Rightwing Republicans say boot UN out of US, page 3

evilwasp says:

�the UN is not out for the US its out for the world.�

I guess it depends on how you define �world�. When I look at things the UN�s pushing I see one part of the world -- the so-called �developing nations� -- getting the benefit and countries like the US paying the fees

Rrobert5425 says:

�What is so bad about the UN? Does it not give a forum for nations to come together and express their complaints, views, and opinions? Who doesn't want something like that?�

Hey, Rrobert, I wouldn�t mind if the UN were a debating society as you envisage it. I mean it�d still be worthless, but at least it wouldn�t have any negative impacts to my country. But when I look at the UN expecting the United States to subsidize reconstruction schemes, sent their troops into battle, or support other troops with logistics and money -- with no perceived benefit to the United States -- I fail to see why we should even be involved with them.

Sauron says:

�Kicking the U.N. out of the USA won�t make the UN any better, mind you there would be a lot of countries that would jump at the chance to host the United nations.�

Sounds like a plan to me, Sauron, but I haven�t heard any nation volunteer. Maybe Otts can put in a good word for Canada. Speaking of which:

Otts says:

�- the problem is, the United States and other Western countries have pumped and continue to pump these Third World countries dry of their resources.�

Lots of Western countries did things badly in the 19th and early part of the 20th century, but they also provided goods in exchange for the �pumping� of Third-World nations -- including jobs.

Now I know it is politically correct these days to bewail the fact that Indonesians or Mexicans do not get the same wage as their American or Canadian counterparts. But basic economics tells you that, were the developed countries to pay Third-World workers on the par with their own workers, there would be no sane reason to export those jobs anyway, and, instead of Indonesians and Mexicans working for low wages, they�d not be working at all.

�� the West got the WTO to overturn subsidized coffee production in Latin American countries, so that peasants don't get paid too much.�

What makes you think that subsidized coffee production results in higher wages to the workers? Look at the wages of the coffee and tobacco farmers in that Worker�s Paradise of Cuba! Subsidized prices mean the government props up the price of coffee with the same money that it could use to build clinics, schools, and roads. And the subsidies typically go to the bureaucrats themselves.

And God forbid these people learned to read and write - they'd want to govern themselves, can you believe that aberration?

Are you saying that the United States and Canada are behind some plot to keep the Third World illiterate? Do you have any evidence whatsoever for that assertion?

�And as for the U.S. paying 30 percent of the costs at the UN... there's the pesky question of about 4 percent of the world's population (most of it in North America) consuming about 80 percent of the world's resources...

What sort of cause and effect is that, Otts? We consume 80 a lot of the word�s resources because we buy those resources! Are you saying that, because we�re a huge market for anyone who wants to sell us their resources, we should be punished by being forced to pay more money to the UN? I don't thnk so.

Actually, the 30 percent of the UN courses is irrelevant. I believe we have a moral obligation to pay the UN what we get from it, just like we have a moral obligation to pay the producers of resources what we get from them.

For the goods and services that the UN provides the United States, I�d say that we owe them -- roughly --

Zero.