MARINA DEL REY, CA -- The multiculturalist attacks on Christopher Columbus and Columbus Day are a disgrace, said the director of development for the Ayn Rand Institute.
     "Columbus should be honored as the discoverer of America, but multiculturalists unjustly regard him as a villain," said Richard Ralston. "What makes the attacks on Columbus particularly disgusting is that the actual target is Western Civilization."
     Ralston observed that: 

• It is Western Civilization, not primitivism, that creates the values that make human life possible.
• American Indians were not noble savages -- but were the greatest beneficiaries of Columbus's discovery.
• The multiculturalists are against values -- against reason, productivity, and justice -- thus making the multiculturalists immoral.

     "The multiculturalists want to deny that Western Civilization is the better civilization and want to equate it with the most primitive ones," said Ralston. "There is no equality between Western Civilization, with its emphasis on science, reason, progress, and the individual, and the primitive American Indian cultures, with their emphasis on mysticism, brutality, and the collective. The undeniable truth is that Western Civilization is the best culture."