Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Reductio ad absurdum

http://tinyurl.com/yhcu3po
A Wicked and Ignorant Award
How Barack Obama could help redeem the Norwegian Nobel Committee's grievous mistake By PEGGY NOONAN
It is absurd and it is embarrassing. It would even be infuriating if it were not such a declaration of emptiness.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has embarrassed itself and cheapened a great award that had real meaning.
It was a good thing, the Nobel Peace Prize. Every year the giving of it was a matter of note throughout the world, almost a matter of state. It was serious. It mattered that it was given to a woman like Mother Teresa in 1979... //
****When Yasser Arafat, a known terrorist, got the Nobel Peace Prize it seemed questionable that the prize meant anything. When it caused people to look at the history of the prize, other questions were raised about its meaningfulness or value. The Obama award has removed all doubt. The loony liberal Norsemen commit errors of both the first and second kind, are just silly and have ALWAYS BEEN SO. Absurdity is sometimes clarifying and useful, especially for Americans who might well question whether loony liberal Norsemen accord with American values or are, rather, a CONTRAINDICATION. If Castro, Chavez, Gadhafi et al AND the loony Norsemen love someone, should we?****
http://tinyurl.com/yj5etem
A Perfect Nobel Pick By BRET STEPHENS
...some of the worthies of yesteryear who were favored with a Nobel Peace Prize before disappearing into the footnotes of history...you really know nothing about the values and thinking that have informed a century of prize giving. Far from being an aberrant choice, President Obama was the ideal one, Scandinavianally speaking. The peace Nobel is a much misunderstood prize. With the exception of a few ...most of the prize winners draw from the obscure ranks of the sorts of people the late Oriana Fallaci liked to call "the Goodists." Who are the Goodists? They are the people who believe all conflict stems from avoidable misunderstanding. Who think that the world's evils spring from technologies, systems, complexes (as in "military-industrial") and everything else except from the hearts of men, where love abides. Who mistake wishes for possibilities. Who put a higher premium on their own moral intentions than on the efficacy of their actions. Who champion education as the solution, whatever the problem. Above all, the Goodists are the people who like to be seen to be good...So let there be no doubt that the Nobel Committee did well in choosing Mr. Obama. What this portends for the kind of peace and security that has been bequeathed to us by the exertions of such non-Nobelists as Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan is another question.

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