With the news of President Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize this morning, I felt the same chills I felt when he did his now infamous speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the same chills when he said he was running for the Presidency, the same chills as when he won the Nomination, the same chills as the cold night in November, that with tears in my eyes I could say, "Yes we did". This is amazing accomplishment for our President, and for our country. He is only the third sitting U.S. President to win the award (the other being President Teddy Roosevelt and President Woodrow Wilson). This an amazing settlement to how we are viewed in the world (Although this is voted on by left-of-center Swedish judges) since the election of President Obama, and it shows how much the world is trusting him to do the right thing. Whether you agree or disagree with the award being given to President Obama, we must be proud that we have a President who is a Nobel Peace Laureate.
After the initial shock and joy, I did begin to question it. There are many arguments against giving this award to a President who is residing over two wars, but with that, he is still a major proponent of nuclear proliferation, and he is beginning to talk with countries that previously were just lampooned as evil, and not given a chance to find some common ground. But we do need to recognize what recipients are expected to be. Usually they are life long supporters of peaceful tactics or intervention, not usually a President who in the middle of two wars, and in still in the freshman year of a Presidency.
But those settlements quickly went away when a conservative friend of mine from another site that I moderate, said this:
I could not help but post here this morning in light of the fact our president now holds the nobel peace prize. LMAO. This is funny considering the amount of controversy and protest this guy has stirred up. Personally i think this is a false bullshit and society in general should be dissapointed. I mean its cool to win awards n stuff, but you should deserve them. What a joke. Seriously, im going to puke.
After that I realized that whether or not you think it is appropriate for President Obama to win the award, we should be happy for this country, and not be concerned about whether he deserves it or not. There will be a time and a place to argue for and against the President's Peace Prize award, and this is not the time. We need to be proud, and be flag wavers for at least this day.
We should all feel the settlement of joy and amazement, that we are the country with a President who is a Nobel Peace Laureate. Show some patriotism, because as my friend shows, conservatives will once again go against this country and it's President and voice how "stupid" it is that our President won this award. They will say that it is undeserved, but they won't say it because of the wars, or because of this, but they will say just because they hate this President. Whether it be racial, political, whatever reason, they will once again try to talk about how bad it is that our country is being recognized.
But we should not go down that path. We should be patriotic, flag wavers. We should be in the streets celebrating. This is not just some other award, this is the Nobel Peace Prize. This is not just some person we never heard of winning it, it is our President. This is our country, and I am damn proud to be a part of it, and proud that we can call our President Nobel Peace awarding winning Barack Obama. Hell I would be proud if Bush won it (Although I would disagree with it greatly for reasons too long to list), I mean this our country, and the President is our President, no matter who it is.
Now after the confetti falls and the party ends, and we have some more time to look at what the Nobel Peace Committee saw in making this decision, we can argue day and night about whether or not it was deserve, and whether or not the decisions President Obama makes are better or worst, because of this award, etc. etc. But for right now I say we all put on our foam fingers with USA written on them, and start waving some flags. Because this is damn good time to be an American.