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Barack Obama Wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
Barack Obama has just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The BBC opines: "In awarding President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the Norwegian committee is honoring his intentions more than his achievements. After all he has been in office only just over eight months and he will presumably hope to serve eight years, so it is very early in his term to get this award. ... The committee does not make any secret of its approach. It states that he is being given the prize 'for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples.' This is of course an implied criticism of former US president George W Bush and the neo-conservatives, who were often accused of trying to change the world in their image." The Washington Post collects more reactions from around the world.
He also had a golden opportunity to let GM and Chrysler die and dump the money into public transit instead.
He also had a golden opportunity to close military prisons of dubious legality.
He also had a golden opportunity to appoint a supreme court justice who would apply the law as it is written.
He also had a golden opportunity to end a few wars.
Obama seems not to be one to take advantage of golden opportunities.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
The problem is that we have two primary political parties, and about two million different political views. Both parties are essentially extremely broad coalitions all under the same name. In many other countries they start with several small parties and then negotiate to form the coalitions without actually pretending they're all united. In the US however, there is this fiction presented that we have only two major political views.
What's even more messed up really, is that if you get simplistic and just view things as one dimensional left versus right, the bell curve will likely show the big hump between Republicans and Democrats. Which is why you see the candidates lean strongly left or right during primary elections, and then switch and lean towards the center during general elections. The situation seems perfect for a centrist party, except that the election rules and inertia conspire against that idea (the Reform party didn't count, it was more of a "we hate politics" group than any coherent platform).
After all, if you think about it logically, why should the views on gun ownership and prayer in schools be even remotely linked together? Why wouldn't someone who thinks that the government should keep its hands off of their guns also believe government should keep its hands off sex lives as well, and vice versa? Why should a belief for or against a strong economic regulatory system in any way correlate with view points on abortion? Why should opinions about whether "enhanced interrogation techniques" are valid have anything to do with a belief about whether climate change is a problem?