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Friday, October 16, 2009 at 12:47am
Peace at any price?
While the Nobel Prizes in the fields of physics, chemistry, medicine/physiology, literature and economics have had their questionable years (Marconi and Braun vs. Tesla in 1909 for the Physics Prize, for instance), there has never been any serious doubt in regard to the honor and prestige these Prizes bestow upon their recipients.
The Peace Prize, however, is quite a different story, and the choice of its recipients have often been embroiled by major controversy. Recipients such as Yasser Arafat, international terrorist (1994), Jimmy Carter, international appeaser (2002), and Al Gore, international advocate of global warming junk "science" (2007), have obliterated any meaningful honor and prestige the Peace Prize might ever have carried.
Any residual particle of remaining respect, of course, disappears completely in the face of this year's award to President Barack Obama. While bestowing the 2009 Prize to Obama "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Committee also made no bones about the fact that this award is nothing more than a blatant attempt at international manipulation.
"For 108 years, the Norwegian Committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world's leading spokesman." (The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009, Norwegian Committee press release, 2009.)
Having taken quite a lot of heat since their announcement for precisely that reason, though, the Committee was quick to respond: "Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year," said Committee chairman Thorbjorn Jagland. "Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?"
Observe the flawed premise at work in such a statement: i.e., that peace can be achieved by "cooperation," conciliation, renunciation and demilitarization.
It was not "cooperation" and demilitarization on the part of the United States that prevented Germany and Japan from wiping us out during World War II, but their exact opposites: confrontation coupled with a massive arms buildup that gave us the power to crush our enemies. How well would "those attitudes" have fared us on the beaches of Dunkirk?
Cooperation with tyranny? Sure. Tell it to the 2,400 people blown to smithereens at Pearl Harbor.
No, free countries do not "cooperate" with tyrannies, any more than property-holders cooperate with thieves; such actions only embolden the thugs at the expense of their victims. For proof of this point, observe the policies of Iran and North Korea. While the West prattles about "cooperation between peoples," they seek nuclear domination. The only rational policy to take in the face of such threats is to maintain a sufficient policy of deterrence of attack through overwhelming strength. Yet it is not military that Obama is advocating as he dismantles ABM systems.
It just so happens that peace is impossible while the planet is rife with despots, for the same tribal premise at work in the domestic policies of a totalitarian state-the belief that some men have the "right" to control other men works on the international level as well, permeating all the actions such a state engages in. A nation at war with itself is necessarily at war with the nations around it. Yet it is not resistance to such despotism that Obama is advocating as he travels abroad kissing the rings of dictator-kings.
The promotion of peace can only make sense when rooted in the advocacy of liberty; the two go hand in hand. Yet how many of the "peace" promoters advocate it?
No, peace cannot be bought at any price, as Neville Chamberlain's policies of appeasement in regard to Hitler eloquently demonstrated-but only through a consistent and reasoned championing of freedom and individualism both here and overseas.
But this, tragically enough, is a strength that the United States itself has lost. And, meanwhile, the clouds gather...
Bradley Harrington, 82001
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Filed under: City Voices
253 Comments on this post:
What happened to the word limitation?
Good mornng.
This longwinded letter is sponsored by the Dick Cheney Hate Foundation.
The letter writer seems to forget that "cooperate" with free nation is what the prize is about.
From Yesterday
It has taken me longer to read yesterday post because I have been laughing my head off and I even fell out of the chair once.
Highlights:
sid' buscuit refreeence.
chief's I simple try to use logic when I disagree with someone.
house's The Hairy Biscuits, undiscovered realm of stupidity, She thought I was a Doughnut and tried to glaze me.
gdia's Sauage Egg and Me, Flaky as a chief, He is not heavy he is my Seabiscuit,No Jelly,Gravey you gravey me,You split me in half.
MamaG's Must be Jelly cause Jam don't shake like that.
To many to name them all. So if I left some of it out...my apologies.
My thoughts is that Daddy Yo is a klansman in Blackface.
Sid I love the old stories about Wendell Scott.
Boy, what an uplifting LTE. The writer forgot to include his footnotes and extensive Bibliography. Yep, we had to drop those two atomic bombs on Japan, invade Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. All Iran and N. Korea can possibly understand is brute force thru military action. Collateral damage is of no concern to America.
With a military budget projected to be $530 billion next year, not including discount coupons, Obama will certainly try to keep it from hitting a trillion before he leaves office. The wimp.
Cpt."N": I was having enough of a problem trying to understand and assimilate the "true" hillbilly redneck mentality. Not fake rednecks, but the real McCoy's.
Then "Daddy-O" surfaces, with his air-to-air barrage of b.s., and now I can come to grips with what a true "black" hillbilly reneck is all about. Luck me.
Did somebody call for a surreal McCoy?
What's up with the long winded, out-of-state LTE?
Paul, I am expecting Daddy Ho to come back today and tell us that he/she was teaching us a lesson about something,
He reminds me of that loud mouth so-called Tennessee Conservative. It rants in the same manner.
house,he comes from the same cow pasture that Chaney does.
pain: Didn't you get the memo? It's "Gerrymandering Friday". Seems the gene pool for (substandard) LTE's is so dried up, TCP has to fish for whales out-of-state.
I am grateful NCP didn't do like the rest of the media and get giddy for hours over that brat and his balloon. Who cares?
And now for something completely different.....
Nemo, you should either surround your chair with pillows, or get one of those
Life Alert necklaces. "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up!"
This place can be a real hoot. Calling sid a liberal was hilarious.
Kosh, that kid's parents better foot the bill for the rescue effort.
'reasoned championing of freedom "
Freedom unless you are Canadian, Cherokee, Mexican, Hawaiian, Filipino, Chilean, Dominican, Nicaraguan, Panamanian.......
And talk about ring kissing for dictators: how about Bush's lovefest with the Saudi autocrats who deny even basic freedoms?
Daddy Ho is an good example of what life is like on the far right of sanity. cheif you have seen the future and it is Daddy Ho.
house, I have tied myself to the chair today.
Just like driving on the streets. I want leave until I buckle-up. Clinck-it or ticket-it. :-)
Nemo: I can have a Dominatrix sent over who will not only tether you to a chair, but tie you up,...then some. You won't need that whistle.
The "safe word" is "Armageddon"...
d7,that sounds like fun, but I will pass. Bad Heart you know. :-(
Arma-who?
Nemo: Well, if you ever need your ticker jump started you know where to come.
Nemo, if you've never heard Robert D. Rayford read the "Armageddon, Armageddon" story, you should Google it.
The "Arma Gedden's" Nice Jewish family on the West side.
house, I've seen the movie and read the about it Revelations. It was a bad joke on my part, unless you mean something else.
It is zombie hour.
By: dargent7 on 10/16/09 at 7:58
The "Arma Gedden's" Nice Jewish family on the West side.
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Friends of Loner?
The story I'm referring to was a news item that was really funny.
Nemo, Loner & the Geddens have a mutual friend: Hugh Jazz.
OK! New plan. I will nail down the chair before fasting seatbealt.
Me and the chair fell over. :-0
I see you liberal racists have nothing to say today so you are just sitting around in your cicle jerk. Boring. Ther eal story is about the criminal white boy wannabe thug that beat up up the old man at eh Green Hills Mall and the real black thug that shot a brother on teh golf course.
Welcome to the world you liberal racists have created. I hope it vists you all on a very personal level some day. I doubt that it will since you are all just rich white people typing all day on the internet, sitting in your underwear in your mom's basement.
Get out and see the world you created. Come to my projects and see how long you last as a thug wannabe.
Zombie 1 has come out.
Daddy Ho's Black Face routine.
Good morning friends. I heard one of the funniest lines on The Office last night...it may not have been funny but for some reason, it made me laugh out loud. Dwight was saying this: "The Mafia are just like raccoons, you give them a little cat food and pretty soon they're back for the whole cat." I guess one could substitute anything for the Mafia. Anyway, I thought it was funny and again, it could've just been that Dwight was saying it.
Also, I do hope you all know I was just cutting up with my last post from yesterday. Some of it was true, some of it was just for kicks.
And yes, I "jumped" on the way to work this morning!
I was jumpin' too, Mama. TGIF everyone!
I never leave cat food out. It would draw in unwanted vermint like Ho Baby.
I see Daddy-O's in the house. And I thought I was an a@@hole.
Back at you Blanket.
I think Loner started something the other day. I have got a leaky roof.
By: dargent7 on 10/16/09 at 9:01
I see Daddy-O's in the house. And I thought I was an a@@hole.
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Your cool man. There is always something worst. :-)
Even worst than me in the spelimg d-partmint. If you no what I's mean.
TGIPF, Blanket.
I don't remember what MamaG posted yesterday, but I'm sure that I was terribly offended.
Movie Titles
Harry Potter and The Hairy Biscuit.
I think everyone knows what Daddy-O's position is on societal issues. He figured out we're mostly "white folk". Maybe this board has some Latinos, Asians, Middle Easterner's "posting", but I for one, don't know.
Maybe he can respond to the LTE and show everyone, regardless of nationality, how intellegent he is and his depth of perception and articulation.
Because, so far, calling the Predators a "white game, for white people" isn't telling me more than he's marginalized in thought processes.
I know Daddy Ho is KKK.
Who you callin' white, d7? I'm a native of Caucasia.
I am Euro-Caucasian.
I found it interesting about Naifeh wanting to "enhance revenues" and called those who refused to discuss it as not having the "backbone or the guts" to discuss it.
Seems to me that if Naifeh wants to throw those words around, he'd do better to call a tax increase (or state income tax as that is most likely what he wants) a tax increase first.
Which, btw, will not sell with Tennesseans right now as in this economy, people are barely getting by NOW.
Nemo,
European-American?
Zombie 2 has arrived on track 0.
I was born in Detroit, South of 8 Mile, but choose to refer to myself as a "misplaced white child". Them there hospitals North of 8 don't have as many Negro physicans.
The snow in Windsor Canada is white. The snow in Detroit is black. Something to do with the wind. lol
Naifeh needs to go. He's like a turd that won't flush.
Spellcheck says I've misspelled "turd".
turd-id