Don’t let holiday hijackers discount Christopher Columbus’ contributions

OPINION:

As we wander into another Columbus Day and have to listen to the usual suspects who want to hijack Columbus Day for their own petty political purposes, it might be worth remembering that the potential hijackers face three pretty big challenges.

First, just about all of us are indigenous people. We are native to this land. Most of us were born here and have no other attachments. So, all of the propaganda about “indigenous” people is pretty much nonsense. No matter what ethnicity or tribal attachment you claim, you’ve lived here exactly as long as those citizens who share your birthdate.

You don’t — and shouldn’t — get extra credit just because your parents were born here.

That is the second big challenge faced by those who want to steal Columbus Day: America is supposed to be a place where it doesn’t matter who your parents or grandparents are or were. Nor is it supposed to matter where you are from or not from, for that matter. In this country, descendants of those who came on the Mayflower are not entitled to any more protections under the law, they have no title, and they have no special claim on the nation’s resources.

This nation, happily, resists attempts to create any aristocracies, except those of merit. The whole idea is that we value what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished, not what your ancestors may have done. Anything else is anathema to the American civic creed.

The hijackers want to scramble all of that. They want preferential treatment, or at least more attention because their descendants got here first. There is no more un-American idea in the public sphere at the moment.

At her best, the United States is for liberty for all, for equal treatment under the law for all, and basically for a fair shake for all, whether your people came on a boat 400 years ago or you showed up at customs at JFK 400 seconds ago.

The final challenge faced by those who want to destroy Columbus Day is, of course, that the world is a better place for billions of people because Christopher Columbus did what he did. Without him, there is no America, no Canada, and no spectacular and durable Spanish culture across the remainder of the hemisphere. There would be no escape route to freedom for the millions of peasants suffering under the misrule of the monarchies of Europe.

Almost everyone who has lived in the New World in the last 400 years owes Columbus a debt of gratitude. Was there violence in the wake of 1492? Of course. There was also violence in the hemisphere before 1492. Slavery? Of course, both before and after 1492. Human sacrifice? Well … certainly before 1492.

The remainder of the world is also in debt to Columbus. From electricity to the green revolution, from airplanes to air conditioning, the inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere — and specifically and mostly the Americans — have saved and improved the lives of billions of people and continue to do so every day. Just ask the Europeans who will survive this winter solely because of natural gas provided by the United States.

Even if Columbus were just a small part of all that, he deserves acclaim.

So, have a happy Columbus Day, and don’t let the hijackers ruin it for you.

• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, co-hosts “The Unregulated Podcast.” He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House.