Thread: How could the UN be made better?

I think first they need a court system that actually has some teeth. I think that all the members have an equal say in any determinations. Any ideas?

Originally Posted by JavaBlack

The problem with the UN is the intense inequality between members, and not just their equality of vote.
The UN can offer a lot of tangible good to developing and underdeveloped countries, but what it has to offer developed states is less tangible (global stability). With the current world order being US hegemony, it makes things even harder... as the most powerful nation has the ability to sink or float any policy the UN wishes to enforce.

I really think that it might be impossible to improve the UN until the world order shifts toward multiple regional powers.
And I think it would have to have multiple layers of representation: one for nations, one for regions, one for the people. The latter would require some world-wide voting apparatus for all individuals.

And the UN has a few delicate balances to keep:
national sovereignty vs. global effort
civil rights standards vs. inclusivity (if human rights violating countries are not allowed in, there is little agency the UN can have to leverage their behavior)

Inequalityis the biggest problem. Some nations have all the power while others are sitting on the sidelines. It has to be one nation one vote that is not weighted in anyway to show favouritism.

Let's also remember that the UN has no real power and no money except what developed nations provide. Is the UN to just be a means for poorer countries to pick the developed world's pockets? Don't get me wrong--I deplore the inequalities of the world--but how do you get the privileged folks to go along?

You can see by the difficulties in the US that the privileged do not go along.

Originally Posted by katiegrrl0

You can see by the difficulties in the US that the privileged do not go along.

I'm curious. How do the De Boers provide for everyone so nicely and with such equality in South Africa? 8)

Originally Posted by Rassales

I'm curious. How do the De Boers provide for everyone so nicely and with such equality in South Africa? 8)

They don't. i live in the most violent and poor nations around. We have maybe the largest human trafficking industry on the planet. I live amongst poverty, bigotry and many things that I abhor. No nation is perfect and S A is one of those non perfect ones. We don't think that we are better than anyone. We don't dictate what another nations policies should or should not be. We do not try and influence the rest of the world by the image that we try and project. There is pain here and a lot of it. When you walk along some of the road and see children sleeping in bins and sewer pipes that have not yet been set in ground you do see and know poverty.
Yet in all of that South Afrika does not judge me because I am lesbian. They do not take away my rights and they allow me to marry. They allowed me to freely adopt our second child Kansheika into a same sex marriage. They allow me freedoms that I did not have in the US. My taxes do not go toward building the largest military industrial complex that the world has ever known. Since the nation has left the Apartheid government we have not imposed our will on anyone of the nations of the world. It is the same in every nation to a degree. Greed is greed no matter where it is found. All privileged are not the same. Many do share what the world gives them.

Now to my earlier post. I am speaking of a party that does not want to give others the benefit of heath care. They do not want those in need to have welfare or other helps. They do not want to pay taxes that will not be of benefit to them directly. Even then they object. I resent a political party that obstructs come decency and waves the flag and preaches family values and church. I would ask them What would Jesus do? He if the bible were true in his life feed the poor, clothed those in need, lifted the spirit of the down trodden and did all this as a non violent person. He did not kill his brothers or sisters on the steps of the temple he tossed their tables about. He did not preach a violent overthrown of the powers that be,

Yet this US party will stand there preaching all of the things that Jesus did not stand for and use his name as if they own it. I do not say S Afrika is perfect far from it. I judge the deeds of the obstructionist party in the US as being totally against the grain of what America was meant to me while I lived there. It is a nation that George Bush said was a light to the world. I am sorry that just doesn't fit anymore. S Afrika never was a light it was oppressed and still is. But we have come far. I have lived here less than a year. I feel both the oppression and the freedom and the intense love of my community. De Boers does not give a **** about anyone but self. Greed unleashed is a very ugly thing.

Originally Posted by katiegrrl0

They don't. i live in the most violent and poor nations around. We have maybe the largest human trafficking industry on the planet. I live amongst poverty, bigotry and many things that I abhor. No nation is perfect and S A is one of those non perfect ones. We don't think that we are better than anyone. We don't dictate what another nations policies should or should not be. We do not try and influence the rest of the world by the image that we try and project. There is pain here and a lot of it. When you walk along some of the road and see children sleeping in bins and sewer pipes that have not yet been set in ground you do see and know poverty.
Yet in all of that South Afrika does not judge me because I am lesbian. They do not take away my rights and they allow me to marry. They allowed me to freely adopt our second child Kansheika into a same sex marriage. They allow me freedoms that I did not have in the US. My taxes do not go toward building the largest military industrial complex that the world has ever known. Since the nation has left the Apartheid government we have not imposed our will on anyone of the nations of the world. It is the same in every nation to a degree. Greed is greed no matter where it is found. All privileged are not the same. Many do share what the world gives them.

Now to my earlier post. I am speaking of a party that does not want to give others the benefit of heath care. They do not want those in need to have welfare or other helps. They do not want to pay taxes that will not be of benefit to them directly. Even then they object. I resent a political party that obstructs come decency and waves the flag and preaches family values and church. I would ask them What would Jesus do? He if the bible were true in his life feed the poor, clothed those in need, lifted the spirit of the down trodden and did all this as a non violent person. He did not kill his brothers or sisters on the steps of the temple he tossed their tables about. He did not preach a violent overthrown of the powers that be,

Yet this US party will stand there preaching all of the things that Jesus did not stand for and use his name as if they own it. I do not say S Afrika is perfect far from it. I judge the deeds of the obstructionist party in the US as being totally against the grain of what America was meant to me while I lived there. It is a nation that George Bush said was a light to the world. I am sorry that just doesn't fit anymore. S Afrika never was a light it was oppressed and still is. But we have come far. I have lived here less than a year. I feel both the oppression and the freedom and the intense love of my community. De Boers does not give a **** about anyone but self. Greed unleashed is a very ugly thing.

Okay, so we see that the privileged do not go along everywhere--one doesn't need the US as a basis for that opinion. For my own part, I would rather make reference to evidence of human cupidity in a society in which I participate rather than pointing to someone else's. It's the Christian in me--all that "remove the moat from your own eye" thing.

The only way to make the UN better (or worse) would be to make it more powerful. It has no military force of its own, no tax base of its own, nothing but moral suasion and a collection plate.