toldailytopic: Columbus: good guy or bad guy?

[MrRadish]

No.

O-kay... with respect, why are you posting on a discussion board if you have no interest in a discussion?

the burden of proof is on those who think he was a bad guy
and
need to explain what he should have done

we on the other hand accept what he had to do as being reasonable under the circumstances

Surely the best way of having a mutually productive, interesting conversation is for all the different points of view to explain as clearly as possible why they think what they do, so that they can read other people's perspectives on it and gain from them even if they don't agree?

I mean, as I've already said, I don't think that Columbus could really be called a 'good guy' or a 'bad guy', but I'm still interested in seeing people's evidence for thinking that he was either. I don't see why you're already treating it like an argument.

 

[chrysostom]

O-kay... with respect, why are you posting on a discussion board if you have no interest in a discussion?



Surely the best way of having a mutually productive, interesting conversation is for all the different points of view to explain as clearly as possible why they think what they do, so that they can read other people's perspectives on it and gain from them even if they don't agree?

I mean, as I've already said, I don't think that Columbus could really be called a 'good guy' or a 'bad guy', but I'm still interested in seeing people's evidence for think that he was either. I don't see why you're already treating it like an argument.

so you want a discussion
but
not an argument

well excuse me

 

[MrRadish]

so you want a discussion
but
not an argument

well excuse me

In my experience the former is much more informative and rewarding than the latter, and much less frustrating.

You're excused.

 

[Spitfire]

Not necessarily a good guy in all he did, but also not quite the horrible villain it's currently fashionable to turn him into.

 

[chrysostom]

Not necessarily a good guy in all he did, but also not quite the horrible villain it's currently fashionable to turn him into.

do you think it would have been possible for a good guy to accomplish what he did?

 

[Buzzword]

Surely the best way of having a mutually productive, interesting conversation is for all the different points of view to explain as clearly as possible why they think what they do, so that they can read other people's perspectives on it and gain from them even if they don't agree?

Yep.

Too bad TOL ain't the place for mutually productive, interesting conversation.

TOL is where dead-horse arguments go to continue the beating.


On Columbus, it's hard to apply current American morality, which has spent the last 250 years profiting from the results of his actions, to what he did in the 14-1500s.

I mean, I live in OKLAHOMA.
aka INDIAN TERRITORY, where millions of people were forced to live after white people decided they wanted their land.
And that was AFTER white people moved through here and tore it all to hell slaughtering bison for their hides.
Then, after they'd sequestered all the little "savages" into a giant concentration camp, they decided they wanted Indian Territory after all, forcing the people imprisoned here to simply dissolve into the selective solvent of white society.

I met my wife in Oklahoma, am getting my college degree in Oklahoma, several of my nieces and nephews were born in Oklahoma.....so it's kind of hard for me to say "America did a bad thing!" when I've spent the last eight years profiting from the results of racism, federal oppression, and outright human slaughter.

 

[chrysostom]

Yep.

Too bad TOL ain't the place for mutually productive, interesting conversation.

TOL is where dead-horse arguments go to continue the beating.

so why do you hang around?

 

[Son of Jack]

so why do you hang around?

Do you disagree with his assessment?

 

[chrysostom]

Do you disagree with his assessment?

no

 

[Nathon Detroit]

Good guy.

I agree.

Not only did he find us this sweet plot of land he also is credited with bringing tobacco back to Europe which led the creation of fine hand-rolled cigars.

 

[Son of Jack]

no

So why didn't you just ask yourself the question you asked him?

 

[eameece]

The TheologyOnline.com TOPIC OF THE DAY for October 10th, 2011 06:38 AM

toldailytopic: Columbus: good guy or bad guy?

Columbus was an important guy. He changed history dramatically by bringing two isolated worlds into collision. For those he conquered and enslaved, he was a bad guy.

 

[chrysostom]

So why didn't you just ask yourself the question you asked him?

I did

 

[Buzzword]

so why do you hang around?

Because every now and then we'll get a topic like this one:
A subject that hasn't been beaten to death many times over, in which there's at least SOME uncertainty regarding who will post what.

 

[Son of Jack]

I did

And how did you answer it?

 

[chrysostom]

And how did you answer it?

I want everyone to vote republican
so
the democratic party is destroyed for supporting abortion
and
I will not pass up an opportunity to say that





didn't you see that coming?

 

[Son of Jack]

I want everyone to vote republican
so
the democratic party is destroyed for supporting abortion
and
I will not pass up an opportunity to say that





didn't you see that coming?

Bye, chrys. Take care of yourself.:wave:

 

[aCultureWarrior]

Native lawsuits would suggest we are taking ownership of our former's exploitations.

You can't steal something that was never their's to begin with.

"The Indians inhabited this country, but they did not occupy it. They wandered over it. In 1841, most of the Indians in the West still lived precariously by hunting, supplemented by a primitive agriculture. Only a few supported themselves entirely by farming, and many of these - notably the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest-are still to be found, more than a hundred years later, where they have been for centuries. But the nomadic Indians, dependent on the chase, soon killed or frightened off all the game in a considerable area. They were forced to keep moving. Such Indians had no more idea of owning land than they did of owning the waters they traversed in their canoes or the air over their heads. It is said that the Indians who disposed of Manhattan for twenty-four dollars were somewhat in the same position as the man who sold the Brooklyn Bridge for ten dollars; they didn't own it, just chanced to be on the island for a week-end fishing trip.
From the beginning, the United States government's policy favored fair dealing with the Indians. But in making treaties white men always assumed that the red men had unenlightened imitations of their own institutions. The government wanted title to land which the Indians were hunting on, took it for granted that the Indians owned it, even convinced them that this was so and they could therefore transfer title. For white men to realize that Indians might have entirely different ideas, ideals, motives and ways of life was inconceivable."
http://www.jcs-group.com/military/war1860/american.html

As far a Columbus goes: Liberals HATE him; that's more than a good enough reason to honor him.

 

[Arthur Brain]

I agree.

Not only did he find us this sweet plot of land he also is credited with bringing tobacco back to Europe which led the creation of fine hand-rolled cigars.

Unfortunately that would have also led to cigarettes.....

lain:

 

[The Horn]

Columbus was neither the great hero some have made him out to be nor the evil monster others, particularly native Americans have think he was.
He was an ambitious entrepreneur who was looking for fame and fortune.
He didn't intentionally set out to commit genocide, as some have accused him of.
It's true, he and his men committed their share of atrocities against the native peoples they encountered, but in this they were no different than people all over the world who have committed atrocities throughout world history.
Others,such as the conquistadors, Cortez and Pizarro, were far more guilty, as they knew where they were and ruthlessly brutalized the natives of South America and Mexico and exploited the land and people for their greed.