UN and Democracy

There is a claim among some on the American Right that the United Nations is seeking to destroy democracy. Nothing could be further from the truth. The United Nations is not only in favor of democracy but keeps intervening in favor of democracy all around the world.

The people who are against the United Nations are the people who are against human rights. Now some may see human rights as a luxury; but then, historically, so are the property rights. For most of recorded history there were no property rights. The property belonged to the kings and the nobles, and the regular people were serfs. Yet not even the people with monarchic sympathies today would dream of doing away with property rights.

Why are human rights important? Because there will always be people who will want to be bullies; and there need to be strong entities to protect from them the people that they want to bully. In many cases the bullies will rise to corrupt the systems or to put the systems in their service. Many communities, both inside America and outside America, are completely corrupt and do things such as take away children from loving, hard-working mothers and give them to severely violent, child molesting or seriously criminal fathers. Which means that there will always be a need for someone to stand up to those bullies, whether within the system or externally to the system.

Another claim is that the UN compromises America's sovereignty. My response to that is that influence is a two-way street. America influences the rest of the world more than the rest of the world influences America. American business, American movies, American finance, American legal practices, dominate the world. Does this make America a threat to the rest of the world's sovereignty? Should the rest of the world rise up against America, as we see Taliban propose? Or should people see reason – that in an interconnected world everyone influences one another, and the rational solution is to learn how to deal with other influences?

UN shares America's best values. It is in favor of justice. It is in favor of good treatment of the next person. It is in favor of personal freedom. It is in favor of helping disadvantaged children. America and UN should not be fighting each other; they should be working together to make these values count everywhere. Stop seeing threats and start to see opportunities. That is the best of American thinking, and one that has made – and continues to make – America the greatest country in the world.