Logic Times

The United Nations: Bad Idea

Posted by Aslan, 11/17/05, 11:46pm. Comments (4)

Cost of U.N. Renovation Soars to $1.9 Billion

By MEGHAN CLYNE - Staff Reporter of the Sun

November 17, 2005

A 60-day, top-to-bottom review of the United Nations's renovation plans - meant to bring down the $1.2 billion cost of the project, described by many real estate experts as over-inflated - has instead sent the project's estimated price tag soaring to $1.9 billion. (here)

In light of this hefty price tag, it is past time to ask if the U.N. is salvageable. The United Nations has proven to be a dysfunctional world body, but is this the fault of a corrupt organization or a corrupt idea birthed in the slightly unbalanced Ivy League mind of Woodrow Wilson over 85 years ago? The language of his League of Nations is noble –

The High Contracting Parties,

In order to promote international cooperation

and to achieve international peace and security

by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war,

by the prescription of open, just and honorable

relations between nations,

by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law

as the actual rule of conduct among Governments,

and by the maintenance of justice

and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations

in the dealings of organized peoples with one another,

Agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations.

(from the Covenant of the League of Nations, Preamble)

– but the implementation – then as now – has been a disaster. Why?

Any organization designed to promote just and ethical behavior that imposes no limitations on membership is destined to fail. Approaching the matter from the other end, any organization that purports to uphold some ethical standard (i.e., human rights, international law, charity, etc.) must have, as a condition of membership, participants who honor that standard and must reject those who do not. Since, by definition, the U.N. – or any global organization – takes all comers, only the lowest common ethical denominator will prevail.

This idea of a productive (i.e., ethical) global organization is beset with an insoluble problem: the need to uphold ethical standards, which must be an exclusionary process. The U.N. Constitution skips merrily along and ignores this fundamental contradiction:

That the wide diffusion of culture, and the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of man and constitute a sacred duty which all the nations must fulfill in a spirit of mutual assistance and concern;

That a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.

An organization is moved by the common interest of its members. A herpetology club will do poorly if it includes members who hate snakes. The purported common interest of United Nations members is to secure "justice and liberty and peace" appealing to the "intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind." But, like the snake-haters in the herpetology club, the U.N. counts among its members those who reject these things, who disdain human rights, charity and the rule of law.

How then can a global organization, trying to advance a common interest that does not exist, accomplish anything? It cannot; activity in such an organization necessarily devolves into endless debate as members struggle to reconcile this paralyzing lack of agreement on standards.

Why are ethical standards beyond the reach of a world organization? It is not simply because there exist bad countries with bad leaders who will exploit their membership for nationalist gain. It is because morality must inform all ethical standards and the lone source of morality is God, not the "intellectual solidarity of mankind." Without grounding in the divine, all ethical standards become relative, a matter of opinion amongst members. China’s restriction on childrearing is a standard no more or less ethical than the reproductive freedom (i.e., choosing the size of your own family) enjoyed in the West.

Here is where secularists and world Utopians, a common sight at the U.N., crash and burn. If, in their God-less view of the world, morality is simply a social contract that allows people to live in "liberty and peace," then they are forced to defend why liberty and peace are worthwhile objectives at all. Because they wrote it? If one can advance a sovereign society that endorses war and the State (i.e., Mongols, Hitler's Germany, Hussein's Iraq), then who is to judge which social contract is preferable? They cannot refer their case to a higher authority – because there isn’t one.

The fallback position is to let the majority speak. However, in a world where more countries deny full freedom than grant liberty, the majority has spoken. This concept of ethics as opinion is the classic relativist’s trap that reveals its ultimate absurdity in the membership of Cuba and the Sudan on the U.N. "human rights" commission.

Now to really inflame the debate. God is the source of morality, but Man does not possess a consensus understanding of God. In fact, these understandings of God are in conflict with each other: the Christian God is fundamentally different (and opposed to) the Muslim God, which is fundamentally opposed to the pantheon of Hindu gods. Just as the wrong "morality" will fail (i.e., Taliban morality), the wrong understanding of God, or more bluntly, the wrong "God" will produce a dysfunctional morality.

Correcting the critical flaw in world organizations – a lack of morality – is not simple. Which understanding of God will supply that morality? The answer is the Christian God, and the proof can be found in Western democracy, specifically the representative republic of the United States. When there are competing sources of morality undergirding systems of government, the proof is in the results. And among all the world views of morality that inform and define government, the Western Christian form – self governance deriving from the recognition that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights - has triumphed. Its triumph lies in the natural law understanding of the Christian God, which alone of Man’s understanding of God could produce the words of the Declaration of Independence. The floundering of governments in the Middle East, the human rights disaster that is Sharia law, demonstrates that the morality extending from the Koran is a defective model for government and a curious vision of "justice and liberty and peace." This is brilliantly summarized in a recent article by Dennis Prager, excerpted here:

Why is only one of the 47 Muslim-majority countries a free country?

According to Freedom House, a Washington-based group that promotes democracy, of the world's 47 Muslim countries, only Mali is free. Sixty percent are not free, and 38% are partly free. Muslim-majority states account for a majority of the world's "not free" states. And of the 10 "worst of the worst," seven are Islamic states. Why is this? (Dennis Prager, LA Times)

So, too, other secular (socialist, communist) and religious (Hindu) moral codes have proven to be failures, most of them horrific failures, in providing a basis for "justice and peace and liberty" in government.

World organizations, by definition, cannot be purveyors of morality; geopolitical alliances should be left in the realm of politics and regional common interest (NATO, OAS, NAFTA, etc.). The moral superiority of Western representative republics should be free to achieve, by example and through strength, total victory over their inferior counterparts, and free to avoid validating moral bankruptcy by sitting at table with them.

Comments

1: Larry Horacek

November 18, 2005 2:59am EST

Regardless of the Wilsonian vision for the League of Nations, which finally emerged in the post-WWII era as the United Nations, we have to look at the inherent value of today's UN organization through the lens of "Real Politik." Because of the several critical shortcomings you so succinctly detailed in your essay, any clear-thinking American will see the UN for just what it is - a diplomatic social club. The problems arise when idealists believe the UN can actually be more than what it is. We all hold out hope that a general, salutary improvement of mankind would result in a similar increase in the ethical nature of government, even the UN. However, idealists believe that Government (UN) should set and lead the (ethical) way, while Real Politik says it is actually the other way around - that the state of our collective morals defines the activity of collective government. The overly egalitarian nature of UN membership reinforces this view.

I only get upset about the UN when I see so many people believing they can get moralistic blood out of a UN turnip. We will never get a level of ethical UN governance that is any better than the morals imbued by member nations. Is it any wonder that the US has steadfastly opted out of participation in the World Court, and any other global body which cannot be easily reigned in during moral lapses?

So we need to develop policies and strategies toward the UN that reflects the Real Politik. UN Oil for Food Scandal?...what did we expect? Lesson: Don't trust the UN to do it like we would do it. (Translation: accept low expectations). The UN is a good place to evaluate the global moral climate. Thank God I am an American!

{Aslan: Brilliant, Larry, as usual. This one statement: "that the state of our collective morals defines the activity of collective government" summarizes the point of my essay because the collective morals in the UN includes Chavez and the Ayatollahs and Kim Jong Il.}

2: Bad Spider

November 19, 2005 1:00pm EST

Not bad until I read your "Christian" reference. What is that all about? How is Logic Times supposed to be "Logical" when it relies on foolish mythology?

{Aslan: Your country would not exist if it were not for "foolish mythology." The backbone of this nation is the placement of Rights beyond the reach of Man. If God is the source of human rights, then only God can deny them. If Man is the source of human rights, Man can deny them and will. Even if you don't believe in a Creator, you had better hope someone else does and that the concept of a Creator defines your Rights.}

3: Brad1972

November 19, 2005 3:11pm EST

Christianity had little to do with the Founding of this country. They were all deists. Look at Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration.

{Aslan: One of the great “urban myths” of recent years is the rewriting of history, feverishly promoted by secularists, to transform the Founding Fathers into a collection of anti-religion Deists. Just Google Christianity Founding Fathers and see this frantic rewrite underway. However, it is untrue and specious. Jefferson, for example, had little to do with either the Declaration or the Constitution, the latter which was written while he was in France. He was like the graphic illustrator to Adams’s artistic content with the Declaration, a bit player who had a reputation for fancy writing and was delegated the role by Adams.

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it. – John Adams

Adams was the lion of Independence and a staunch Christian, as were the overwhelming majority of signers.

The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity. . . . I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature. - John Adams

However, one thing is clear to those who honor facts: the Founders possessed an intriguing collection of different beliefs in a monotheistic God, predominantly the Christian God, entirely born of Christian tradition. The Deist label, which rejects divine providence, is misapplied in the extreme to the Founders, who universally believed in divine providence. And no one who understands the initial rationale for colonization of this nation and the tradition of God on which the political philosophy of this nation is based can deny that the Christian God is what has informed Western political thought and the concept of human rights from the beginning.}

4: Mike

November 20, 2005 12:52am EST

Dan: It's long past time that we simply ignore the U.N. Sure, show up for the meetings, make the speeches, but after that, why bother?

This obvious rip-off for the renovation of their building is just the latest outrage and the tip of the iceberg where U.N. corruption and malfeasance are concerned. Donald Trump offered to remake the building into another Trump Tower for significantly less than the original $1.2 Billion. I say let him do it. Though personally, I'd rather see him convert the building into a homeless shelter.

And while we are on the subject, let's not forget the U.N.'s most recent power grab for control of the Internet. Talk about a stupid idea. It would be laughable if so many of these Euro-weenies and dictators were not serious. Imagine allowing member states like Iran, China, Cuba or Saudi Arabia, who led the initiative, to take control of the Internet. You'd log on and all you would see is ALLAH AKBAR!

Mike @ Mike's America

{Aslan: Thanks, Mike and truly amazing. The shocking thing is that these socialists take themselves seriously. Unfortunately, the Left in this country take them seriously, too.}