.  Due to their demands that children not be kept in custody and families be released together before adjudication of their asylum claim, it is known by those seeking illegal entry that a child gets you out of custody and into the country where you can then probably hide for years. 

So, children are being rented, bought, trafficked as up to 30% of families entering turn out not to be families at all.  Some children have crossed up to a dozen times as their adults' get out of jail free card.  Do the Democrats care about these children?  NO.  Rather, they will use a picture of a crying child to promote more hatred of the President.  This, while they withhold funds that would help that crying child and many others.  The border, and the children there, are of no consequence to the Democrats (who were not at all upset with similar conditions when they had their man, Obama, in power).  What matters to the Democrats is how these children can be used to stir up yet more hatred against their opposition and hence be useful in their own return to power.

They create a catch-22 sort of situation.  Withhold funds necessary to prevent a crisis at the border, then blame the Administration along with Border Control Agents for the crisis.  Yet, once even the meager funding that the Democrats finally agreed to reached the border, there was an immediate and deeply measurable improvement.  Yet, they would have you believe any imperfect condition is the result of the President alone, presenting this as another reason for you to distance yourself from him.  And yes, without any evidence, they claim the entire problem is due to racism, hoping you will not want to see yourself supporting someone whom they have labeled and convicted (without evidence but simply with their narrative) as racist.

And, now, the Squad, “If you don’t like it leave it,” and racism.  First, the Tweet suggesting that if people hated this country so much perhaps they should go from whence they came, improve that country, and return to show us how it’s done, is not in and of itself a racist statement.  Inflammatory yes; perhaps better left un-tweeted or said differently, yes; but, not undeniably racist.  Similar words may have been used in a racist manner in the past – that does not automatically make this Tweet racist.  And yet, the word “racist” has been affixed to it with some sort of permanent bond.  The Tweet is referred to by media and others as “the President’s racist tweet” (even the conservative host of Firing Line began her interview with Ted Cruz by asking him about the “racist tweet”). 

Here is the problem with that one-sided determination that the Tweet is racist:  it allows for no alternative viewpoint or opinion.  It is like asking “why don’t you stop beating your wife?”  If asked that question, one is already presumed to be a wife-beater, so must prove he is not before he can argue he therefore does not need to stop.  In the instance of the Tweet, when one is asked why they don’t condemn the “racist tweet” one must first prove that it is a reasonable interpretation that it is not racist before one can argue that they therefore need not condemn it.

But, here again the Democrats, with their media minions, have established the President as racist without real proof, but hope that by simply bombarding us with that sentiment they will convince us that he is and that we, not wanting to be considered racist by association, will drop our support of him.

Convincing us that the President is racist is especially important to the Democrats as they see their hold on minority votes slipping.  They forget that minorities, like the rest of us, are capable of seeing, thinking, and assessing what is really going on.  In the end, actions will always speak louder than words, and the President’s actions, for minorities, for women, for everyone in this country are to all our benefit, unlike those words and promises of Democrats that are useful only to build a dependent underclass who will continue to give power to those who do not really have that underclass’s best interests at heart.

Yes, the Democrats need you.  They need you to give them the power they seek.  It seems the only way they can think to cause you to do that is to instill in you the hatred that they seem to have for this country and every one and thing within it that is not them or useful to them.   They are playing you.

Theirs is a campaign of hate: enough hate and you will be willing to give them what they want.  Hate the country enough and you will gladly let them destroy it; hate the President enough and you will gladly oust him from office one way or another; hate the good that he has done for the country and the people and you will gladly let the Democrats reverse all that. 

The Democrats think you are stupid enough to accept what they tell you without more.  Don’t buy their hate.  They are selling you lies and ugliness but you are being played by their well-choreographed narratives along with their minions who distort and conceal the Truth from your view.  Don’t let them play you.