Talk:United Nations

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[edit] Elassint

Your edits confuse me. When, recently, has the US supported anything the UN has done? (Esp. during the Bush administration.) The US has routinely ignored everything, and when they can't get their way, has gone around the UN's back. (See: Iraq War.) Could you explain that some, please? Researcher 16:01, 25 October 2007 (EDT)

[edit] What is it exactly that US "Conservatives" have against the UN?

So, I've been listening to the latest exciting instalment of Eagle Forum's wonderfully stupid radio programme (I know I shouldn't, since it rots the brain, but it's so difficult to take the piss if you don't know what they think) and this week it was about how the UN wants to take over the US education system, using the EVIL International Baccalaureate.

This struck me as a completely novel perspective coming from the UK education debate, considering here the Conservative party is mostly in favour of the IB. The IB is seen as academically rigorous and as an antidote to "dumbing down" in schools.

Anyway, in the second half of the show, they rather got off topic and started basing the UN for things like "pantheism" (It's so difficult as a good little brainwashed lefty to remember what I'm supposed to believe this week. I thought I was supposed to be atheist?) and the old bugbear, global warming. The depth of hatred these people seem to have for an organisation that at best could be described as "mostly harmless" makes me think there's some deeper reason that I'm missing. Why exactly do they hate the UN so much? ^{— Unsigned, by: Jeeves / talk / contribs}

There are a few parts to the antipathy that US conservatives have towards the UN. Firstly, there is the (mostly correct) view that many of the nations in the UN hate the US. There are whole blocs in the UN (mostly of the underdeveloped nations) that seek to balance the US (which is, from an IR perspective, the exact thing they should be trying to do.) However, the idea that some people cannot understand that everything the US does is great leaves a few conservatives cold.

Moreover, there is an older fear that being part of the UN means giving up a good deal of the US's sovereignty. In a completely literal sense, this is very true. By binding itself to international treaties, the US (and other states) do give up some of their sovereignty. (Of course, most of the treaties the US is bound to are ones the US designed.)

Lastly, there is an old conspiracy theory that the UN is secretly run by Communists (or whomever) and seeking to destroy the US. (See New World Order.) Researcher 19:25, 12 December 2007 (EST)

Yeah, I find this fascinating. My guess is that it has something to do with the notion that the US, having been established by and for 'free' people, should never again suffer 'taxation without representation', or more precisely, rule by anyone other than the elected Government of the US - it being the only body that has domain over US citizens. It's to do with the paranoid fear of the UN 'taking control' of the US and subjecting it to filthy, foreign ways - beacuse of course the ways of the US (waterboarding, etc) are on such a higher plane than any other society that EVER LIVED. And, finally, some of these boobs genuinely believe the UN represents the coming of the New World Order, which Biblically speaking is the work of Beelzebub himself and is yet another mark of the End Times. Hence the UN=Satan. Really. They think this. Google 'UN military vehicles on US soil' and the like. Fun fun. DogP 19:30, 12 December 2007 (EST)

Yikes. Just did the aforementioned Google search. someone has to tell these guys that there is no such a thing as "UN Forces." When the UN sends a peacekeeping mission, say, into some horrific place, it's the member states that pony up the forces to run the mission. It's not like the UN has its own standing army or anything. Those UN vehicles on American soil probably belong to the American army, on loan to the UN for a mission in Bosnia or something, and are being shuttled around the US for repairs/refits/or to be re-painted back into US colours at the end of the contract. PFoster 19:41, 12 December 2007 (EST)

Yes, that's exactly what's going on - they're either going out to UN duty or returning. However, you're missing the secret agenda: 'They' are building sooper-seekrit armies of death that are going to sweep aside the great US military and make us all eat croissants for breakfast, or onions. And sit with our hands dangling in that pansy Euro way. DogP 19:46, 12 December 2007 (EST)

That's nothing--in the 50's and early 60's the John Birch Society was convinced that there were thousands of "Afro-Cuban" troops in the American South, participating in war games with the US and the UN, that were going to be loosed as part of the attempt to bring the US firmly under the UN's heel. Researcher 19:54, 12 December 2007 (EST)