Ah, the United Nations

In the comments to Tom's post, I was offering super-national organizations as a counterexample on issues of governance. They worked in that one case, but that's not to be misread as a general endorsement by me of them. They are potentially a serious affront to sovereignty, and they can become badly misguided.

For example, just this week the United Nations has had one of its working groups declare that the United States should pay reparations to black Americans, and also 'affirmed abortion as a human right.'

Now, in the past I've defended the plausibility of reparations, but conditioned on the ideal of compensation as settling the matter once and for all. That's not where the working group was headed. They want "reparatory justice" to be accompanied by "monuments and memorials" to make sure, I suppose, that future generations never forget the offense. The whole concept of a weregeld is that the blood money should settle the blood feud. You don't keep bringing it up. It's settled.

As for abortion being a "human right," what about the human's rights whom you are killing? I can accept the necessity of abortion in cases where the mother's life will be lost as well as the child's due to complications in the pregnancy. In that case, though, we're not talking about the exercise of a right but the performance of something akin to a duty. It shouldn't be a choice for which someone should feel guilty, but rather a tragic but necessary action taken to save life.

Internationalism has its place in dispute resolution, but the nice thing about it is that they aren't capable of forcing you to comply. They can make suggestions, but they are just suggestions unless you consent as a nation to be bound.

9 comments:

raven said...

IF they could, they WOULD make us comply- the only thing missing is the force. Since they are not only tyrant's, but cowards, they must disarm us first. (a problem they do not face with the unborn.)

To paraphrase the movie "Forrest Gump",
"Evil is, as Evil does".



Ymar Sakar said...

When they get killed, this UN sub committee, I think then we will find out if they were evil or not.

Like the scientific methodology, sometimes the only way to be sure is to run a lot of experiments. Until all the mice are dead. Then one can say, "oh, I see what's going on now".

E Hines said...

How many divisions does the UN have?

Eric Hines

Grim said...

From time to time, they've fielded a number.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

The UN includes the following people
1. Well-connected clan and tribe members of third-world kleptocracies. They believe colonialism is the root of all evil and expect money to be given to their countries, most of which will go to their groups.

2. Gentle true-believer liberals from European and Anglospheric countries who believe that all the poor nations would become reasonable if the West, especially America and Israel, would stop being so belligerent and build schools and say nice things.

3. Near-totalitarian states who cannot believe their good fortune at getting to send so many spies to America.

E Hines said...

From time to time, they've fielded a number.

They haven't. Some constituent nations have volunteered some for them. Even with the Obama Retreat, only Russia and the PRC can volunteer enough.

I'm not worried.

Eric Hines

William said...

Repatory justice..... We did that once. It's called Liberia. The End.


William sends.

MikeD said...

You know, William makes an excellent point. If that attempt at reparations "doesn't count" or is "insufficient", then what chance do you give future attempts at reparations "counting" or "being sufficient"? And that one even had the benefit of being done by and for people who lived at the time (as opposed to now where you're asking people who never took part in slavery to pay those who never were under the lash).

Ymar Sakar said...

I'm not worried.

That's what people said about the Leftist alliance and Islamic Jihad.

Look at them now.