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Colombus - What was he?
Hero 8 (38.1%)
Villian 6 (28.6%)
Mis-understood 7 (33.3%)
Total Votes: 21
Colombus Day
Topic Started: Oct 12 2009, 12:36 PM (255 Views)
New Harumf
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
What say you?
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Sedulius
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I say misunderstood, for he was both a hero and a villain, but most people don't know this because most people are not very knowledgeable.
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Ulgania
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Misunderstood. I think he was conniving as all living hell, but I don't think conniving should count as evil.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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Oh come on!

Colombus was one of the worst tyrants in history. He kicked off a new era of rampant imperialism and warfare by stealing land from it's occupants. When given the chance to govern he used barbaric acts of violence and torture.

He was a greedy, amoral opportunist.

How was he, in anyway, a hero?

First to discover America? No.
First to say the Earth was round? No.
Accurately mapped the size of the Earth? No.
First to discover a new trade route to India - what he set out to do? No.

Really, someone, please, tell me what heroic deeds Columbus did.
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flumes
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Nag Ehgoeg
Oct 12 2009, 04:01 PM
He was a greedy, amoral opportunist.
To me, that is a heroic trait... ^^
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Nag Ehgoeg
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flumes
Oct 12 2009, 04:10 PM
Nag Ehgoeg
Oct 12 2009, 04:01 PM
He was a greedy, amoral opportunist.
To me, that is a heroic trait... ^^
...

Yeah, I keep forgetting that "Hero" is desirable to the "normal" world.

Columbus was a success. A greedy, scheming SOB - and it paid off.

Villain, through and through - doesn't mean I don't respect the man.
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Telosan
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Villain. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't have not had off today like the majority of the American school-going population.
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NRE
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Map Tsar and Southern Gentleman

I dunno, I rather like my life and had it not been for Columbus, the set of events which put me where I am today may have never been. Thus, he's a hero...at least for me :P
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Sedulius
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Perhaps he was not the first to discover America, but it was his specific discovery of the Americas that began a new age of exploration. That is why he is considered a hero. It's really quite simple.
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Allesandra
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I really don't see how he discovered America. I mean, he thought he had discovered India. And then he got the inhabitants, the real Americans, infected with disease, causing their population to severely dwindle, just like the Spaniards did later on.

He really isn't the founder of America. He's just a guy who went looking for a way to India and mistook the little patch of land for it.
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Tristan da Cunha
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It was a rather large and significant patch of land.
Edited by Tristan da Cunha, Oct 13 2009, 10:30 PM.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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Tristan da Cunha
Oct 13 2009, 10:18 PM
It was a rather large and significant patch of land.
Cuba and the West Indies are actually pathetically tiny swaths of land. Especially considering that they're right next to America. I mean, I guess one could make the argument that his voyage also discovered Mexico and by extension America (that's what you yanks celebrate after all right?) but did Columbus ever even set foot in what is now the US of A?
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Sedulius
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You don't get it. It's not about what he discovered. It's about what his discoveries caused. Were it not for his actions, it may have been quite a while before Europeans started extensively exploring the world.

That said, he was "a bastard-coated bastard with bastard filling, lightly dusted with bastard", due to his actions against the native populace. But then again, consider several Europeans would have done the same thing. Worse depravities happened in Europe within that century and the next.
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New Harumf
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Bloodthirsty Unicorn
Colombus never set foot on anything that is American with the exception of, perhaps, the American Virgin Islands. Don't even think he made it to Mexico. But . . . . . . he did lead the way! I personally don't think Colombus deliberately gave anyone small pox (and the indians gave the Europeans syphillis, so that kinda evens things out, eh?) or deliberately wiped out the first tribe he contacted. He just wanted to be famous and rich!
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Telosan
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Quote:
 
Cuba and the West Indies are actually pathetically tiny swaths of land. Especially considering that they're right next to America. I mean, I guess one could make the argument that his voyage also discovered Mexico and by extension America (that's what you yanks celebrate after all right?) but did Columbus ever even set foot in what is now the US of A?
Actually, he did discover Mexico, though he never set foot on it. Columbus made several voyages, and few from the islands themselves. One of his voyages brought him the the Yucatan and he followed the coastline north before having to turn back for lack of provisions and sickness. He never got around to returning.
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Tristan da Cunha
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Nag Ehgoeg
Oct 14 2009, 12:41 PM
Tristan da Cunha
Oct 13 2009, 10:18 PM
It was a rather large and significant patch of land.
Cuba and the West Indies are actually pathetically tiny swaths of land. Especially considering that they're right next to America. I mean, I guess one could make the argument that his voyage also discovered Mexico and by extension America (that's what you yanks celebrate after all right?) but did Columbus ever even set foot in what is now the US of A?
The best way to describe it is that Columbus is celebrated for discovering "The New World" - a semi mystical concept, almost a state of mind. Sedulius has it right.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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Sedulius
Oct 14 2009, 01:38 PM
You don't get it. It's not about what he discovered. It's about what his discoveries caused. Were it not for his actions, it may have been quite a while before Europeans started extensively exploring the world.

That said, he was "a bastard-coated bastard with bastard filling, lightly dusted with bastard", due to his actions against the native populace. But then again, consider several Europeans would have done the same thing. Worse depravities happened in Europe within that century and the next.
So it's not about him as a person, it's not about what he achieved, it's about what happened because of him?

Then Hitler is the greatest Hero the world has ever known.

Jet aircraft, ballistic missiles, atomic weapons, new breeds of tank and naval ship, mathematical aerodynamics (and therefore space flight), the proximity fuze, the rise of sonar and radar, microwave ovens, radar jamming, the Jerrycan, synthetic rubber, hydrogen peroxide (and therefore fuel-cell technology and synthetic fuel technology), and let's not forget penicillin (and thus most antibiotics)!

All because Hitler, another bastard-coated bastard with bastard filling, lightly dusted with bastard caused all these things to be invented (by starting a great big war). Were it not for his actions, it would have been quite a while before we could harness all of these cool inventions. :rolleyes:

You worship Columbus because gov'ment says so, because it's a pleasant distraction that can further national pride (unlike, say, celebrating Cabot who actually "discovered" America). In Europe, Columbus is recognised as an explorer and nothing more - even in Spain.

Columbus's actions are a great deal less "world changing" than many other historical figures. They were morally neutral at best and the man was not American, did not discover where you live and otherwise achieved nothing but to start a gold-rush land-grab. Which would lead to conflict between the natives and between the Europeans and lay the twisted foundations of the American Civil War and, indeed, the multi-cultural problems facing the USA today.

He knew the world was round, because everyone knew that.
He miscalculated the circumference of the world, when it was easily calculated by experience navigators.
He failed to discover India.
He was an abusive slave driver and a drunk.
He was a scheming opportunist out to make a buck.

Yes, his discoveries caused the colonisation of America.
Yes, his discoveries prompted useful things like the Magellan Expedition.

I'm not disputing that his life was not without benefit, but to laud an incompetent tyrant because of what his actions prompted is nonsensical at best.

tl;dr

lulwut? More good happened "because of" Hitler than it did from Columbus. Doesn't make Hitler a hero.

Suicide is what makes Hitler an hero.
Edited by Nag Ehgoeg, Oct 15 2009, 04:43 PM.
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Rhadamanthus
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Actually, I would be up for instituting Cabot day in place of Colombus day. Is that an option?
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Tristan da Cunha
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Nag Ehgoeg
 
You worship Columbus because gov'ment says so, because it's a pleasant distraction that can further national pride (unlike, say, celebrating Cabot who actually "discovered" America). In Europe, Columbus is recognised as an explorer and nothing more - even in Spain.

Columbus's actions are a great deal less "world changing" than many other historical figures. They were morally neutral at best and the man was not American, did not discover where you live and otherwise achieved nothing but to start a gold-rush land-grab. Which would lead to conflict between the natives and between the Europeans and lay the twisted foundations of the American Civil War and, indeed, the multi-cultural problems facing the USA today.


Contrary to your apparent belief Columbus isn't celebrated for discovering the US. In the US he is celebrated for his explorations, just as he is recognized in Europe.
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Nag Ehgoeg
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Well we don't have a holiday for it. (Maybe the French do - but they have a holiday for everything.)
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Filo
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As American native suppoter i should say Villain, but i belive that as man of his times he cannot feel what we feel today.

However i think Columbus day should not be celebrated.
Not only to respect for Natives(politically correct and i know how someone don't love politically correct), but more important because it is a great misunderstanding.
It is not Colombo that find america for first and it is not Colombo that recognize that America was a continemnt for its own.

so...why?
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