Bill:
| > I'm for the U.S. Constitution, its founding principles and the
| republican
| > form of government it promotes.
| >
| > While we seldom live up to those principles in practice anymore, they
| are
| > the ideals to which we should aspire.
|
|
| Agreed.
|
|
| > The U.N.'s principles are primarily socialistic, and not compatible with
| > those of our founding.
|
|
| Some would say the US is too socialistic, and have a case for it. We
| certainly don't have pure capitalism, and we don't have a democratic
| republic either - as I'm reminded every single time I'm forced to choose
| the lesser of the evils and then vote for someone who I know will not
| represent my wishes.
|
| In fact, I shudder to think of what we really have - and I've no doubt the
| people who launched this country would turn in their graves over the
| status quo. I think before we continue preaching our values to others, we
| need to do some serious internal housekeeping.
And I agree with that!
|
| It may well be that countries actively participating with the UN are most
| socialistic than we like, but that should call us to task to make the
| necessary changes, not to shrink away or be a fair weather friend.
What happened in Philadelphia cannot be replicated in Brussels. One of the
reasons why the colonies united is they shared basic principles.
The rest of the world does not share our principles. They know only graft,
corruption, power, dictatorship and theocracies, and - by trying so hard to
make the world like us, we've become more like them.
And maybe lost something we used to have. A peaceful commercial Republic.
|
|
| > If we are to have a world system, I want one based on the U.S.
| Consitution.
| > That's all.
|
|
| 100% agreement, but it's a long road, and will take a lot of dedicated
| work.
It will also take blood and tears.
|
|
| > The U.N. is the very definition of B.S. politics. It was created merely
| to
| > counter balance the two superpowers and their various satellites. Like
| NATO,
| > its usefulness has passed. Unfortunately, entrenched bureaucracies never
| > die, they just hire new marketing firms, and find new reasons for their
| > existence.
|
|
| Whether it's called the UN or something else, the basic idea is that we
| have local gov't for local things, and national gov't for nation things.
| The missing piece is a world gov't for things on that order. Without that
| level, we have countries going to war with each other, and we live in a
| time when that approach must be ended.
Even with that level, wars will still occur because at a fundamental level
the rest of the world shares fundamentally different values. For instance,
the Arab world will not let go of their theocratic/autocratic regimes for a
couple millennia, at their pace.
|
| A critically important piece of coming to terms with this concept would
| entail fixing something that's gone very wrong with our own gov't: it's
| gotten way too big for it's britches.
Amen to that!
| The US Gov't was originally
| instituted for very specific reasons, but over time has grown in leaps and
| bounds to become way too encompassing, and is now doing all kinds of
| things beyond it's mission. Who gave the gov't the right to collect
| extensive dosiers on each of us?
The same people who gave it the right to take our incomes, which until 1913,
it did not have.
| It just grew is what happened. In order
| for gov't to be successful, it has to have specific, limited, defined
| responsibilities and continuously be held accountable to the citizens that
| allowed it to exist in the first place. From this standpoint, a form of
| world gov't is a lot more palatible.
All I can say is if you hate national government, you ain't seen nothin'
yet. But you will if we ever have a global government.
|
|
| > I'm surprised you aren't more vocally outraged about the oil-for-food
| > program. I would have thought an idealistic guy like you would be all
| over
| > Kofi & Son for that charade, which - you must confess - gives guys like
| me a
| > lot of ammunition for our position.
|
| Believe me, I was just as upset over that as they next person, but I see
| that happening because the institution has been neglected, not watered. If
| we got real involved and took it seriously, we would be working to
| minimize this kind of behaviour.
I rather doubt that. It gets back to the nature of the rest of the world.
None of them understand our system, they think our wealth is a fluke, and
none of their theories provide them with the conceptual tools to understand
what makes it tick.
On the other hand, most of our academics are even further in the dark about
that.
I suspect Bill we agree on many "first principles" but diverge rather
sharply in the "how to get there" department. I also think we look at human
nature from different angles.
But I'm glad we have a chance through this list to exchange thoughts.
Thanks, Ed!
- Bob
|
|
| Bill
|
|
| >
| > - Bob
| >
|
|
| --- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
| multipart/alternative
| text/plain (text body -- kept)
| text/html
| ---
|
[excessive quoting removed by server]
©2004 Bob Calco |
|
