Posted on by Nathan Riley · 4 Comments

Making the U.N. Sovereign

In the last two articles, I have shared my enthusiasm for President John F. Kennedy’s goal of strengthening  “the United Nations,” as an “instrument for peace, to develop it into a genuine world security system—a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of law, of insuring the security of the large and the small, and of creating conditions under which arms can finally be abolished.”

President Kennedy wanted the U.N. to create “a system capable of resolving disputes on the basis of Law.” That should be the objective of Freedom Democrats: “insuring the security of the large and small.”  The destruction of Ukraine after Russia’s attack and the gut-wrenching bloody clash between Israel and Palestine clearly demonstrate why the U.N. must protect “the large and small.”

Kennedy put his faith in the two world powers of 1963. He assumed cooperation between the Soviet Union and the United States could bring peace and world disarmament.

His fear was that nuclear war would bring the end of humanity. Sixty-one years later, we believe it unlikely that atomic weapons will be used. My vision of world government goes far beyond disarmament.

In my opinion, it is likely that each nation will have armed forces, but the dominant power must be the United Nations. It should have a monopoly on atomic weapons and armed forces for enforcing its decisions. Bloody conflicts become unlikely; U.N. armed forces aren’t destroying a nation. They have a more practical objective: arrest the leaders who are fighting international decrees. Clearly, these leaders may have followers, and the U.N. armed forces, acting more like police than soldiers, must dissuade these supporters from turning to violence. Should a serious military challenge arise, the U.N. armed forces should be bolstered by calling on other nations for assistance. Just as the U.S. Constitution gives the central government the power to enhance its strength by calling on state militias.

Should a country file a complaint about another country, both nations must appear before a U.N. tribunal and make their case. It would be illegal and lead to possible intervention by the U.N. for a nation to ignore the complaint.

Minority groups, be they tribes or political parties, confronting genocide could also file complaints. Pol Pot’s mass murder of his political opponents in Cambodia should be within the U.N. jurisdiction.

In other words, the U.N. would be the Earth’s sovereign nation. Its mandate would be far larger than world peace. It would supervise the cooperation of nations confronting climate change; it would issue money and prevent countries from being unable to pay debts because the value of another country currency, like the dollar, soared, it would soften free trade’s impact on worker’s wages, and it would raise money for vital infrastructure projects. In an emergency, it would protect populations from famine. In short, the U.N. mission will be peace, “Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living,” in President Kennedy’s glowing words.

This change has historic examples: Italy in the 19th century turned its city states into one nation. At the end of the 18th century after the United States established the Constitution, the former colonies became a new nation under the authority of a central government capable of collecting taxes and organizing armed forces to protect every colony and prevent the colonies from going to war against each other.  In each case small bodies gave up their sovereignty so that a larger sovereign could improve life. A U.N. world government would yoke the separate nations into a common body that will, in President Kennedy’s glowing vision, “build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women—not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

Posted on by Nathan Riley

Fame and Privacy

Freedom Democrats start with the party every week; it’s fun to get together and just enjoy yourself. It also promises to become as famous as Lincoln’s Republican Party or Washington’s Patriots.

Freedom Democrats fight for two great principles: the right to make up your own mind and live your own life and the transformation of the United Nations into world government. An invitation is extended to people who party, their friends, and people seeking world peace. It also offers a home to all sexes, people who watch porn, people who make it. Do drugs? So what.

Freedom Democrats want drug users to have safe, effective drugs made to the same standards as the drugs you get from your pharmacist. It’s crazy to force drug users to depend on criminals for their supply. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are tightly regulated for public safety. Drug users deserve the same protection: a public health step that will reduce but not end overdose deaths.

World government is considered ambitious, usually bringing smiles closer to pity than fun. The nearly universal reaction is “It ain’t gonna happen.” Fight this pessimism; remember President John F. Kennedy’s admonition about world peace: “Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable.”

Obviously, Freedom Democrats will not start a new world government; we will only persuade our government when many others join us. And don’t forget we have little influence over nations like China, Russia, and India that must agree. World government is a huge project, but the reward is immense. Resources are wasted, lives ended, and infrastructure destroyed [by war 9-17] . We must do something. In my view, Freedom Democrats should insert the possibility of world government into the public dialogue, just as the abolitionists made slavery a political issue in the years leading up to the Civil War. Freedom Democrats can end the silence; that’s a task within the means of a new wing of the Democratic Party.

What we are proposing is a coalition of people from the streets and of persons whose gender or sex life is queer joining with the professors and brainiacs pushing for world government. We are talking about pride and possibility. People from the street at these parties will chat with graduate students and veterans who oppose war. Straitlaced will mix with sketchy. This is a political movement, and it includes people with governmental experience and large numbers of people who VOTE; it doesn’t mean we win, but it does mean we can put it on the agenda.

The people who create a world government will be humanity’s greatest benefactors. That is why weekly parties and enjoying the company of strangers should have a political impact and change the conversation about war and peace. By working together, this coalition will bring pride. Sex workers and professors will respect each other. This social cohesion enhances pride and brings new voices into governmental decisions.

Posted on by Nathan Riley · 2 Comments

A New Generation To Become World Famous

War is the opposite of freedom.

In wars, the powerful want to dominate the weaker; with freedom, “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” become possibilities. In war, the defeated must accommodate the victor.

Coming out of World War I and II, creating world peace was a key objective of U.S. presidents. The destruction wrought by these bloody conflicts made finding a way to reduce tensions obvious. President John F. Kennedy insisted that the world choose peace: “Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable.”

Peace requires optimism and patience.  Just because there is a risk today does not mean there will be a problem in five, ten or twenty years

I urge Freedom Democrats to support Kennedy’s policy choice; peace makes “life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children—not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women—not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

Unhappily, in 2024, shooting battles continue in Ukraine, Palestine, Yemen, and Democratic Republic of Congo. [The fighting in the Congo ended in 2024]

World government proposals have a long history. For Woodrow Wilson it was the League of Nations. Franklin Roosevelt and JFK believed the UN might bring peace. In my opinion, the most direct way to start a world government is to turn the United Nations into the preeminent power on the planet, capable of stopping nations and terrorists from starting shooting wars.

Disputes should be settled by lawyers not armies; each side should present its complaints to world government officials who fulfill a judicial function. Far better that Russia could take its objections in 2014 about the replacement of the pro-Russian government in Kyiv to an international commission rather than Western nations deluding themselves into believing that Moscow would peaceably allow pro-NATO and European Union armed forces to take control of Ukraine.

The high hopes that the UN would peacefully settle international disputes under the leadership of the United States have nearly vanished, but in the months after the defeat of the Axis, world leaders had this ideal on their agenda.

The atom bomb and transcontinental airplanes demolished U.S. security after World War II. It was a new world; the Atlantic and Pacific oceans no longer protected the 48 states. Military spending ate into the federal budget. As President Eisenhower turned over his office to John F. Kennedy, the General warned that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence.”  It created a new political force “the military-industrial complex.” This could upset the “balance” between domestic and military spending.  Eisenhower feared that the most powerful nation in the world would face “a recurring temptation” to seek a “miraculous solution to all our current difficulties:” War!

Twenty-two months later President Kennedy confronted this danger when the Soviet Union put missiles in Cuba. The United States was minutes away from a Soviet attack. After hair raising debate among U.S. leaders, President Kennedy rejected the use of atomic weapons and negotiated a settlement. The United States would declare victory; the Soviets pulled back.  In return, but quietly, the U.S. removed missiles from Turkey that left Moscow vulnerable to a surprise attack. The principle of no first use of atomic weapons became the rule in U.S. policy.

Months later, on June 10,1963, Kennedy called for “genuine peace.” His vision, like Eisenhower’s, targeted excessive expenditures on the military. Kennedy stated, “Today the expenditure of billions of dollars every year on weapons acquired for the purpose of making sure we never need to use them is essential to keeping the peace. But surely the acquisition of such idle stockpiles—which can only destroy and never create—is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.”

In my opinion, a more efficient way to avoid the expense of atomic weapons and to stop armed combat is to turn the UN into a World Government compelling combatants to negotiate.

Kennedy’s vision never became policy. It was a different era. Sadly, in the last two years one of Kennedy’s proud boasts about Russian and U.S. relations became obsolete: “Almost unique among the major world powers, we have never been at war with each other.” The proxy war with Russia in Ukraine would be hard to justify if Kennedy’s worldview dominated.

Kennedy fully understood that peace represented a giant step forward. “Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable—that mankind is doomed–that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man.”

Let us read Kennedy’s idea in detail.

“Let us focus instead on a more practical, more attainable peace—based not on a sudden revolution in human nature but on a gradual evolution in human institutions—on a series of concrete actions and effective agreements which are in the interest of all concerned. There is no single, simple key to this peace—no grand or magic formula to be adopted by one or two powers. Genuine peace must be the product of many nations, the sum of many acts. It must be dynamic, not static, changing to meet the challenge of each new generation. For peace is a process—a way of solving problems.

“With such a peace, there will still be quarrels and conflicting interests, as there are within families and nations. World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor—it requires only that they live together in mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. And history teaches us that enmities between nations, as between individuals, do not last forever. However fixed our likes and dislikes may seem, the tide of time and events will often bring surprising changes in the relations between nations and neighbors.”

Turning the UN into a world government makes the United States, Russia, China, India etc. subordinate to the rule of international law. It is a historic change, but the Constitution made the 13 states into one nation, the Civil War made the states subordinate to Washington, and the reward for making the UN a world government is winning a place in history. The leaders of this movement will become the great women and men of this century. It’s a cause worth fighting for, and the outbreaks of war across the globe demand that we start sooner rather than later.