The U.N. Does Not Serve American Interests

One of the most critical questions of our time is whether the Westphalian system in which sovereign nation states remain the primary form of societal and political organization or if it will be replaced by some form of global government. The U.N. was formed to establish the latter, and unsurprisingly, it has devolved into a trade association for corrupt Third World governments. The time has come for the United States to reassert its status as a sovereign and independent nation and consider withdrawing from the U.N.

Essentially an attempt to revive the failed League of Nations under a new name, the U.N. was founded in June 1945 to prevent war by establishing a deliberative body which could resolve disputes in a peaceful manner. This was based on the belief that it was both feasible and desirable to establish a system where individual nations would depend on multilateral organizations instead of protecting their own national interests.

The adoption of the U.N. Charter was followed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which breathlessly declares it to be “a milestone document in the history of human rights.” It lays out “a common standard of achievements for all people and all nations,” including a list of “fundamental human rights to be universally protected.” Whoever wrote this platitudinous drivel was apparently unaware of Magna Carta or the U.S. Constitution.

The UDHR bears a striking similarity to the 1936 Soviet Constitution. It includes a strong emphasis on “economic rights” such as food, clothing, housing, and medical care in addition to political rights including those contained in the Bill of Rights. The eight page list contains 28 separate Articles, one of which asserts, “Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.” However, Article 29 concludes by stating as follows: “These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.” Finally, Article 30 states that “Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as applying for any State, group, or person, any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.”

This essentially amounts to asserting that the U.N. is the ultimate arbiter of such rights and that this supersedes the sovereignty of any national government, including our own. This is of course entirely inconsistent with the idea of natural rights as spelled out in the Declaration of Independence, as it is a clear declaration that all rights originate with an international governing body which can choose to grant or withhold rights as it sees fit.

Ringmasters of the Circus

The session of the U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) convenes in New York City each year on the third Tuesday in September. It can best be described as the circus coming to town. NYC is flooded with political figures and news media personalities all trying to be noticed. The President of the United States will make a speech, which is frequently the occasion for major policy announcements. The hype, however, always exceeds the reality. I recall one news report in which some talking head was practically ecstatic that the U.N. Secretary General was about to “summon the leaders of the world and tell them what they have to do in order to solve the threat of climate change.”

Since every country has a vote in the UNGA, primitive states can introduce and pass the most outrageous resolutions. Examples include an endless series of resolutions which blame Israel for every bad thing that happens in the Middle East and stridently insist that only massive wealth transfers from Western countries to the Third World can prevent the polar ice caps from melting. There have even been proposals for enacting a global tax scheme. This is part of an effort to promote the concept of “global governance,” in which the UNGA presumes to be some sort of legislative body whose pronouncements somehow constitute “international law.”

Rather than having each country pay the same amount, U.N. costs are assessed on the basis of “ability to pay.” This is consistent with the Marxist concept of “to each according to his need and from each according to his ability.” Although the U.S. pays 22% of the U.N.’s cost, it only has a single vote in the General Assembly, which means that the U.S. frequently ends up paying for things that are totally inconsistent with our national interests and priorities.

The U.N. takes it for granted that the United States will continue to pay exorbitant sums to support an organization that consistently acts in a manner that is contrary to American national interests. However, the U.N. cannot say it was not warned that this could not continue indefinitely. The late Senator Jesse Helms, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke to the Security Council in January 2000, which was the first time a U.S. Senator had addressed that body. He put them on notice

that Americans want to ensure that the United States of America remains the sole judge of its own internal affairs, that the United Nations is not allowed to restrict the individual rights of U.S. citizens, and that the United States retains sole authority over the deployment of United States forces around the world.

He then concluded his address by saying that

If the United Nations respects the sovereign rights of the American people, and serves them as an effective tool of diplomacy, it will earn and deserve their respect and support. But a United Nations that seeks to impose its presumed authority on the American people without their consent begs for confrontation and, I want to be candid, eventual U.S. withdrawal.

Globalists Everywhere

Unfortunately, there are many globalists in the U.S. government who would like nothing more than to utilize the treaty process to impose various U.N. schemes on the United States. This would create a situation which would be similar to what currently exists in the European Union.

The E.U. imposes requirements for member states to adopt laws and policies which conform with the directives of the bureaucracy in Brussels. These include setting tax rates and directives to admit specified numbers of Third World immigrants. The E.U. has even asserted the right to impose financial penalties on member states to enforce these edicts. In response, the United Kingdom has withdrawn from the E.U., and several other countries are also considering doing the same. Globalism has been a failure, and a growing number of countries are coming to realize that nations are the ultimate guarantors of their own interests.

Article VI, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution states that “all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall become the supreme law of the land.” This means that once a treaty has been ratified by the Senate, it can become the basis of all sorts of things which would never have been passed by Congress or any state legislature. There have also been instances where such treaties have formed the rationale of judicial rulings.

A clear example of how this could work to the detriment of the U.S. is the so-called U.N. Human Rights Treaty, which follows the Soviet model of creating a large number of “economic rights.” It was passed by the UNGA at the behest of the Soviet Union and a group of Third World countries. Although Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford refused to sign it, Jimmy Carter finally did in 1977. Fortunately, this treaty has languished in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee since Carter’s presidency, although there have been a number of unsuccessful attempts to revive it. However, there are numerous individuals in both the Senate and the State Department who would clearly like to see it ratified.

It now appears the U.N. is realizing that things may be about to change. A New York Post article from August featured reporting about a leaked conversation from a senior U.N. official who stated that the international organization was “terrified” by the prospect of a second Trump presidency. The reason he gave is “because the purpose of Donald Trump is to end the international institutions that somehow level the playing field. He wants America first.” This U.N. official was also quoted as saying that “One of the objectives of the UN is to create an identity of a global citizen, someone who shares an identity, a political identity, with everybody on this planet. [This idea] is a threat to the absolute power of the United States because [Americans] don’t want an institution over the US telling the US what to do.” He was clearly distressed by the fact that Donald Trump will refuse to follow directives from the U.N. in his second term in office.

Unlike every other president since Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump clearly believes in American exceptionalism. His approach to policy is unequivocally based on promoting U.S. interests, and not on an ultimately futile effort to create some sort of “New World Order.” I expect he will make it clear that any future U.S. participation in the U.N. will be entirely dependent on if and how it will serve American interests.

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