Celebrating the Absence of Resistance

Upon hearing that President Barack Obama is the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, most people rightly asked, "Why?" A world leader for only nine months, Obama has no substantial achievement that would seem to qualify him for such an honor. But according to the Nobel Peace Prize committee, he doesn't need one:

"His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

That's a revealing reason, given that the "majority of the world's population" (which lives under one degree of socialism or another) has been unable to match our tiny minority of the world's population in achievement that betters humanity. In science, medicine and economics, the United States has won 231 Nobel prizes. No other country has even approached 100. Britain is closest with 73. Clearly, the "values and attitudes shared by the majority of the world's population" tend not to inspire genius or achievement. Rather, the values and attitudes at the root of American liberty have proven most effective at compelling, inspiring and allowing individual greatness to manifest itself. Two-hundred and thirty-one times, at last count.

In spite of this, the Nobel Peace Prize committee has for many years honored those who stand in opposition to America and squarely in the camp of socialism — especially if they do so from within. Al Gore, in 2007, for his manufactured global warming hysteria that would, if acted upon, cripple the American economy and quash most individual freedoms. Jimmy Carter, in 2002, for his worldwide Bush-bashing tour. From outside our borders, there's Wangari Muta Maathai from Kenya for her "contribution to sustainable development," which is code for "government central planning of pretty much everything." The United Nations won in 2001 for... um... I guess their "sex for food" program. And most famously, Mikhail Gorbachev took the prize in 1990 for single-handedly winning the cold war by surrendering unconditionally to the war-mongering capitalists, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

True to form, the Nobel committee again fawned over a man who wants to surrender American sovereignty, individual liberty and prosperity to the left's false religion of climate change:

"Thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting."

And so it is that Barack Obama, champion of massive government intrusion in the name of climate change, is the 2009 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. A man known for his peaceful takeover of the U.S. auto industry and the U.S. financial system. A man working tirelessly to peacefully take over the U.S. health care system. A man, very quietly, trying to peacefully take over the World Wide Web through his internet Czar, Susan Crawford — an ACORN-associated leftist who envisions the web as a utility like gas, water and electricity (which are, of course stringently regulated by the government). A man who has spent the better part of his presidency thus far traveling the globe and apologizing for American hubris.

The glowing words from the Nobel Peace Prize committee on Obama's worthiness are destined to fade into obscurity. Yet they serve to remind us of more prophetic words that are frightening in their ability to endure:

"The meaning of peace is the absence of resistance to socialism."
— Karl Marx

In no one is this absence more profoundly pronounced than this year's Nobel Peace Prize winner.