In less than a year, the United Nations will convene a special
Millennium Assembly as a global summit on the future of the world. This
event will crown a decade of preparation to launch the new millennium on
a new system of global governance. The blueprint was published by the
Commission on Global Governance in 1995. Now, a Charter to achieve
global governance has been developed for presentation at the Millennium
Assembly next September. It will be published publicly on UN day,
October 24th.
It is called The Charter for Global Democracy. It has already
been signed by influential leaders in 56 nations, and has the support of
civil society non-government organizations around the world. The
document is, in reality, a Charter for the abolition of individual
freedom.
The first of 12 principles calls for the consolidation of all
international agencies under the direct authority of the United
Nations. The second principle calls for regulation by the UN of all
transnational corporations and financial institutions, requiring an
"international code of conduct" concerning the environment and labor
standards.
Principle number 3 demands an independent source of revenue for the
UN, such as the "Tobin tax" and taxes on aircraft and shipping fuels,
and licensing the use of the global commons. The "global commons" is
defined to be "outer space, the atmosphere, non-territorial seas, and
the related environment that supports human life."
Number 4 would eliminate the veto power and permanent member status
on the Security Council. Number 5 would authorize a standing UN army.
Number 6 would require UN registration of all arms and the reduction of
all national armies "as part of a multilateral global security system"
under the authority of the United Nations.
Principle number 7 would require individual and national compliance
with all UN "Human Rights" treaties and declarations. Number 8 would
activate the International Criminal Court, make the International Court
of Justice compulsory for all nations, and give individuals the right to
petition the courts to remedy social injustice.
Principle 9 calls for a new institution to establish economic and
environmental security by insuring "sustainable development." Number 10
calls for the establishment of an International Environmental Court.
Number 11 calls for a declaration that climate change is an essential
global security interest that requires the creation of a "high-level
action team" to allocate carbon emission based on equal per-capita
rights. Principle number 12 calls for the cancellation of all debt owed
by the poorest nations, global poverty reductions, and for "equitable
sharing of global resources," as allocated by the United Nations.
As preposterous as these ideas may sound to freedom-loving Americans,
most of the world considers them to be an improvement over their current
circumstance. The fuel that fires the global governance movement,
however, is not the desires of oppressed people, it is the money
supplied by the well-to-do elite who feel the need to "do something" to
help the less fortunate people of the world. The strategy for advancing
the movement is supplied by those who expect to control the machinery of
global governance.
It is no coincidence that financial contributions in support of the
Charter for Global Democracy are to be made to the London office of
United Nations Association.
Dozens of documents, all promoting some form of world government,
have been circulating for most of this decade. All contain these same
principles. The Millennium Assembly will receive these documents and
meld them into the legal instruments required to modify the existing UN
Charter. It will take a year or two for the legal documents to be
prepared and adopted, and another year or two for ratification. The
world is truly standing at the threshold of world government.
Woodrow Wilson brought the world to the same threshold nearly 80
years ago; the United States decided not to enter, and the League of
Nations collapsed. Once again, it is up to the United States to
determine the future of the world. If the United States embraces this
Charter for Global Democracy, the world will be subjected to global
dominance by the United Nations. If the United States opts out, the
world may be spared centuries of inevitable oppression.
There is no issue of greater importance in next year's election than
where each candidate stands on global governance and national
sovereignty. So far, this issue has not emerged in any national
campaign.
The United States must prevent this catastrophe-in-the-making.
Global governance, as envisioned by the Commission on Global Governance
and the Charter for Global Democracy cannot succeed without the support
of the United States. The United States must walk away. For all
practical purposes, the next President, and the next Senate will make
that decision.
By walking away from the UN's vision of global governance, we are not
turning our backs to the rest of the world. Our next President and
Congress should say no to global governance, and offer a better idea.
There is no better idea, nor higher aspiration, than individual
freedom. America pioneered that technology 200 years ago, and it is
still the most valuable asset we possess.
- Freedom or democracy?
Freedom and democracy are not synonymous. In most of the world,
the term democracy means the right of citizens to participate in the
process of government. It is a right granted by the government, and
controlled by the government, and if exercised improperly, it is denied
by the government. Freedom, on the other hand, is the God-given right to
govern one's self.
Freedom is the power to enter into voluntary agreements with other
people who have precisely the same freedom, to achieve objectives of
mutual benefit, as determined only by the parties to the agreement.
Freedom is the power to make the rules that govern those agreements.
Freedom is the power to create and control a system of general
governance designed to serve its creators. Freedom is the power to
cheat, lie, and steal -- and learn the consequences of those actions.
Freedom is the power to experiment, to invent, to help others -- and
learn the consequences of those actions. Freedom is the ultimate
objective of human kind.
A system of global democracy, administered by the United Nations,
would turn the world away from its primary quest -- individual freedom.
Poverty cannot be eliminated by taking wealth from some and giving it to
others. The inevitable consequence of such action is the expansion of
poverty, by taking not only wealth, but the incentive to produce wealth
as well.
The environment -- the global commons -- cannot be protected for long
by regulated preservation. It must be protected by those who use it to
meet their daily needs. Government ownership or control of the
environment is the most certain way to ensure its degradation through
stagnation. People, like virtually every other species on earth, should
be free to use that portion of the environment they can control in
whatever way they choose. If they abuse that environment, the
environment will not sustain them. If they cultivate and care for that
environment, it will sustain them.
This is a fundamental law of nature that cannot be repealed by any
institution of government. In the long term, government attempts to
manage the environment become, in retrospect, examples of gross
mismanagement. Individuals, managing that portion of the planet they
are able to control, provide the surest way to achieve a healthy,
vibrant environment for all.
Freedom is the power to gain control over a portion of the
environment -- land ownership. Freedom is the power to defend that
land, by whatever means necessary, from those who have not learned the
consequences of cheating, lying, or stealing. Freedom is the power to
use the resources the land provides to create products and services
others are willing to buy. Freedom is the power to buy products and
services others have produced.
These are the ideas for which the world hungers. These are the
better ideas America should offer the world. Because these ideas have
produced prosperity beyond the wildest dreams of the rest of the world,
we should happily share our freedom technology with the world.
Democracy can be imposed upon people by government; freedom cannot be
imposed. Freedom must be learned through experience. Sometimes the
experience is bloody, as it was in America, and always, it is painful,
as is the current learning experience in Russia. It is the price we
must pay for the benefits freedom bestows.
America should stop pouring its prosperity down the United Nations'
drain. Instead, it should help directly, any nation that wants its
people to be free. If given the choice, the people of every nation
would choose individual freedom over a system of UN handouts. The
governments of those nations, however, are not likely to embrace the
possibility of relinquishing power. Governments of every stripe around
the world, are the obstacles preventing individual freedom.
The people of the United States should first ensure their continued
freedom by limiting the power of the government through the people
elected to represent us. We should insist that America never relinquish
one more ounce of its national sovereignty, and begin to reclaim our
national sovereignty by disengaging from the labyrinth of UN treaties we
have embraced in recent years. We should insist that our national
defense is second to none, and never subject it to the command of any
authority but our own. We should never relinquish our right for
individuals to own and use land, nor should we allow our government to
use our tax dollars to buy the land which is our posterity's
birthright. We should direct our government to reestablish as its
highest priority, the protection of individual freedom for every
American.
These ideas are repugnant to the promoters of global democracy under
the authority of the United Nations. These ideas are labeled as
"jingoism." These ideas are described as "extreme nationalism bordering
on hatred of non-nationals." The opposite is true. These ideas are
offered to the rest of the world because America demonstrates that these
ideas can bring the same kind of benefits to all nations that embrace
them.
This is the message the United States should deliver to the United
Nations. The next President and the next Senate will deliver whatever
message we, the voters, send. If we, the United States, embrace the
Charter for Global Democracy and the world government it establishes,
America will be reduced to the lowest common denominator forced equity
demands. The power of individual freedom will be caged in history books
for generations. It could easily take centuries of gradual decline and
rising oppression before a new generation of founders cast off the
scourge of the UN-King and rediscover the truths upon which America's
founders built our great nation. We, the people, literally hold the
future of the world in our hands. The people we send to Washington as
the result of our next election will either embrace world government, or
reject it. It is up to us.