Christopher Columbus should not be honored with a holiday in his name.

Ok round two ladies and gentlemen if you read the comments my opponent said he got his information from a book and it just so happens that i am familiar with a different book that is like the one my opponent speaks of, so his quotes are valid, however im not ganna go through the trouble of checking them, so he has my trust. So if this book is like the one that i have it is full of first person recollections, such as diary entries, and letters and such. Tying into my contention from my first speech i am going to piggy back on the fact that you cannot judge a person by a limited amount of incriminating information. Now the information that my oponent is speaking of is probably from a diary of christopher columbus himself explaining all of the things that he had done or thought in the indies. Now,since the 1400's were about 600 years ago i'll assume that any first person accounts we have from Columbus himself bieng one single man may be all within one or two diaries. So what does this tell you might you ask, This tells you that from a man who had probably written hundres of literary works in his lifetime we are to jusdge him on simple 3 or 4 lines. Of the thousands of sentences Columbus wrote were are to judge whether or not this mans ACHEIVMENTS should be celebrated. Maybe it is just me, but it doesnt seem fair to say that they shouldnt be. If you would be so kind as to picture this it would be appreciated. imagine if the world had acess to about half of the thoughts you ever had, whether they were good or bad, racist, philisophical, education, slanderous, guilty,or criminal half of them. Now imagine if the world 1000 years from know had a holiday celebrating you as the first man or women to bring about world peace. Now imagine if one day someone said hey, we can't celebrate this guy he once thought that holding pets was okay. Didn't he know that holding a pet is slavery didnt he know that that was wrong. What if someone said look it says here in his diary " i put my dog on his leash" Oh my god he was a horrible person. Would that be fair? what if you were a member of Peta? thay wouldnt hear of that information, they would only hear that you put your dog on a leash, and from that one line they would judge your whole life, and all of your acheivments. That little scenario, and what my opponent is doing to christopher Columbus is no different. LAdies and gentlmen you cannot judge a person by a couple of lines from their personal diary. My opponent claims that slavery wasn't morally justified in the 1400's, but i dont agree. Know my opponent brings up Bartolome de las casas, however if he reads up on bartolome some more, he will see that he tried in VAIN to convince the king and queen of Spain that the native Americans WERE EVEN PEOPLE! My opponent says bartolome thought that their treatment was wrong, well to my opponent i say bartolome was one person in a sea of thousands. If Bartolome couldnt even convince the king and queen that the native Americans were people, how could you say that he convinced the general populace that slavery was immoral, if he did Spain wouldnt have practiced slavey well into the 1700's 300 years after bartolome died. How could you claim that slavery was deemed immoral in the 1400's when it was practiced, profited upon, and even justified in the bible by bartolome's rivals. Since slavery obviously was the accepted norm my previous argument that columbus was practicing the beleifs of the time still stands. and to add on the the argument since the Monarchy of spain did not deem the native Americans people taking them as slaves would have been no different than taking pets during the 1400's under spanish rule. For my second contention my oponent says that the motives of Thomas Jefferson were pure, so his holding of slaves is okay, rather than christopher whose motives were impure. Well i ask my opponent. Who is the judge of whether motives are pure or impure, i would assume the people who decide wether or not to celebrate the holiday, and since the U.S celebrates the holiday, i would assume they beleive his motives were pure. Now My opponent contradicts himself he claims that if one man holds slaves, and benefits from them it is okay, but if another holds slaves it is not okay. How can you support thoman jefferson holding slaves, but not support chirstopher columbus holding slaves. Also my opponent speaks as if Columbus knew he was going to discover the New Word. He speaks as if the purpose of discovering America was to find slaves. Need i remind him Columbus discovered America by accident. So i have a question for my opponent, How is declaring war for independence against the wills of loyalist Americans and your mother country more pure than discovering a completely new continent by accident? How did columbus holding native Americans as slaves lead him to discovering America as you imply when you say "I gave the general gist of what Columbus did: went across the ocean driven solely by self-gain" Also Jefferson held slaves for self gain, to make money. And Jefferson declared American independence for self gain, to dodge what he felt was unfair taxation without representation. Everything everyone does in the world is driven by self gain.We even breath for self gain, To survive. So how can you say doing something for self gain can be right here, but wrong somewere else. Also i am going to go back to the hitler comment my opponent made. What Adalf Hitler did by invading Poland is what any dictator in the history of time could have done. What Christopher Columbus did is something that could have only been done once by one man. And yes we could attribute the U.N to Hitler, hovewever hitler didnt acheive anything, and we don't celebrate the creation of the U.N so we dont celebrate hitler. However if we did we wouldn't celebrate Adolf Hitler we would celebrate his act of invading Poland wich sparked the need for the U.N. Hitlers birth didnt spark the need, but his action did. Columbus birth didn't discover America his actions did. So we celebrate his action of discovery, and if we did celebrate the begingin of the U.N we would celebrate the action of Germany invading Poland. New Years day doesnt celebrate that there is a new year, but rather that the action of the new year is hapening, Birthdays dont celebrate your existance, but rather your birth. Holidays don't celebrate that things are, but ratehr the actions that led things the be the way that they are. This shows that Columbus day isnt celebrating that columbus existed ( celebrating the man) but rather that he discovered the New World, An Astronomical feat considering that people were telling him that he was going to fall off the earth before he sailed. Columbus day celebrates Chhristophers action, and letting a few slanderous remarks against the man taint the integrity of his positive actions is wrong. So in Closing i would like to paint out that by voting negative you claim that yes christopher columbus did do horrible things, as everyone has done something horrible to some degree in thier life, however you beleive that the actions of one done later in life, doesn't affect the motives of something done before. And by going with the affirmiative you are saying that if you do anything bad you are forever a bad person, and wlays had been a bad person, and you beleive that a person should be held accountable for their beleifs even if they were the common beleifs of the tim period. I would like to point out that if i seem mean or rude in my debate im not trying to seem like that, also i dont waste time on grammer or spelling, and wont expect my opponent to. Also i am aware of the book my opponent speaks of, it just so happens i have a different version i use for history class, and thank you for reading te deabte, and i am out of characters remaining right about now!