I submitted the following letter to the Daily Tar Heel yesterday, in response to a nearly incoherent editorial by Reed Watson. His article honestly reminded me of the sort of gibberish an Ayn Rand villain might say. Unsurprisingly, my response was unpublished. Partly my own fault, as I feel I was overly vitriolic.
Reed Watson’s recent love letter to our latest Peace Prize Laureate (“You can do good too, without Nobel,” Oct. 12) left me feeling all kinds of queasy. By his arguments, we should be happy that Obama won the Nobel because his life is really, really hard. I mean, just imagine it! All anyone expects from *you* is to work obediently at a dreadful desk job for the rest of your life. But not Obama! He gets up every morning with the whole world expecting him to fix their problems for them. And even if he does, there will always be some clearly unpatriotic hooligan who hates him. What an enormous burden on our Dear Leader’s shoulders—somebody give that man a prize to cheer him up!
So never mind that Obama hasn’t fixed global warming yet. And don’t worry about continuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or Obama’s request for renewal of surveillance provisions in the PATRIOT Act. Oh, and just forget about bailouts to the politically connected while unemployment continued to rise. That stuff doesn’t matter—his intentions are good, so give him the Prize!
The fact of the matter is that no one man—especially a politician—will solve our problems for us. Obama is not Superman, and neither he nor anyone else should be treated that way. There are no magic policy solutions for every challenge our world faces. It’s up to each of us to make our world a better place. The truly great people aren’t the ones with Nobel Prizes, but the ones who forsake fame, fortune and power to pursue their dreams for a better world. Those men and women are the real heroes of our age, and there’s no reason you can’t be one of them.
There was another pretty awful editorial today from the usually awful Study Abroad Columnist, Tim Freer. I plan to respond to that one later today.
Update: Another member, Will Harris, also submitted this letter in response to the same editorial:
The editorial “You can do good, without Nobel” is abhorrent. In essence, it praises demagogues and megalomaniacs and consoles us in our averageness for not achieving their greatness.
Mr. Watson’s “illustrious” Nobel laureates are all powerful men. They do not go to bed at night unhappy. Rulers go to bed giddy with insatiate greed and lust for power. Stop treating them like saints or martyrs. No one forced them to seize the reigns of the state.
Barack Obama has neither the authority nor the ability to enact the miracles Mr. Watson asks of him. Further, surrendering to the government the power necessary to make the attempt would subject us to oppression, strife, and violence. That is the nature of government.
Are we so impotent that we should pray as though to pagan gods, slaughtering lambs on an altar before the White House whilst supplicating before Barack Obama in the hope that our Omnipotent State will deliver us from the tribulations of existence? No, we will save the world ourselves.
Let us not forget what government really is: a gang of avaricious lawyers and bureaucrats who turn to politics because their only marketable skill is controlling people.
While obsequiously praising rulers, Mr. Watson has insulted us. We are not “average” simply because we have no aspirations to fame and power. The peaceful cooperative efforts of free people–not the strong arm of the state–embody the dignity and majesty of humanity. Let us praise ourselves and not these demagogues.
