If I can stop you for a second Balor, I just want to do you a favour. Stop now. While you have the right idea, you have the facts wrong.
BTW, The U.N. can, literally, barely afford to keep a U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights. It’s not really the most democratic society to begin with, considering the permanent member status some countries hold on things like the Security Council as mentioned above.
The Americans aren’t that bad, really. Sure, they have their bad points, but thier no better, or worse than any other country, really.
Maith go leor, go raibh maith agat, buiochas le Dia. Agus tusa?
::: Sound of paranoid moderator feverishly looking for Irish English Dictionary in the Web. Discovers merely exchange of friendly greetings. Goes to change pants urgently. :::
The odd thing is that I genuinely agree with you. We have far worse ###-holes in Ireland. As the old pun goes, “Nil aon ton tinn mar do thon tinn fein” (Sorry, no “fada” in my PC.)
Even France. We must be charitable, and anyway I have more French cousins than American ones. I also have a French-American one.
This view demonstrates colossal ignorance of the situation. Besides, this has been thoroughly covered already, and you wouldn’t want Collounsbury to show up here and humiliate your simplistic political beliefs. Pig farm indeed…
I feel the UN is a good idea, however, I also feel that the current implementation of it is the UN’s fatal flaw.
The US being voted off the Human Rights Commission was nothing but real-politik being played by several countries, all of whom dislike the US quite a bit.
Although personal unsupported views are fine and dandy, this isn’t the IMHO forum, and your view was IMHO. But you are right, I should have linked to the discussion I was referring to:
A thread worth reading, in which several dopers discuss Human Rights, the U.N. and the US, and in which Collounsbury addresses the typical dismissive knee-jerk response of the uninformed or the angry to the U.N.
It’s not only an interesting discussion, but you also get to see Jesse Helms get called a “drooling little toadish moron”!
Abe, I just read that other thread. It’s interesting. Except for your comments, which make you out to be a… well, I don’t want to join you in the mud-slinging. Let’s just say I don’t feel so bad about you calling me ignorant any more.
To be a what, Bill? Are you aware of what a poor case for anything you are making with this rather childish comment? Also, your hypocrisy is classic: you say that you don’t want to sling mud, and proceed to imply insults.
No mud-slinging from me Bill–you’re the one who ranted unfairly against the U.N. without any kind of argument to support the weight of your harsh words. As for my posts in that particular discussion, you will find that they are arguments that are supported– unlike you thus far, I don’t expect everything I say to stay up by itself (whether it’s opinions or judgements).
The opinion of the U.N. you expressed earlier is typical of those who do not understand what the U.N. is, what it does, what it is supposed to do, and what the value of being in the U.N is for a member country. That’s ignorance, corrected by reading up on the matter (Collounsbury and Manhattan’s discussion ought to have cleared up much of the confusion, but you can also refer to http://www.un.org/questions_answers.htm and other Web sites). If you thought I meant “ignorant” as a personal insult you are mistaken. Since this seems to offend you, and keep in mind that your comments on the U.N were themselves offensive, perhaps a better description for your original opinion on the U.N. would be “uninformed”?
And of course he is. Most loathsome little moron in the entire Senate.
However, as to describing the UN as a pig farm, well while years of neglect of the UN building in NY (underfunding of repairs) may have left it in a sad state, it’s not a pig farm by any leap of the imagination?
Ah, but you were using this metaphorically. Well, you’re wrong in the usual pedestrain manner in which the uninformed attack the UN without any clear understanding of either international relations nor even the actual functions of the UN. But I see you’ve read the thread. I do hope you would like to retract your opinion or provide some new basis for it.
Other than that, Abe’s characterization was hardly an ad hominem per se.
Now, unto the issue of US losing the seat. As I have noted in several other threads, I beleive to characterize this as being the result of US’s enemies machinations or punishment for less-than-perfect record is to miss the point. The seat was lost because US’s allies didn’t support the candidacy. Sure, Chinese worked to try to punish us, but had not recent diplomacy managed to thoroughly infuriate the Europeans (who often work to garner us Third World votes we can’t get directly) in a number of areas. One can hand wave about oh the French don’t like us anyway (rather exagerated IMHO) or this or that, but when it comes right down to it, our closest friends decided not to pull for us (us being the US for this conversation).
So, one should ask what produced this. Let’s leave aside Balor’s ranting. I’d hazard the opinion that a review of our style of presentation, diplomatically spekaing, as well as strategies and perhaps a bit of consciousness raising among the ignorant of the real benefit one gains from the UN per se so as to ratchet down the uninformed rantings about it. Thankfully I think something of the same is starting to occur.
Abe’s comments in this matter in this thread and the other were less than interesting to me. But Collounsbury, you clearly have some knowledge and insight into the subject. You wrote:
I don’t believe I’m uninformed, but that’s really irrelevant. Also, I am not an isolationist by any stretch of the imagination. My feelings on the UN (and our role in international relations) is simple:
We should exert international influence and reinforcement (both positive and negative) by way of money. If we’re happy with what some country is doing on some issue, we should encourage more trade with them, or give them some jet fighters, or send them a check or whatever, and encourage our allies to act likewise. If we’re unhappy with some country on some issue, we should take economic steps towards getting them to change their actions. In my opinion, this is the only way we should be exerting influence on the rest of the world.
This concept of “democracy” (and it’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, by the way) amongst nations is silly. I don’t give a damn what Somalia or Sweden or Sudan’s view is on some matter within our borders, and I don’t give a damn about their view on anything outside our borders. We should make good moral decisions about how we feel our nation (and other nations) should be shaped and take steps towards that shaping. If human rights is something we feel is important (and it certainly should be), we should take steps to see that it’s addressed in our own country and take steps to see that it’s addressed in other countries. What Sudan’s opinion is on the matter is completely uninteresting to me.
The UN is based on the concept that every nation’s view is important. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s just not true. As the strongest nation on the earth at present, we have a moral obligation to lead and shape those with lesser moral instincts, and that specifically means discounting their opinion.
The thing is I don’t care what other nations think of our morality. Does that mean that I’m completely comfortable with our standing in the morality department? No, in fact there are (and always will be) areas for improvement. But those areas should be defined by us.
This does happen. However it is in no way sufficient. Firstly, encouraging our allies requies having them to begin with. It is far easier to maintain allies in the context of a good multilateral talking shop than multiple bilaterals. The general stability of the G7/11 relations is best seen and understood in the context of the web of multilateral institutions which support them. Although not all is directly tied to the UN, the entire framework rests on similar logic.
Begin repudiating the UN because of faulty cost-benefit analysis means essentially starting a process which can undermine the entire logic of the multilaterals.
I do not ordinarily like slippery slope arguments, however in this case, given in general the fragile nature of multilateral agreements and cooperation (which can be thought of as unstable equilibrium points such that moves too far in either direction away from equilibrium take you farther from equilibrium) as collectively rational solutions which are not however individually rational. We run into some classic game theoretical problems in regards to how to achieve the collectively rational and well-being maximizing solution in such a case. Multilaterals help a process of achieving enough of a critical mass to force/encourage/subsidize or otherwise sustain results which otherwise are not achievable.
I disagree, it’s useful to keep the mechanism moving and to help reduce resentments towards the big nations dictating. For small nations is presents at least an illusion of inclusion into the process which helps bind them to common-interest solutions.
In large part the big powers can and have achieved what they desire, largely through side payments --a little bribery if you will to lubricate the wheels-- to build coalitions.
This is good. As such, quasi-democratic voting within a structure which also recognizes the reality of big nation power (Sec. Council) is extremely useful to create and sustain concensus. The designers of the UN may not have achieved the most efficient organization, but neither did those of the American consitution. What they did create was a system capable of sustaining consensus and supporting well-being maximizing multi-lateral solutions over the long run. Critics who expect this to work flawlessly or focus on single nation solutions miss the entire point. Not to say reforms and adjustments are not necessary, but only that the basic conception is wise and has proven fairly useful given real world constraints.
Fine, as you wish.
Fine, you’re not in the business of sustaining long term cooperation. When you are in that, you will.
Forgive me if I laugh at this. Frankly that is both simplistic and innocent.
We have made, we make and we will make decisions based on self-interest, often dressed up in either self-justifying (and self-decieving) moralistic language or just plain bluntly self-serving.
However, decisions based on self-interest should be rational and well informed based on an understanding of the game of international relations as a long term one (a repeated game) which is subject to shifting coalitions. Ergo, we do need to take into account the opinions of other nations as in order to achieve optimal or even near optimal solutions (or sometimes not even particularly optimal but pleasing to us) we need cooperation.
See, you don’t seem to grasp forcing the issue in the long run, runs against you. That’s the whole point to multilateral solutions. Your analysis here reflects the typical failure that we seen in ‘games’ where multiple parties gun for individually optimal solutions – bloody hell I can only think of prisoner’s dilemma games presently but another model was on my mind. In such situations one ends up with the worst rather than the optimal solution.
Now of course you could argue that even if eveyone decides to gun for individually optimal solutions that the resultant product will be more efficient. I suggest that you are wrong if you try to do so, in general although in an individual case one might see such a result, but the long run is what counts since these are repeated games. I can not cite for you the entire body of economic and political science literature, based both on theory and on empirical research which strongly suggests otherwise, (I don’t have the time for such presently) however I will suggest that you might consider the position of the WTO on environmental accords. I suggest the WTO as you can safely assume that the position does not rest upon, how shall I say it, airy liberal (American politic sense) instincts. To be brief, WTO’s comments in re environmental accords and standard setting strongly supports multilateral treaties as the most efficient solution with greatest welfare impoving characteristics over bilaterals and unilaterals.
No, I’m sorry, your view is simplistic, blinkered and fundamentally flawed for the reasons already described above.
Woo hoo. Beat your chest. etc. Strongest nation still needds cooperation to achieve solutions, else it will see coalitions forming against it and frustrating its intentions. It will see its friends slowly turn against it and pursue cooperative strategies with its enemies if it does not give proper regard to compromise.
In otherwords, if it works like a bully it will get the results of a bully.
Pure self interest.
“Lesser moral instincts.” Bwahahahhahhaah. Give me a motherfucking break. * Please, * I don’t play these silly “superiority” games.
No, it does not, frankly. It means working intelligently, not based on some factually unfounded, philosophically bankrupt sense of moral superiority which appears to derive from an unbalanced sense of self-satisfaction and a lack of realism in regards to the achievable via unilateral action. Perhaps the best response is ‘been there, done that.’
I rather prefer well-founded rationality over simplistic chest-beating and unfounded moralizing.
Geez, where to start? Ya know, more words don’t necessarily equate to more content, my friend.
Collounsbury wrote
Let me quote you: "“Forgive me if I laugh at this. Frankly that is both simplistic and innocent.”
Do you really believe that money (and all of it’s equivalents, such as security, prosperity, etc.) is not what countries are at the U.N. for? My solution is the same as yours, except that in yours (the UN) there is a formalized marketplace for nations to exert influence, and smaller, less wealthy nations are given unhealthy and unnatural powers.
And you of course can note that in my replacement for the U.N., I said that we should encourage our allies to exert influence in the ways that we do.
You must be joking. Are you implying that because we have the U.N. we can fire all of the diplomats we have for individual countries?
There are three currencies of power on a national level: Diplomacy, Money and Force. What I suggested mentioned money directly, and certainly includes diplomacy. All that is left is force. Is there some other magic you have in mind? Of course I was specific in my mention that the term “money” is not always (or even mostly) a check; it includes things such as military equipment, encouraged trade, etc.
Your implication is that international relations are currently done primarily through the U.N., and not through direct channels. Untrue. Certainly from a raw manpower point of view that’s not true. Certainly from a money point of view that’s not true. Please explain how this could be so.
I completely agree, and this is the one value of the U.N. that I do allow: that being part of the process in some way encourages nations to be more agreeable to the outcome. But in my mind, that’s not enough to rationalize the huge bloated powerful thing that it is.
And this is the alternative to the U.N. I propose. Although that’s not bribery. It’s a transaction like any other. One party has money, the other party has a good or service, the two make an exchange. “Bribery” is when a less-powerful person pays a powerful person for some value from that power. What we are descibing is a powerful person paying a non-powerful one for the purposes of peace or human rights or other. More akin to welfare or charity.
Well, actually I am. If I were an isolationist, I would not advocate spending on foreign nations. I advocate international participation, but not on the terms of the less moral or less powerful. And I’m sorry if that sounds hypocritical. It is a fact that some nations are more powerful than others. That power must not be abused. That power must be used for good. But there is no reason to expect that power to be diluted for some “common world good”, that phrase being defined by the less powerful.
I am very familiar with game theory and strategy for long-term sustainable cooperation. And if you are too, then you’ll surely know that no market is required (or even mentioned in any text I’ve ever read). And that’s all the U.N. adds to the equation: a market for international power and influence. Please cite a reference talking about the value of a market over not having a market in game theory. Even one, please. Oh, and another cite of where unfair rules (one vote per nation) is ever cited as some benefit to the equation.
I do not see Col calling for us to abandon bilateral discussions. It would seem to me that you have set up an either-or dichotomy while Col has simply noted the needs/advantages of the choice that you would exclude.
While multiple bilateral arrangements will always occur, the U.N. provides a forum where some discussions can take place in the open without each participant assuming that some other exclusionary deal is being worked out behind their backs. It provides an arena in which each party may make its own claim for need/want/morality/whatever before the whole body of “the rest of the world” and the discussions can take place with at least the illusion that they are being argued on the merits of the arguments. It also provides a forum where multiple nations can bring their “good will” or their disapproval to bear on a single country that is beginning to behave as a rogue in a particular situation.
This does not have the effect of resolving all disputes in some magic fashion. It does, however, provide alternative means of communication and a clear method of consensus building that is simply not available through multiple bilateral talks.
Since the U.N. is incapable of forcing the U.S. to do anything that we do not like, it hardly hurts us to participate in a forum in which we can make a common appeal to world opinion for our views, reducing (not eliminating) the amount of effort required by multiple bilateral agreements.
