Here Come the Black Helicopters!: UN Global Governance and the Loss of Freedom by Dick Morris, Eileen McGann Page A
Authors: Dick Morris, Eileen McGann
Tags: General, Political Science
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trust. Were this a better world, filled with better nations and rulers, it would be different. But the world is crammed with tiny nations—barely as large as any of our states—who could easily gang up on us and become the tail that wags the dog. And far too many of the nations of the world—more, much more, than would be needed to outvote us—are autocratic, not free, corrupt, and regular violators of human rights.
It is one thing for those of us on the East Coast of the United States to trust our destiny to the voters of the West Coast or the South or the Midwest. It is quite another to give that power to Russia, China, or a collection of tiny, lightly populated, third world autocracies, riddled with corruption and dedicated to the enrichment of their leaders. These are not the kind of bedfellows we want in our government. They are not worthy of entrusting our sovereignty to them.
So let’s examine those who would come to rule us in any global governance scheme.
RULE OF THE LILLIPUTIANS: HOW TINY NATIONS OUTVOTE US
The fundamental concept underscoring global governance is the principle of one nation, one vote. All UN conferences and decision-making bodies—with the sole exception of the Security Council—operate on this principle. With 193 countries in the United Nations, a coalition of very small nations exercises a disproportionate power.
Is the principle of one nation, one vote an appropriate basis for global governance?
It takes 97 nations to constitute a majority of the 193 UN members. But it is possible that a majority of tiny nations could coalesce and outvote the rest. The 97 least-populated UN members have a combined census of only 241 million inhabitants—about one-quarter less than the population of the United States (310 million). These nations, representing only 241 million people, comprise less than 4 percent of the world’s 7 billion people, but together they can determine the direction of its decisions.
Many of these countries are really tiny, their nationhood a result of being an island or remote from population centers. Forty countries—enough to outvote the members of NATO—have populations of less than one million people and thirteen have fewer than one hundred thousand people. The most populated of the 97 smaller countries—which, again, can constitute a majority of voting members of the UN—is Bulgaria, with a population of just over 7 million. That’s smaller than the population of the five boroughs of New York City!
What kind of global government can be predicated on a system in which Monaco (33,000), San Marino (33,000), Palau (20,000), Tuvalu (20,000), and Nauru (10,000) can outvote China (1.3 billion), India (1.2 billion), and the United States (310 million)?
Permitting these minuscule countries to cast one vote each summons the memory of the old pocket boroughs that were represented by one member each in the British House of Commons for centuries. Wealthy landowners would get their own estate and the surrounding town—largely populated by their servants—declared a constituency and become entitled to their own personal member of Parliament. Apportionment of seats being what it was, these tiny districts would often outvote the big cities of the UK.
The US Supreme Court realized the injustice of apportioning power based on any measurement other than population when it struck down legislative districts at the state and local level where seats were not allocated based on the number of inhabitants. It was common practice in the state senates of forty-nine states (Nebraska is unicameral) to allocate seats by county, mirroring the composition of the US Senate, where each state gets two members. This distorted legislative apportionment permitted rural counties to outvote the big cities and perpetuate the power of the rural squires who dominated politics in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and many eastern states.
The system came to be derided as “one cow, one vote” and
It is one thing for those of us on the East Coast of the United States to trust our destiny to the voters of the West Coast or the South or the Midwest. It is quite another to give that power to Russia, China, or a collection of tiny, lightly populated, third world autocracies, riddled with corruption and dedicated to the enrichment of their leaders. These are not the kind of bedfellows we want in our government. They are not worthy of entrusting our sovereignty to them.
So let’s examine those who would come to rule us in any global governance scheme.
RULE OF THE LILLIPUTIANS: HOW TINY NATIONS OUTVOTE US
The fundamental concept underscoring global governance is the principle of one nation, one vote. All UN conferences and decision-making bodies—with the sole exception of the Security Council—operate on this principle. With 193 countries in the United Nations, a coalition of very small nations exercises a disproportionate power.
Is the principle of one nation, one vote an appropriate basis for global governance?
It takes 97 nations to constitute a majority of the 193 UN members. But it is possible that a majority of tiny nations could coalesce and outvote the rest. The 97 least-populated UN members have a combined census of only 241 million inhabitants—about one-quarter less than the population of the United States (310 million). These nations, representing only 241 million people, comprise less than 4 percent of the world’s 7 billion people, but together they can determine the direction of its decisions.
Many of these countries are really tiny, their nationhood a result of being an island or remote from population centers. Forty countries—enough to outvote the members of NATO—have populations of less than one million people and thirteen have fewer than one hundred thousand people. The most populated of the 97 smaller countries—which, again, can constitute a majority of voting members of the UN—is Bulgaria, with a population of just over 7 million. That’s smaller than the population of the five boroughs of New York City!
What kind of global government can be predicated on a system in which Monaco (33,000), San Marino (33,000), Palau (20,000), Tuvalu (20,000), and Nauru (10,000) can outvote China (1.3 billion), India (1.2 billion), and the United States (310 million)?
Permitting these minuscule countries to cast one vote each summons the memory of the old pocket boroughs that were represented by one member each in the British House of Commons for centuries. Wealthy landowners would get their own estate and the surrounding town—largely populated by their servants—declared a constituency and become entitled to their own personal member of Parliament. Apportionment of seats being what it was, these tiny districts would often outvote the big cities of the UK.
The US Supreme Court realized the injustice of apportioning power based on any measurement other than population when it struck down legislative districts at the state and local level where seats were not allocated based on the number of inhabitants. It was common practice in the state senates of forty-nine states (Nebraska is unicameral) to allocate seats by county, mirroring the composition of the US Senate, where each state gets two members. This distorted legislative apportionment permitted rural counties to outvote the big cities and perpetuate the power of the rural squires who dominated politics in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and many eastern states.
The system came to be derided as “one cow, one vote” and
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