"I'm happy to ponder whether the Nobel Peace Prize should exist at all."

The Nobel Peace Prize exists because Alfred Nobel willed it to be so, choosing to donate his entire fortune to fund it. It's fairly explicitly a prize funded by guilt. His fortune came from his invention of dynamite, something he felt would be useful in mining but which very quickly became a means of people blowing up each other.

The Nobel organization is a private organization and makes its decisions based on its own philosophy. Some recipients of the prizes have seemed obvious (Martin Luther King, the Dali Lama or Andrei Sakharov), some have seemed less obvious (Henry Kissinger). Some winners, like Desmond Tutu (who shared the award with his diplomatic rival Willem de Klerk) have continued to contribute to a better world. Some have largely disappeared from consciousness (show of hands who remembers the great Viscount Cecil of Chelwood?)

If you would like to donate your fortune to create your own prize which honors whatever you believe is important, knock yourself out. But pondering whether the Nobel "should even exist" is asinine. It exists. It's not awarded by democratic polls. Sometimes the prizes have been right on, sometimes less so. But regardless, they've been consistently right enough that people still pay attention to them.

Yes, isn't it strange.

At present, Republicans who invariably scream about the importance of being able to pass their fortune(s) on in any way they choose and who demand that other people keep their hands the hell out of their pocketbooks--if not their pockets--are suddenly questioning the wisdom of a fellow rich bastard to do the same.

I believe they are being decidedly un-Republican.

Or am I wrong? Would they prefer to have a disorganized bunch of windbags decide how they can allocate their monies, once they shuffle off this mortal coil?