Several of the more liberal media types have been having a blast reporting the latest polls for Europe which show that George W. isn’t very popular over there. No doubt, the Democrats will take pleasure in repeating these poll results at every opportunity.
We should be proud that he is not high in the European polls at the moment: It’s impossible to lead if you’re just one of the crowd. What the world needs is a leader who will chart a course away from the European crowd that thinks the future belongs to a system of global governance.
Having heard the cat-calls from the NGO (non-government organization) cheerleaders who attend U.N. meetings, and having heard the accusatory statements from U.N. delegates who blame the U.S. for their poverty – I know it took great courage for President Bush to say “no” to Kyoto.
He knew he would be criticized and ridiculed. He was, and continues to be criticized and ridiculed – not only by Europeans, but by Americans who think the United States should relinquish its national sovereignty for the benefit of the global village.
Hogwash and horsespit!
It’s time for a real leader – one even stronger than “tear-down-this-wall” Reagan. It is time to tell the world that we will not submit to global governance but will, instead, lead the way to global cooperation.
Bush is right in his decision to not further entangle the United States in the Kyoto web. He is right to tell the U.N. Americans will not forfeit their right to own guns. He is right to challenge the wisdom of yielding to the pressure of European globalists. The question is, whether or not he will get the support he needs from the American people.
It is sickening to see Eileen Clausen – formerly a Clinton-Gore negotiator at the U.N. climate change talks, now with the Pew Charitable Trust’s Center for Climate Change – waging a propaganda campaign to demean Bush and suggest that he needs to kowtow to the international community. It is even more sickening to see Senators McCain and Lieberman team up to force the United States to do what the international community wants the U.S. to do.
If there needs to be policy action related to global warming – and that’s a very big if – the policy action should be voluntary on the part of sovereign states; not forced by international law, and enforced by a global police force.
The bigger challenge is the growing power of the United Nations system. The Kyoto Protocol is only one of several noose-tightening measures foisted on the world by this power-hungry band of world-government enthusiasts:
Our land is subject to use policies established in the United Nations system. Our international trade is subject to approval by the World Trade Organization. Our educational curriculum is heavily influenced by principles established by UNESCO. Our chemical production is subject to international treaties. Our use of the Internet will soon fall under the scrutiny of another international treaty. Our water is the subject of the U.N. Commission On Water For The 21st Century. Our speech is the subject of a World Conference on Racism next week in South Africa. Our cities and towns are being transformed to comply with the U.N.’s Agenda 21.
There is no end to the interest the United Nations has in how Americans – and everyone else – live their lives.
We need a leader who will say “No!”
The choice is not global governance or isolation – the choice is global governance or global freedom. Most of the rest of the world has not yet learned the first principle of freedom.
The first principle of freedom is: Government is empowered by the consent of the governed.
The concept of global governance pays lip service to this principle by allowing “approved” NGO representatives to participate in the process, but it cannot accept the idea that government officials must be held accountable through free and open election of all policy makers.
In the United Nations system – in most of Europe and throughout the world – the prevailing concept of government holds that government is omnipotent and, therefore, may grant or deny freedom to whomever it wishes.
America’s founders recognized that government is the creation of free individuals who have the right and the power to limit government. This constitutional limitation of power is exceedingly inconvenient for those people who are in government. These people who are in government have been working for more than 200 years in America to weaken this limitation by finding new ways to bypass the clear language of the Constitution. The Clinton-Gore administration was masterful, using Executive Orders and Presidential Decrees to trash the Constitution – and Congress was silent.
Throughout Europe, these limitations do not exist. Government sets its own limits, if any, and allows those “approved” representatives from civil society to participate in what they call a democratic process. It’s not democratic if only the elite (those who agree with government policy) are allowed to participate.
This is exactly how the United Nations operates, yet calls the process open, transparent, and democratic. To join the civil society elite – those who may be allowed to participate – an organization has to not only declare allegiance to the aims of the U.N., but also produce a two-year track record of activities which demonstrate that allegiance.
Americans need to know that President Bush cannot fight this battle alone. He will be devoured by the media, the NGO propaganda mills, and the so-called “progressives” in Congress. Elected officials at every level of government need to know that rank-and-file citizens want no part of Kyoto, or U.N. gun control, or U.N. Internet control, or U.N. control of anything.
President Bush, and Secretary of State, Colin Powell, need to know that while we don’t wish to “bash” the U.N., we certainly don’t intend to be bashed by it. Nor do we intend to sit idly by while the U.N. wraps its tentacles around our sovereignty.
We need a leader who will say to the U.N. – and to the world – “we have a better idea, and that idea is freedom.” We need a leader who will extricate the U.S. from the World Trade Organization’s supervision of our trade policy and, instead, hammer out trade deals that are mutually beneficial – not deals designed to redistribute wealth.
We need a leader who will say to the U.N. – and to the world – “we stand ready to cooperate, yes, even to assist and aid. But we will never capitulate to the demands of a world government – by whatever name it may be called.
George Bush is not this leader – yet. But he could become this leader. He has taken important first steps with Kyoto and with the gun-control treaty. But he has also stepped backwards, by signing the treaty to give the U.N. control over important manufacturing chemicals.
George Bush is a political creature. Regardless of where his convictions may direct him, he can walk only so far on politically thin ice. We cannot expect him to move into policy directions where there is no public support.
He has taken a few important first steps – the rest of the journey is as much the responsibility of those of us who stay at home, as it is of the man whose first few steps have been challenged by the world.
