Friend or Enemy of Liberals: The United Nations
I have always wondered, why so many Liberals are opposed to the United Nations, because I am not and I still see me as a liberal person. Although I don't want to be strictly pushed in one philosophical categorie (such as Conservative, Objectivist, Classic-Liberal, Socialist etc.), I still prefer to see me as an ambassador of Liberty.
So, I know the usual prejudices against the United Nations. Liberals see it as a classical collectivist council, where the supremacy of the individual country is diminished for the greater good, or even worse the good of small communist/dictatorial countries.
They fear that all the small and unliberal countries could override their will and impose sanctions and laws on the free countries in this world.
But history has shown us that the United States of America, for example, have used a veto to stop laws against a violator of liberty or himself multiple times.
They rejected the ruling on Israels aggressive expansion and later the ruling (not directly from the United Nations) agains their "free trade" tariffs on steel.
So, the United States of America, most excessive denouncer of the undecesive UN, used it whenever it suited their benefit.
They said multiple times that they don't want to be ruled by a different institution anymore, but the United Nations are not "ruling" the USA in the same way as the central government is ruling over the States of the Union.
The United Nations can only suggest solutions and compromises, because it does not have any power to impose a ruling.
The United Nations is thereby more a place to meet and negotiate, to find a compromise, rather than to approve or make laws.
The power any nation has given to the United Nations, can be easily recalled, when the nation is dissatisfied with the United Nations with regard to all consequences such an act would impose. So, there is no real collectivism in the United Nations, but rather a place to discuss for independent and individual nations.
And even if you think otherwise, you would have to show where there is the border between a national and multinational state.
If you try to confine a state to an ethnic/religious or cultural beliefs and habits, you would certainly fail to explain how the United States of America can be called one nation.
If you believe that a nation is only defined by a common history, then you certainly never visited Alsace-Lothringen, which has changed ownership during the 19th/20th century multiple times.
In my opinion, nations are defined by the powers in charge and by statist tradition, most guilty in regard to this are conservatist who always pronounced those values.
So, change will come slowly, but in the end we will have a supranation, a new nation, called the European Union, here in Europe, but it will be a century or so, before this happens. In the future, the only chance for survival of the western states is the dissolution of nations and the construction of a supra-nation. The first stones have already been laid by the free market, who is trading without much consideration of borders.
So a new supranational state would still be a nation and therefore no collectivist, but rather some sort of Minarchist government. I can understand that it would be collectivist if we had to bow to the command of some poor little communist or dictatorial nations, but this is not the fact. So there is nothing unliberal in the marketplace of the United Nations, except that invalidates Individuals to a certain point. But well, this is already true for any government.
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