National Indian-Italian-Viking Do Nothing Day
By Bill Hall
The Columbus Day issue isn't merely a dispute among the competing
claimants to the discovery of the Americas the Italians versus the
Vikings versus those Asians who crossed the land bridge and became what
Columbus stupidly called Indians.
Most of all, the Columbus Day dispute is between the bureaucrats and the
general populace those who take the day off as a paid holiday and those
who go to work so they can pay the wages of government employees who
don't work that day.
It should not be known as Columbus Day, for the man who allegedly
discovered America. It should be known as Government Employee Day, for
the slickers who discovered the free ride.
The people as a whole should be fair and generous employers, just as
they would like their own employers to be. But that doesn't mean that
public employees should receive benefits over and above those granted to
the general populace.
Columbus Day, for instance. Practically the only people in America with
that day off Monday were some (though not all) public employees. But
race has nothing to do with it, though many ethnic leaders pretend
otherwise.
The truth of the matter was visible the other day when some Fort Hall
Indian Reservation leaders in southern Idaho noting that America was
inhabited long before Columbus "discovered" it also mentioned they would
not observe Columbus Day. Instead, they observed Indian Day, the last
Friday in September.
Those Indian bureaucrats observed it by taking that day off while
Indians employed in the private sector went to work as usual.
What a crazy place Columbus or somebody else discovered.