Posted by
Andrews on Monday, January 30, 2012 4:37:05 PM
Having a bit of pain in my extremities today, so m y already late posts will be even later, but I had one thought that needs to be examined, and so I wanted to post some preliminary thoughts, and promise a full examination to follow. In fact, the subject may be the first topic to be examined in my series of "Devil's Advocate" or "Forced Conversion" posts (see "
The Devil's Advocate").
I saw a news article on the continued uprising in Syria, and was struck by one bit of nonsense. It seems that every western nation is trying to force through a UN condemnation of the Assad regime, but is being blocked by Russia's threatened veto. Now, this points out two of the more absurd aspects of the UN.
First, countries, rather than acting on their own, often wait for the UN to speak before acting, which can easily lead to total inactivity, due to the ease with which UN resolutions can be blocked. (This also makes it unlikely these UN fearing nations will ever act on some issues, such as anything in support of Israel, due to built in UN bias.)
Second, the permanent members of the security council are a laughable anachronism. Granted, most are those possessing nuclear arms, but not all nuclear powers are represented (eg Ukraine, India, Israel) and many permanent members are, other than possessing nuclear weapons, no longer leading nations in a military, economic or diplomatic sense. And, even if they were, why should these nations have such absolute power? It made sense right after the Second World War when the permanent members still controlled the largest standing armies in the world, and were occupying much of the globe, but now? it just seems an anachronism, and a strong impediment to any hope of passing a resolution through the UN.
As I said, this is just a set of preliminary thoughts. Obviously the UN is a favorite conservative whipping boy, so much has been said about it, including in this blog. (See "
A Hypothetical Situation" and "
A Science Fiction Story" -- see also on the Geneva Convention and related matters "
Goodbye Geneva", "
Why Nuremberg?", "
Last Thought on the Topic", "
I Was Right", "
Civilian Casualties","
Guilty Until Proven Guilty", "
Somehow The Media Missed This", "
Questions Raised by Boumedine", "
Confirmation, If It Is True", "
A Very Quick Thought" and "
Not Geneva Again!") On the other hand, it is a topic which has often been criticized for specific ills, or simply mocked, and not examined in detail, with methodical criticisms. So, I am considering making an examination of the UN the first of my series of Devil's Advocate/Forced conversion posts, posts in which I do my best to think like a strong supporter of a given topic, offering up the best possible defense, a method by which I hope to reveal the errors in the theory. By doing this it should be possible to reveal the mistakes in a given concept without all the weaknesses inherent in polemic essays which often contain assumptions the supporters do not accept. In this case, perhaps I will be able to demonstrate the weaknesses of the UN in such a way that even UN supporters will agree they are too grave to make the UN a worthwhile institution.
We shall see. As I said, I am not up to much writing right now, but perhaps tonight, or early tomorrow I will feel better and be able to begin on this post,a s well as complete the essay that is still waiting to be finished, as well as completing the two remaining "stupid quote" posts. (See "
Changing Direction")