The Prince of Peace

by B.R. Merrick

Exclusive to STR

October 13, 2009

Three days after swearing an oath to uphold and defend The Constitution, a document that reserves the power to declare war to Congress and not the President, Barack Obama murdered 22 individuals, according to this article in Salon.com.  Two hundred fifty-nine days later, he was rewarded for this butchery and the many more that followed when he accepted with great humility a prize shared by other murderers like Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger, Woodrow Wilson, and Yasser Arafat.  

Allow me to make a few predictions: The murdering, lying, stealing, cowardice, and wanton power-lust that Barack Obama embodies will continue after receiving the No-Bull Peace Prize; the Norwegians, far enough north to be apparently oblivious to the entirety of the human condition further to the south, will continue to choose murderers well into the future; and The Left that once praised Cindy Sheehan will forget about her completely.  

Let’s face it.  In the charm and charisma categories, Obama beats Sheehan quite soundly.  That’s just the trouble with the need for a charismatic leader for your revolution.  It’s not just that Sheehan lacks charisma.  (She certainly makes up for it in sincerity.)  It’s that the people who listen to her, Obama, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Bush II, or any of the rest, are doing just that: They’re listening.  They’re waiting for a leader.  They’re not roused to the revolution themselves.  They’re following a mass movement that makes them feel safer in making the decision.  

I can’t think of a single individual that led me to where I am in my thinking at this point.  The actors are plentiful, and seem to come from many different places, not just anarchists.  I don’t know what neoconservative Internet outlet led me to paleoconservative Steve Sailer’s old blog, but bizarrely, that’s what led me to Lew Rockwell, which is what led me here.  Into the mix you can add John Stossel, Vox Day, Andrew Napolitano, Arthur Silber, Alice Miller, Steven Jones, Nicholson Baker, many of the regular writers at LewRockwell.com and this site (especially Glen Allport, Per Bylund, and Stefan Molyneux), the list goes on.  I haven’t even covered any of the websites that led me away from the less arduous chains of religion, but I am indebted to them as well.  

None of these individuals stands out in my mind as the leader of the movement away from being governed and violently-oriented, to being free and peaceful.  Each person has contributed some small part in my thinking, and I hope that is how it will continue.  I did an Internet radio program a while back, and I mentioned there that I feel a revolution will happen soon in this country, or may already be well underway.  I have heard it said by smarter men that revolutions have uncertain outcomes.  I believe this.  The change that is coming worries me.  I do not think that the populace of this country is prepared for it.  Not with day care centers popping up left and right.  Not with placid acceptance of a government monopoly on education.  Not with mass entertainment drugging the populace and leaving permanent scars.  Not with its love of violence.  

I am convinced, as I mentioned on that radio program, that the revolution that will effect permanent change for the better must have three characteristics that are different from revolutions of the past:  

First, it must be peaceful.  Unless I am pleasantly surprised, I don’t think that what’s going to happen in this country in the near future is going to be peaceful.  

Second, it must be an individual revolution.  In other words, the change must be a permanent one in the heart of each individual.  It must not be a popular, fashionable, or easy mass movement in which to participate.  Think of the ‘60s, and how none of that nonsense changed a damn thing.  This leads directly to what I have been talking about, which is the final characteristic.  

This third and final characteristic, in order for the revolution for peace and freedom to be successful, is: There must be a lack of charismatic leadership.  The Civil Rights revolution came essentially to an end with the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.  Want proof?  Just look at Jesse Jackson, who is nothing more than a political hack.  The political correctness adopted by violent socialists, left behind from the disastrous ‘60s, has led to greater animosity and hatred.  So much for the dream.  

The assassination of Gandhi was much the same.  India remains mired in the remnants of its forceful, violent caste system.  Decades later, another Nobel Peace Prize winner was still handing out rice in poverty-ridden Calcutta .  

The execution of Jesus, if he really did walk this earth, led to a religion that has violently ruled major portions of this planet’s land masses.  This, in spite of the fact that most of what he said had to do with loving one’s enemies, treating others the way you wish to be treated, giving freely to those who ask, refraining from offending children in any way, returning hatred with love, and violence with peace.  

When you wait upon the familiar voice, the inspiring visage, and the electric presence of a charismatic individual, you fall prey to the idea that you can’t do it yourself.  So, millions of such fools ran to the polls in November of 2008 and cast their votes for such an individual.  Three days later, this individual expressed his inner rage at his absent father by murdering people who never hurt anyone.  The Nobel Prize Committee thinks this will lead, or has already led, toward peace.  They are woefully wrong.  

The peacemakers of this earth must be individuals, acting freely.  Only they will be successful.  If they are making headlines, chances are, like Obama, they are not truly peaceful, will not be successful, or will fade, like Sheehan, when fashion favors something else.  They will remain faceless, but they will inspire those who witness.  

Even sincere leaders of peaceful movements, like King and Gandhi, embraced some level of violence, either in thought or practice.  King was said to have quipped, “What difference does it make to desegregate a lunch counter if you can’t afford a hamburger?”  Gandhi also failed to completely embrace peace, through continual political activity.  Both men favored redistribution of wealth, to some extent, and such redistribution can never be thought of as anything other than forceful and violent.  

The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded by five people, chosen by the Norwegian Parliament, a body of people who use force and violence to rule over Norway .  They are elected by a portion of the Norwegian populace that prefers this forceful and violent institution to continue.  It is unclear to me how such a body can meaningfully decipher which individual or organization should receive this “peace” prize from year to year.  

What is clear to me is that we mustn’t wait for prizes.  We must walk away from these people, and throw their trophies in the trash.  The only way to effectively bring about a revolution for the betterment of mankind is to reach the individual.  The message is simple: You are freedom.  You are peace.  You are love.  You are truth.  You mustn’t wait for anyone else.  You mustn’t be afraid.  You mustn’t worry that mass murderers are continually lauded as bringers of peace.  It will continue.  But we needn’t continue along with it.  They’ve set the table, but what they’re serving is rancid leftovers.  Walk away.  It will feel better when you do it in your own way, not the way some charismatic leader tells you to.  If you are willing, you are The Prince of Peace.  

Nobel prizes are worthless.  A single individual is beyond calculable worth, and I am thinking here of an insane homeless man, whose life appears to have no value at all.  The lives of those individuals who were incinerated and blown to bits on January 23, 2009 in Pakistan , meant nothing to the man who accepted that silly prize a few days ago.  Their lives were not worth more than his, but he failed to understand that his life is not worth more than theirs.  Maybe fatherless Obama is beyond all hope, no pun intended.  But maybe, just maybe, some of his colleagues, currently sitting at the table they themselves have set for all of us, are getting tired of the leftovers.  Individuals can change.  Let us hope that more of them make this change and walk away from the dinner table before, like their mass-murdering President, it may be too late.