In my latest reading of Newt Gingrich's To Save America: Stopping Obama's Secular-Socialist Machine,
two chapters that stood out to me were "Chapter Eight: The Corruption
of Climate Science by the Secular-Socialist Machine", and "Chapter Nine:
Corruption at the United Nations".
In Chapter 8, Newt talks about
how there are believers in human-caused global warming who have sought
to suppress debate, who have argued on the basis of non-scientific
statements by environmental groups, and who have hyped up global warming
in order to get more money in research grants.
In this post, I'm
not going to thoroughly research Newt's charges and the responses to
them by believers in human-made global warming. Wikipedia's article here may
give you a good start if you are inclined to read up on this, or if I
decide to read up on it in the future. I will, however, ask some
questions. First of all, Newt acknowledges that there is an ideological
motivation behind those who say that there is human-caused global
warming, a desire to shape policy. Does this not imply that,
notwithstanding whatever deceptive tactics they may use (assuming they
even are using deceptive tactics), they truly believe that humans are
causing global warming, for some reason? Why should we assume that
their concern is baseless? Second, while there may be people
who have non-scientific justifications for their position that humans
are causing global warming, there are also climatologists who offer
scientific justifications for this view. Shouldn't their views be taken
seriously, on some level?
In Chapter 9, Newt talks
about such issues as corruption in the UN's humanitarian, peacekeeping,
and renovation projects; how certain UN groups have called for a
redistribution of the world's wealth; how the UN Human Rights Council
condemns the United States and Israel often but rarely criticizes other
dictatorships; how the Human Rights Council has members that themselves
are abusers of human rights; and how President Barack Obama's
administration is part of the problem rather than part of the solution,
for his administration supported some measures calling on governments to
outlaw the defamation of religions, such as Islam (even though Newt
acknowledges that it opposed other such measures). You can read more
about this issue here.
Newt
says on page 137 that "until the UN drops its resistance to
anti-corruption measures, the United States should work to minimize the
organization's importance", and that "Whenever possible, we should
operate through well-functioning bilateral and regional organizations
outside the UN framework."
Newt probably has valid criticisms of
the UN. But I don't think that the UN is currently a danger to the
U.S., and so I see no reason for us to withdraw from it. That's just my
opinion, based on what I know at the moment. Newt talks about
how the Human Rights Council condemns the U.S. and how elements of the
UN desire for wealth to be redistributed, and how there is a desire
among some within the Human Rights Council that governments ban the
defamation of religion. But, as far as I know, the UN has no power to
make the U.S. do anything.
I suppose, though, that the
UN can be problematic in a couple of areas. First, if we sign a UN
treaty or an agreement, say, to ban the defamation of religion, then the
UN's desires are becoming policy. I wouldn't want for that to happen,
for I believe that I should have the right to criticize any religion I
want. I hope that my country's leaders are on the same page on this.
Second, if we're involved in a peacekeeping mission, we should
take heed that the UN's peacekeeping apparatus does not contain elements
that are rooting against us and for our enemies. I think of a
right-wing tract I once read against the UN, which said that we fought
the Korean War under the authority of a UN official who was a
Communist! I don't know if this was true, but it's something to be
careful about.
Overall, I think that the UN can
be a good place for us to listen to the concerns of other nations, even
if the UN is not always good and fair (and, here's a newsflash: the same
can be said about the U.S.!).