Anti-Harper Petition an Exercise in Intellectual Cowardice

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and the far-left desn't like it.

Front and centre in the increasingly-public spectacle of the far-left losing their minds over it is a petition started by Calgarian Liberal hack Ed Tanas. Tanas was so outraged by the nomination, by Frank Dimant of B'Nai Brith, that he was driven to anti-Semitic comments.

I've spent some time slowly peeling back the layers of Tanas' mania at High Noon. He's not an individual bursting with credibility. So not much has to be said about he himself here.

But I will speak at further length about his petition, and just how, frankly, cowardly an effort it really is.

As explored masterfully by the Calgary Herald's Susan Martinuk, almost none of the 20,00 unhinged signatories have produced even a single valid reason why Harper's nomination should be denied:

"The real drivers behind any support for the petition can easily be detected in the comments made by its supporters. Most are a nebulous collection of hateful phrases that have no facts or logic to support their claims. According to them, Harper has 'committed crimes against Canadians' and has 'beady eyes.' He is also 'a disgrace to mankind,' 'a warmonger,' 'evil' 'an oppressor,' 'a fascist' and a 'social monster' who should be charged with 'treason.'

Frankly, these people should spend a year or two living under the rule of a Third World dictator. Maybe then they can comprehend the real meaning of such words.

Comments that state reasons (still not facts or statistics) invariably focus on Harper’s unwavering support for Israel, the 'evil, mass-murderer that kills innocent children.' A few others mention unexplained reasons such as aboriginal policies and dismantling Canada’s health-care system."

So more or less all of it is generic left-wing rhetoric, and absolutely none of it is true,... save that Harper does, in fact, support Israel. Although what the signatories say about Israel is false. Which makes that a wash.

Now here's the thing: signing this petition is an act of intellectual cowardice.

If they were true, the reasons cited by the signatories would indeed be damning of Harper's nomination. There's no question whatsoever about that. If the Nobel committee found these things to be true, there's no way Harper would be considered seriously for the award.

So if the signatories really had any confidence whatsoever that the things they say are true, they would have no objection to the Nobel committee considering Harper's nomination. By attempting an end-run around the evaluation process by petitioning the committee to reject the nomination out-of-hand, they're instead demonstrating that they have no confidence in the things they say; that they are aware that the things they say are untrue, and simply expect the nomination committee to accept them unquestioningly.

This is not to say that if the Peace Prize is awarded to someone other than Harper that what these nutjobs say about Harper is true, merely that there was a more deserving candidate. Which is, frankly, how these awards should be awarded.

There is a pro-Harper petition as well. It hasn't been circulating for as long as the anti-Harper petition, but if you believe the Nobel Peace Prize committee should consider Harper''s nomination, you could do worse than to sign it.