Non-US Dopers: A Hypothetical Anti-Bush Question

Great Debates
21

Its very late here in the Antipodes and I must get to bed but I’ll leave you with a final comment. It seems to me that your concept of this ‘world government’ is rather different to the OP but its very unclear to me how you envisage that it would work or what useful purpose it could possibly serve. You wrote earlier your perception that the General Assembly would be:

and that it

which suggest to me at the very least you imagine this body is empowered to make significant binding decisions for the “collective whole”. At the same time you write

and ruled out my mention of issues such as Kyoto and Palestine as incompatible with this principle. You also earlier wrote that the body would not enforce its values or democracy upon those “not yet ready for it”. But the reality is that issues such as Kyoto, the ICC, and Palestine and landmine treaties are the concerns of the collective whole for their security and welfare. I dont see how you can reconcile these contradictory principles of “binding commitments” and sovereignty. If the ‘world government’ cant rule on issues such as I have mentioned because it violates national sovereignty then honestly whats the point of it? Sounds like you really dont want a world government at all, you just want to get rid of the Security Council.

22

Of course, John, it is all pie-in-the-sky as far as being a realistic proposal any time soon. However I repeat that, even so, I think we are jumping the gun by many decades in terms of changes which this hypothetical World Government would make to Western democracies against the will of their electorates.

To begin with the UN would, as now, solely be concerned with the interaction between states, be it economic, diplomatic, military or whatever. Any proposed constitution would reflect this. Proposals which impugned national sovereignty would simply be voted against.

There might also be some vague nod towards human rights, which would be quibbled with endlessly by those states where such rights are in short supply. This would be the role of the world government for many decades: Trying to establish the most basic elements of our own systems of government established worldwide.

The only time a Western Democracy would likely find itself in disagreement with the UN was when it wanted to do something which plainly violated the sovreignty of another state.

It simply would not be the case that the US would be forced to implement Kyoto, or Australia forced to adopt US gun laws, or the UK the death penalty, or any such clear violations of national sovreignty, as China, Cuba, Zimbabwe and Syria looked on and laughed.

23

Eolbo, yes, I can see I’m leaving myself open to accusations of contradiction. But I’m trying to stress the importance of baby steps here. I would like to see a fully federalised democratic world government of the United States of Earth eventually, but that is centuries away, if at all.

Again, I point to the analogy made by the OP. There is nothing in the US constitution about credit-card fraud, and yet it is still illegal in every state; they each chose to adopt a given law without the need to forcefully compel them all to via a Constitutional amendment.

The UN is all about getting the states to work together for the common good. If the US engaged with it in the manner hypothesised in the OP, it would surely adopt Kyoto and a landmine ban itself?

24

Just driving past on this, I’m afraid.

What I read in the OP is a different form of empire-building, except the proposal is rather more the alreeady in situ Franco-German vision for the EU. Well, hardly a ‘vision’ of ‘empire’ anymore, pretty much a reality.

And it’s only the public-friendly, ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’ version, anyway. Woof woof.

Odd that the OP should tout the UN Constitution as a potential humanitarian benchmark when the US refuses to incorporate the UN Convention on Human Rights – unlike, of course, the EU. But I do think what Is being suggested (here) is what is being pursued in Europe ; this may become clearer in May when the EU extends to 25 fully-democratic, capitalised nations.

But I do agree that if this kind of thing were ever to get off the ground world-wide, one of the first areas of progress would be a world-wide legal (bonded) framework for things like human rights.

In fact we do have tiny green shoots now, the ICC, the War Crimes Tribunal, the Euro Convention on Human Rights, even Kyoto . . . just little pieces that don’t infringe too greatly on the individual sovereignty of the nation state. This optional legal framework is still a recent trend instigated by the EU, perhaps in pursuit of it’s own empire-building agenda. Or not.

And of which, of course, the US not only wants no part, but does what it can to undermine; all these international agreements amount to the world community ‘ganging up’ on the US and it’s right to do what the hell, whenever, where ever.

But that’s the nature of empire, one doesn’t give it up easily.

Q: How does one persuade an empire, or empires (cf. the coming of the Chinese and the usurpation of the $US by the euro), to relinquish self-interest.

My conclusion, this has about as much chance of success as did Communism, and for pretty much the same reasons.

25

I’d be afraid. I’d be very afraid.

Some background: I live in Sweden, less than half an hour from the Danish capital with a commuter train. My governemnt is five hours away by train, in a different climate zone. Spring is already here, it won’t hit northern Sweden until the end of May. The reason I’m bringing this up is that my government has a tendency to pass laws that either screw those in the far north or those in the far south. Snow tyres are now mandatory between Dec 1st and March 31st, but we normally get 2-3 weeks of snow here in the south. A dumb law, IMO.

I generally thave a federalistic viewpoint and don’t care much for the concept of nation states. I want as little government as possible, and I want to be able to walk up to the office of the politician who mostly affects my everyday life and tell him or her what I think. That principle is supposed to be a very important guideline in the EU (called the subsidarity principle, IIRC), meaning that any decision should be made as close as possible to the citizens affected. This doesn’t seem to work too well around here, but at least, they recognize that it’s a problem. There is a special ‘info-point’ office in my town, but no one who’s responsible. The closest is in Stockholm, almost 400 miles away.

I cannot see this get any better with a world government. All decisions will be made even further from where I am, meaning my chances of actually talking to my representative will be even smaller. The other scenario is that there are many local office, but that only means a lot more bureaucarcy when epople are gonna sit in their cubicles, driving desks and costing money.

I want less government for everyone. Most countries that are seriously fucked up right now, are so due to a government with too much influence, i.e. dictatorships. I can’t think of a single democratic country, with a free press, that is suffering from starvation/malnutrition or rampant epedemic deseases right now. It’s true that some dictatorships are somewhat functional, in the sense that I don’t think people are starving. OTOH, with true democracy / freedom, they wouldn’t starve either.

A world goverment just means more politicians, civil servants and bureaucracy. I can’t really see any benefits.

26

From reading the thread so far, The Gaspode articulated my feelingson the subject best i think.

The idea of a “true world government” that doesn’t let all that power go to its head is as unlikely as a communist revolution that doesn’t fail imvho.

Such a thing (a world government) it is barely credible to mention at the present time, but already look at the ways in which governments are tightening up on their “subjects”, and this is while there are still such things as different countries and stuff like that.

To address the remainder of the OP, to see a US that joined in with the UN all the time, and not just at certain times, would be a good thing i think.

Although the same could be said about the UK :smiley:

27

Since the UN has large contingents of thugs, embezzlers, and the such - near the whole of Africa and much of Asia and the jury is out on Eastern Europe - the probability of the OP is zero.

People who take a Panglossian view need a slap in the face with a cold dose of reality.

28

qts,

It may come as a surprize to you, but even in the naitons you brush as “thugs” there are “non-thugs”.

And it may come as a surprize to you that I consider the present US government as the greatest example of an assembly of “thugs”, and that many others you declare to be among the “non-thugs” are on the same “thug” level.
I can also surpize you that I am not quite alone in having this perception.
Salaam. A

29

Alde, you take every chance you can to take a cheap shot at the US, don’t you,?
I probably shouldn’t acknowledge your post, as it seems like most of your biased drive-bys (drive-by’s? drive-bies?) are ignored, but seriously dude, can you at least try to make a point in favor of something, whatever, instead of just trying to smear the US?
Mind you, I’m not a fan of the expanded Monroe doctrine, but I still think you should try to launch an alternative route.

30

When these “non-thugs” are running the government in those countries, then we’ll be more receptive to taking those counties seriously. Until then, I’ll be happy to keep them at arms length.

31

London_Calling:
:

Uh huh. And here I am, a citizen of “the world’s sole remaining superpower”, and I’m flabbergasted, totally flummoxed, to see our leaders so emphaticallly not trying to “conquer the world softly with its collective cooperation” and instead trying to intimidate the whole damn planet with the American big stick. I understand realpolitik enough to anticipate that if my government were to go all-out to make this thing happen, it would be heavily motivated by the desire to see the world run the way we want it run, not just an altruistic desire to establish world peace and an egalitarian representative democratic government for all. Hence the deliberately cynical aspects of my OP.

Yes. If one is to “conquer the world with its collective cooperation”, one cannot resort to coercion as the organizing principle. Coercion is an exhausting and dangerous and ultimately unsatisfying method of getting one’s way.

Now…pertaining to sovereignty of member nations and all that: as I visualized it when I wrote the OP, the structure of the UN would be replaced with something closely patterned on the US government (under the assumption that a combination of unthinking American chauvinism, familiarity with the structure, and the easier “selling” of it to voting Americans would cause such a Prez to head that direction), i.e., no Security Council but instead a bicameral legislature and an executive branch elected by a balanced combination of nations voting as nations and people voting as individuals – with (and here’s the cynical side) lots of American money and leverage going forward to try to get good publicity and favorable media attention focused on the candidates that our folks want to win – but ultimately, yeah, voted into office by the world, as world. And would this world government interfere with the political behaviors of individual nations? Sure, just as the US government eventually chose to enforce civil rights in Mississippi and Alabama (one of its better coercive interventions), banned alcohol consumption nationwide (one of its more poorly conceived federal actions), tossed out laws making abortion illegal nationwide, and, if our current Zealot-in-Chief has his way, making it illegal to marry persons of the same gender. And so forth. That’s the nature of a Federal government, as opposed to a Confederacy in which the member components can thumb their noses at the overgovernment. And yes, I would visualize this world government insisting that each member nation enfranchise its own people – probably with a lot of leeway for structural differences and varying models for how to implement it, but with autocracies not tolerated and an increasing barrage of global human rights provisions, taking the form of restrictions on what national governments can and can’t do to their own citizens probably coming down as the law of the world.

But the capacity to do all these Federal things would always be at tension with the capacity of the member nations to dissent, not to mention voting the bastards out and undoing the damage. In the United States the Federal government has survived by not stomping on its member states too often. You do it too often, you get a groundswell of sentiment in favor of disbanding and that would be the end of it.
NOW – having said all that – I should point out that I am not recommending this course of action as being anything approximating an undiluted good thing. I do think it would be mostly good for the United States, and I think as an exercise of the power that we do have, it would make a hell of a lot more sense than what we are in fact doing, and do, on balance, more good globally than what we’re doing. On the other hand, it would be a bit of a juggernaut with a lot of potential for disrupting and even outright destroying other political-social cultures.

America has a lot in common with Microsoft. And as a Mac user I can understand why the notion of imposing a single standard universally can be downright terrifying if you don’t like the look and feel of the standard and you like what you’ve got now a lot better.

Thanks for your replies so far!

32

OK, so Hunter’s proposition is such that national sovereignty is regularly overturned by Federal fiat, so we’re looking rather further into the future than I first interpreted; sorry for the diversion.

I still say that this is a good thing.

The US would quickly find itself on the wrong end of “invasive” legislation were it to be perceived by too many member states as trying to gain undue influence.

So, for example, if the US sponsored some kind of “anti-socialist” bill which made renationalisation of privately owned resources illegal (with a view to holding onto Iraqi oil forever more), it might well suddenly find itself being forced to disarm all nuclear weapons in a Global Nuclear Disarmament bill.
It proposes enormous fines on member states where copyright is regularly ignored? BAM! It has to implement Kyoto and socialise its healthcare system. It cheerleads a worldwide death penalty for drug trafficking? Uh-oh, it finds the death penalty banned worldwide, and there’s nothing those lovable, vengeful rednecks can do about it.

There is almost nothing that the US could genuinely force on other Western democracies which they don’t have in place already. The vast majority of the increased pressure it brought to bear would be on the thugs, despots and oppresive regimes who pay the UN Declaration of Human Rights the barest lip service.

Of course, it will not happen for decades, at least until China takes the UNDHR seriously. But one can dream.

33

Except for the second amendment, a “free market” in healthcare. Those would be deal breakers.

From where we sit, that description fits you guys.

34

Article 25 of the UNHDR would preclude the abolition of socialised healthcare.

You note that I self-identify as European. Note also that what Hunterproposes, and I support, is making the thuggish actions of my government clearly illegal for all the world to see.

35

They are already, but quite a few people choose to ignore that because of media “spin” (i love that term, because it makes you do what it is).

I don’t see how its going to change with what is proposed; there will still be lies lies and more lies pouring forth from the temple of flickering light et al, and that will still make actually knowing anything True difficult.
And i also don’t think that the US, if included in this “true world government”, would go along with being “on the wrong end of invasive legislation”, jsut as it doesn’t now…

does that make sense, because im still trying to find my feet here :smiley: :slight_smile:

36

Welcome, jymjim.

I am arguing that, if anything, a world constitution will make such lies more transparent; military action against a sovereign nation would have to be rigorously justified rather than cavalierly charged into with a “try and stop us!” attitude.

Continuing Hunter’s simile, California could not very well invade Alabama by mouthing platitudes about a “grave and gathering threat” or the like, but it could threaten such if Alabama was clearly violating human rights.

Of course, this entire thread is a hypothetical. There is no point hypothesisng that the US is suddenly to engage with the UN in good faith and retain its stubborn, utter devotion solely to its own national interests.