Romney On the United Nations

Since he's a conservative Republican, there are many things that I disagree with Mitt Romney about. But there are some areas of agreement too, and his recent statements about the United Nations seem to be on the right track. See Romney Calls UN an 'Extraordinary Failure'.

I agree that the UN has been a huge failure over the years, on many dimensions. Not that it hasn't done any good for anyone at any time -- surely it has here and there. But overall, I think it has done far more harm than good. And I don't just mean the obvious, direct harms -- such as UN workers raping women in the Congo, or massive corruption schemes like Oil for Food, or the many other items that have grabbed headlines.

I'm also talking about the apparently less obvious harms that arise from actually having a body that is composed half of democratic, relatively rights-respecting nations, and the other half literally populated by criminals. And make no mistake, that is what nations run by dictators, tyrants, monarchs, communists/socialists, and so on are -- they are nations run by criminals. Such statist regimes deny individual rights by their very nature -- some worse than others, but all to such a degree that they are different in kind than the relatively-free nations of the world like the USA, Britain, Canada, and so on.

So I'm glad to hear a Presidential candidate in the US call for "a coalition of 'free nations' as an alternative to the UN." Good for Mitt. Much of the news on this story centered around the UN's Human Rights Council, which the US has boycotted from the perspective of diplomacy and membership, because it insanely allows countries with horrible human rights records to be members.

But the HRC is not the core problem -- the UN as a whole is. I mean, what sense does it make to invite practically all nations of the world to gather to discuss issues, when so many of these nations are ruled by criminals? Do our police sit down a big table with known criminals to discuss issues in our cities? Uh, no. Too simplistic of an analogy? I don't think so.

One other thing to note about the MSNBC article linked above in particular, as it includes the following: "The comments highlighted the deep mistrust of the UN among many US conservatives, who view the organisation as an obstacle to US interests and a constraint on US power." While there might be some "conservatives" who bemoan obstacles and constraints to US interests and power in the world, this is a misunderstanding -- or blatant misrepresentation -- of the complaint that most conservatives, libertarians, Objectivists, and others have about the UN.

The primary complaint about the UN is not because it lessens US interests, but because it is inherently corrupt and does more harm than good -- objectively speaking. The UN is rotten at its core, because it allows nations ruled by criminals -- tyrants, dictators, monarchs, and so on -- to have seats at the table, chairs on the Human Rights Council, and positions from which to negotiate with the relatively free, rights-respecting nations of the world. That is the issue, and that is why the UN should be abandoned, and if any organization is created to replace it (debatable), it should be formed with far higher standards of admission.