How Obama's Nobel Prize Will Affect Our Children

It's not that his ideas aren't inspiring, his visionary perspective uplifting, his outlook refreshing. It's that Obama has yet to deliver on a large number of his promises to the people of the United States and the world.

The trouble is, in awarding this prize to the President in advance of delivery on promise, we set the precedent for the children of this compromised nation that one needs only have a thought or an idea to be rewarded. The trouble with this is that the underpinnings of responsibility and community rely upon promises not just made, but kept.

We are so impatient with our optimism, so in a hurry to get to the reward, so incapable of waiting for things to unfold - that things fall by the wayside, promises aren't kept and the very foundation of a personal sense of responsibility is undermined.

Is this the message we want to send to the youth of the world? In founding a more competent constituency globally, we should stand on principle and not reward until the requirements of said reward are met. In so doing, we would inspire them to rise to the occasion rather than gandering at how one might accomplish something of note.

When the President can skip out of responsibility and receive one of the most prestigious prizes on earth, expecting the people of a nation to step up to their individual responsibilities and own up to their promises and obligations becomes a rather moot point.

The job of President and of the Nobel Committee should be to set a standard of excellence, not to diminish it with politicking. A leader must adhere to a higher standard, accepting a reward only if earned. As such, it is my opinion that President Obama should have gracefully refused to accept the reward in order that some more deserving party would earn it.