I'm still trying to get my head around the paradox of Conservative disdain for the Nobel Peace Prize, coupled with what sure looks like sour grapes that there are few Conservative winners.

The problem is the use of the prize as a political weapon in recent years, as I've explained more than once. I have no clue what you mean by "few Conservative winners," unless you want to go down the list and declare the actual winners over the years as generally representative of liberal ideals. We could have some fun with that.

One historical constant among RightWingers are the expressions of disdain for the concept of peace and all who value it. "Peaceniks", "defeatists", "cowards", "traitors", are only a few of the epithets that come so easily to the lips of RightWingers when discussing peace. "Peace is for [female sex organs]!" is an alliterative core tenet of Wingerism.

"Peace" is a liberal Worship Word, which means simply saying it becomes the entire argument. In real life, peace is a lot more complicated. A totalitarian nation under complete oppression has very little violence or shooting, which to the perceptual brain is all that is required for "peace" to be declared. In this worldview, peace is often more important than freedom. Iraq was "peaceful" before we got there. North Korea is "peaceful" now. By any analysis, a world in which we had never violently resisted totalitarianism in any form would have had far, far fewer people killed in wars and violence in this past century.

One bit of snarkiness I encountered recently was the complaint that the "dictator" Mikhail Gorbachev won the Prize, but Reagan didn't. Again, it doesn't make much sense. Republicans give Reagan sole credit for "winning" the Cold War (ignoring his eight predecessors who created the preconditions for Reagan to be in the right place at the right time), which makes Reagan's efforts toward peace more the peace of the victor in war than the peace that avoids war in the first place.

I note that Rabin, Peres and Arafat all got the Prize. Nobody is claiming Reagan was solely responsible for the end of the Cold War. People like Lech Walesa, Pope John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher, and others were instrumental as well.

I know damn well why Reagan didn't get a prize. It would have been an admission that confrontation with tyranny can often accomplish things negotiations never could. And it would have been an admission that anti-communism actually had a point.

"Detente" was the belief that the Soviet Union was morally acceptable as a tyranny. Reagan didn't bomb anyone. What he did was take a stand with moral clarity, and that probably had more of an effect in Eastern Europe than bombs would have.

The "eight predecessors" thing is inane. Gorbachev held his office for all of six years, starting almost five years after Reagan was elected. Why should Gorbachev get any more credit than his own predecessors?

As for Reagan's predecessors creating the "preconditions," that's equally inane. Who are we talking about here? Jimmy Carter, under whose term Soviet expansionism thrived? Gerald Ford? Richard Nixon?

The Nobel Peace Prize rewards those who work for peace by preventing war and conflict. It would be a tragic perversion of the very concept of a Peace Prize to award it to the victors in war.

Next time Norway (where the Peace Prize is selected) falls to a tyranny, we'll just let the Norwegians talk their way out of it. During WWII, Norway declared itself neutral, but Germany, with the usual regard for such things that tyrants have, ate them in two months. To their credit, the Norwegians fought fiercely. The King fled into exile, and the equivalent of "vichy" Norway was run by someone whose name has gone down in history: Vidkun Quisling.

No Peace Prizes were awarded during the duration, but if you had read my original link on this subject I posted under Flame, you might have learned something about the prizes awarded in the years before the war.

(Denmark, also "neutral" and also invaded, surrendered in about a day, losing approximately sixteen troops. There was little shooting, little destruction. Their government remained mostly intact. Until 1943, "peace" reigned in Denmark.)

Norway was voted "most peaceful" in the "Global Peace Index" in 2007, celebrating decades of safety under the nuclear umbrella of other nations.

Europe owes its entire existence as a free entity to harnessed violence, something that should never be forgotten.