Cuomo defends Christopher Columbus statue

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

SJWs will be the death of the Democratic party I swear. (no I'm not talking about people who simply believe in equal rights). I'm talking about the extreme leftists who will shout you down if you say anything that they disagree with

Can people please shut up about this term or acting like the people described by it have any influence in the party or electoral politics? I have never heard of a Democratic politician or activist rant about how people who won't have sex with trans people are transphobic, complain about white people wearing Native American Halloween costumes, or dreadlocks or hoop earrings, or lecture people about appropriate use of pronouns. There are no actual SJWs of any influence whatsoever. All they do is engage in circle jerks on Tumblr and put out whiny newsletters at silly liberal arts colleges.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But Columbus did not ever visit the modern day US, was not the first European to visit America and didn't really do anything but butcher Natives in the Caribbean ala Leopold II in a manner so brutal the same people carrying out the Spanish Inquisition removed him from his post for being too brutal.

Columbus is as deserving of a statue as Pol Pot.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The Democrats are determined to lose 2020, aren't they?

I fail to see how some guy who'll most likely drop out after coming in fifth in Iowa doing something of very meglible importance indicates that.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

But Columbus did not ever visit the modern day US, was not the first European to visit America and didn't really do anything but butcher Natives in the Caribbean ala Leopold II in a manner so brutal the same people carrying out the Spanish Inquisition removed him from his post for being too brutal.

Columbus is as deserving of a statue as Pol Pot.

1. Columbus is an important enough figure that historians divide the history of the Americas into Pre and Post-Columbian eras and lend his name to the Columbian Exchange, one of the most important events ever to happen to humanity.

2. The personal character of a statue's figure is besides the point: what matters is what the statue symbolises. This is why the "R.E. Lee was a nice guy" defence fails for statues of that particular Confederate general, because whatever Lee's personal beliefs were and however he conducted himself as an individual, the statues to him represent a commemoration of the defence of slavery as an institution etc.. With Columbus, he represents the European colonisation of the Americas, particularly by Italian-Americans as the first Italian to travel to the Americas, which is an inextricable part of the history of the United States and has both positive and negative aspects.

Columbus wasn't Italian and Italy never colonized anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. Italy is a younger country than the US.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

We could just remove the statues of a particularly brutal butcher who was notably terrible even by colonization standards.

I mean the Spanish Inquisition government removed Columbus from his post because he was too brutal.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Devil's advocate here. Columbus may have been brutal but his voyage joined the eastern and western hemispheres in a way that they had not been in the past. The whole development of the modern world owes something to Columbus.

This. Everyone was a brutal butcher back then (and still are now, judging by the threats of certain men). Do you think if the Incas had discovered Spain they would have been gentle? What's memorialized isn't the morality of the man but the significance of the voyage.

Actually no, Columbus was awful even by the standards of his time. I mean FFS the Spanish monarchs who were carrying out the Spanish Inquisition removed him from his post because he was too brutal.