Whirled peas ‘n’ wireless phones

[B]Let’s look closer at the UN[/B]

First, let us recognize that governments are instituted amongst men for just one purpose, to enslave them. All the other reasons/excuses are widow dressing to hide the real truth of the matter. No matter the form of government, no matter the protestations about freedom and respect and tolerance, at its root government is a force-based system of one person or one group’s power over others. At its most basic, it is a system where goods, services and cash are forcibly wrested from some individuals and groups to be reissued to the benefit of other individuals and groups. The redistribution usually goes surreptitiously to those who are in power and their pals and supporters with widely publicized bones thrown to one heartrending just cause or another for appearances’ sake. Put simply, government is in the business of armed robbery and extortion. That is the dirty little secret that all the flag waving, marching bands and flowery, stirring speeches about “patriotism” and “public service” are meant to disguise. We’re talking about all governments here, not just ours in the CNMI. Ours is benevolent and kind in comparison with bigger, more powerful and heavily-armed oppressors around the world.

About the only thing that keeps the process in check is the greed and avarice of other countries’ governments who would like to horn in and get a piece of the population percentage action of still other countries, keeping them at each other’s throats and keeping them off our backs as citizens to some small extent.

Now enters the United Nations, waving its own flag, wielding its own gun (thankfully fairly weakly as yet), and singing the hymn of peace on earth. Just let them have ALL the guns and they will benignly rule over the entire earth and all us trusty peons will be better off, so they say. They claim to know far better than we do what is best for us and how best to disburse our assets, align our borders and arrange our relationships with other nations and trading partners. Apparently the blue U.N. hat confers some kind of omniscience.

Yes, I’ve seen [I]The Day The Earth Stood Still[/I] (clatu barada nicto) and [I]War of the Worlds[/I] and realize that given an alien invasion we humans might want to band together to fend them off. (Before fending we might first want to find out what kind of tax burden the aliens want to lay on us…it might be better than what we’ve got). But we are not being invaded by aliens, unless you believe the National Inquirer. Hence it’s just not a very plausible argument for surrendering our sovereignty and few remaining freedoms to an all-powerful group or person down at the U.N.

So what other reasons might we put forth to rationalize the entire planet and it’s diverse peoples and cultures being placed under the boot of an armed one-world dictatorship? So those in power can strip the goods of those who produce in order to give to those in other countries who do not, thus dragging the standard of living down to the lowest common denominator in the name of equality? So we can conserve the scarce resources of the earth to the benefit of connected others instead of for the benefit of our own self-interest or of those willing to pay the most for them and thus values them most? So we can be subjugated and forced to live, work and produce in the service of unnamed others? These are the hallmarks of slavery, not of some Pollyannaish vision of world peace.

We haven’t even talked about what happens when, once the rest of the world is disarmed and impotent, a ruthless despot takes over the helm of the U.N. via a coup or just smiles and makes big enough promises to get elected. Then he proceeds to have us all working in his sweatshops and cotton fields. We also haven’t talked about the original premise that if little government is bad, big government is far worse and huge all-encompassing one-world government carries with it a certain guarantee of tyranny sooner or later. Probably sooner.

You’ve heard the old saw: Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. There is more than just a grain of reality in this tired old saying; there is a profound truth contained in it. If we wish to preserve what vestige of personal freedom we have left then small, fragmented, inefficient governments full of errors and inconsistencies are much preferable to a huge all-powerful group with aspirations of full and complete control of your life and the lives of all the humans on the planet.

As a forum for peaceable negotiation between neighbors and trading partners I think the U.N. has a future and provides a useful mediation service. As an armed bureaucracy with aspirations to rule all the peoples of the earth, force them into arbitrary courts with universal jurisdiction and mold us into lockstep uniformity I think we should fight it tooth and nail.

Luckily, there is not much likelihood we will have to physically fight them in our lifetime, but they are growing. Our grandkids may want to be slaves, or not, it will be them who will have to fight this creeping insipid evil in the jungles and streets of the world if they choose not to live in chains. For our part we can keep a close eye on the seedy bunch to make sure they stay within their bounds as voluntary mediators and don’t creep into other area like “world courts” with forced participation. Also we should try to keep guns out of their hands lest they turn the muzzles on us.

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[B]‘Recycling’[/B]

It seems to me the recent spate of thefts involving copper wire and other metals are easily solved. There are only three or four places that buy the stolen merchandise. If memory serves me right, there are laws on the books about receiving stolen merchandise. The person “fencing” [buying] the stolen booty, whether it is diamonds, gold, copper or cars, is as guilty of perpetrating the crime as the thief who stole the stuff in the first place. In fact, with no market to sell the stolen wire to, there would be no thefts at all. Enforce the law. Make the buyers responsible. The buyers are easy to find. The thieves are hard to find, unless you station an undercover cop at the stolen goods buyers’ place of business. Then they too are easy to find. It is not necessary to wait for the upcoming new legislation to be brought to bear on this problem. Start tomorrow afternoon. Instead of detailing the police to issue more traffic tickets to “show the administration they are doing their job,” let’s detail them to stake out these recycling centers and haul the thieves off to jail.

So much for the feel good, tree huggy recycling program, if we keep letting it degenerate into a raw materials pawnshop. These recycling centers serve a legitimate and useful purpose especially on our small and ecologically fragile islands. Let’s not legislate them out of business, let’s work with them to apprehend the thieves and get them off the streets. But let us be clear that we want them to know the source of the stuff they buy.

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[B]Quote of the week:[/B] Alliance. In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other’s pockets that they cannot separately plunder a third.

—Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

[I](Bruce A. Bateman writes Sour Grapes when the moon is full and the mood strikes. Stay tuned for each exciting episode. “Yes, he is opinionated.” bbateman@pticom.com)
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