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Nice is Overrated

By Rick Pastecki

 

I would like to talk about what it means to be nice and I would like to begin with our newly elected Nobel Peace Prize winner. For the purpose of comparison, the following are the more familiar past and present winners of the Nobel Peace Prize; Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King Jr. Andrei Sakharov, Mother Teresa, Lech Walesa, Desmond Tutu, Elie Wiesel, (the 14th) Dalai Lama and Barack Obama. What is wrong with this picture? I believe our president missed an opportunity here. He had a chance to let the world know what it means to be an American. He had a chance to put our character and principles on display. President Obama had the chance not to accept this award and he blew it.
Take a look at those names above. Look at the company the president is in. He doesn’t deserve this award. He knows it, his own political party knows it, the American people know it and the world knows it. Personally, I find it insulting. The Norwegian Nobel Committee has embarrassed itself and cheapened (once again) this once prestigious award. Choosing President Obama is simply a repudiation of George Bush and his presidency. It is the Nobel Committee’s thirty pieces of silver to the American people to please, please, please, continue to elect guys like President Obama. To elect presidents who care more about appeasing world leaders –and being nice- than doing what is hard and right.
            It’s not the president’s fault that he won this award. In fact, he probably was more surprised by this than anybody. He did however seem to respond very characteristically by again putting himself and his radical agenda before his country. What is disturbing too is that the president doesn’t seem to recognize this. His pride and arrogance continue to blind him. The president forgot that regardless of what he thought about George Bush, the American people elected him (twice) and that he is still an AMERICAN. President Obama missed the opportunity to let the Nobel Committee know that. He missed the opportunity to let the world know that in spite of our political disagreements, we are Americans first and foremost, and will not allow foreign influences drive a wedge between us.
            America is not like other countries. It was never supposed to be so. Our Founding Fathers looked to Divine Providence and risked everything to build a republic for its people based on liberty and freedom. And the Lord responded with victory and abundant blessings. WE are the torch bearers for the rest of the world whether we desire this or not. These blessings do not come without responsibilities. It is also not a prerequisite for any president to be primarily “nice” to everyone. The word “nice” is not in the bible. Was the Lord “nice” when he made a whip and drove the money changers out of the temple? Was He “nice” when he called the Pharisees and Sadducees liars and hypocrites? He wasn’t nice to them because he LOVED them. Love is why He risked his own creation’s vengeance. The Lord came not to bring peace, but a sword. He of course knew that there is something more glorious and divine beyond this world. Our Founding Fathers knew this also and this gave them the courage to persevere.
            That is what’s missing in this administration. Decisions are made out of political calculation and not moral convictions. That’s why our president can’t make a decision about whether or not to increase troops in Afghanistan. When you are not a person of conviction, than you resort to trying to please everyone and be “nice.” The typical outcome of that approach is usually getting everybody mad at you, nothing getting accomplished and ultimately being viewed as ineffective. Our President has already sold out our friends the Poles and Czechoslovakian’s by withdrawing missile defense that was promised, for fear of agitating the Russian government. America’s reward for that decision is Russia’s refusal to support us with sanctions in an effort to halt Iran’s nuclear missile program. In addition, as a result of his “niceness,” our new Nobel Peace prize winner has refused to meet with the Dalai Lama for fear of offending our good friends the communist Chinese. In her meeting with Chinese leaders, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton refused to discuss human rights in China. This is something President Bush did at every opportunity. 
            Closer to home, the Presidents “niceness” is leading to the creation of a health care system that will bring about legalized euthanasia and destroy any barriers for women to obtain an abortion. The United Kingdom has a centralized health care system that President Obama and many democrats prefer. As part of this program, they have a board called the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). I’m not kidding. In this mess is a protocol called the Liverpool Care Pathway. In an article in the National Review, Wesley Smith reports that “The Pathway’s guidelines instruct doctors to put patients thought to be near death into a drug-induced coma, after which all food and fluids, as well as medical treatments such as antibiotics, are withdrawn until death.” According to the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper “16.5 percent of patients who died in 2007–08 expired while under “continuous deep sedation,” i.e., an artificial coma.” Just to give you an idea what this means, hospice professional’s rarely use “palliative sedation” to alleviate pain but 16.5% of patients in the UK died as a result of this! As you can imagine, reports of abuse of this measure in the UK are coming to light. Testimonies such as people not terminally ill but, considered old, are being refused treatment. Not just medical treatment mind you, but being sedated and denied food and water! Oh this couldn’t happen to us right? Mr. Smith also reports that “current Obamacare plans call for the creation of many cost/benefit/best-practices boards, the full power of which won’t be fully known until the bureaucrats promulgate tens of thousands of pages of regulations between now and 2013, when the law would go into effect.” Hmmm, 2013 AFTER the 2012 presidential election. Rationing is the only way national health care can function poorly at best. See what “NICE” gets you? Just ask the Brits (is “Brits” politically correct to say?).
            We need to pray that the Lord gives our president new wisdom and light. That would be a loving thing to do. By the way, I mentioned that Mother Teresa was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Surely she must have been nice. I mean the lady is going to be canonized a saint. This great human being once said the following; "I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself."
How many people do you think she annoyed?  Now that, is not nice.

 

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