Man Bites Blog

From the perspective of American domestic politics, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize is unfortunate.

If you’re concerned about the rise of right-wing violence, as many profess to be, then they should consider it unfortunate as well.

Because, in my opinion, the anger is fueled by a notion that they are not in charge anymore, and the people who are in charge don’t particularly like them.

And then along comes to Nobel Committee to deliver what amounts to an upraised middle finger to them.

For the past years, conservatives ceded things like popular media, the academy, and other things to liberals and consoled themselves that they were winning elections. The Novel Committee wants to honor Jimmy Carter? Michael Moore wants to make a documentary mocking the president? Most people want to get their news from a wisecracking Jon Stewart? Fine. You have your fun. We’ve got the White House and we’ve got work to do.

But now that conservatives have lost a few elections, and don’t look like they’re going to win any soon, it’s not so funny anymore. Yeah, conservatives might have Fox News and talk radio, but everyone knows that’s just an echo chamber and isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. Now, opposing same sex marriage is sufficient to establish one as a bigot. Opposing nationalized health care makes you a heartless crumudgeon and probably a racist.

And now comes the Nobel Committee to essentially do an end zone dance. Yeah, we know Europeans don’t like George W. Bush, and they like Barack Obama. But did they have to use one of their most powerful tools to say so?

You can say the Nobel Committee shouldn’t have to consider such things, that they should just give it to the best objective candidate. Which would be fine if it wasn’t obvious that is not what is going on here. A first term United States President who has not managed to disentangle the US from two overseas armed conflicts is pretty clearly not the one who had done the most for peace. The Committee was obviously trying to shape the future political climate. And thus, they should have considered the full impact.

So now, American conservatives have one more reason to think the world is out to get them. In giving them that, the Nobel Committee has damaged the cause of peace.

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