[extropy-chat] Re: Small government

[Brett Paatsch]

Adrian Tymes wrote:

> --- spike <spike66 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> I
>> see nothing in the U.S. constitution that gives the federal
>> government the right to cede any of its sovereignty to any
>> entity such as the UN.
>
> Technically, it can - and, arguably, it has to entities such as the
> WTO, although whether the UN counts is arguable.  But the
> authority is  there in the US Constitution, Article VI Paragraph 2.
>
>> This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall
>> be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which
>> shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be
>> the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall
>> be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any
>> state to the Contrary notwithstanding.
>
> The critical bit is that treaties are considered equal to the
> Constitution in terms of determining the supreme law.  Thus, the US's
> signature on the treaty establishing the WTO means the US agrees to
> follow the WTO's judgements.

Good on you for being willing to check that out.
http://www.house.gov/Constitution/Constitution.html

> I'm not sure whether the text of the treaty establishing the UN gives
> it any authority, but it is technically legally possible for the US to
> cede sovereignty if the President and the Senate are talked into doing
> so.

http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/

(First page)

" our respective Governments, through representatives assembled
 in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers
found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present
Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an
international organization to be known as the United Nations."

Chapter XIX  - Ratification and Signature

Article 111

" The present Charter, of which the Chinese, French, Russian,
English, and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall remain
 deposited in the archives of the Government of the United
States of America. Duly certified copies thereof shall be
transmitted by that Government to the Governments of the
 other signatory states. "

>  (Thus, rejecting treaties like Kyoto is more than just rejecting
> lip service.  Foreign citizens really could have argued in US courts
> that we were bound by the treaty, and used our law enforcement
> mechanisms to force compliance, even if no other law passed by
> Congress or the states made any mention of the topic.)

As I've said before on this list the whole UN Charter could be read
in about an hour. The text is available online.
http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/

I've provided links to relevant sections on various occassions before
but the overall feeling I got was that I was largely just talking to myself.
It is perfectly possible to find out what authority the treaty contains, it
is written in English as well as in other languages but it does require a
willingness to look. And that is the rub. Its not just that the so called
"proles" will not look. Most people on this list who consider themselves
enlightened and complain about the parlous state of the media and
Fox news etc also will not look.

The world is complicated beyond the capacity of more than a very
few to comprehend it.  Many of those few *are* in politics, either
formally or informally, but they cannot force the voters to be smart
enough to vote in their own enlightened best interest when of necessity
the voters have to choose between caches of issues bundled into a
single choice.

And there are some who are smart enough to know that they can't
bring on a PostHuman era in their life time so they'd be pretty
damn dumb to get to far out of their comfort zone and aggitate
for it.  They have to much to lose.  Its annoying when they actually
mouth dumbed down party propaganda though. (And yes Spike, I do
mean you).

If the Bush administration change the composition of the US
Supreme court, and the voters have now given them that chance
then it will actually be possible for the US to get dumber rather
than smarter.  The Bush adminstration is not a government based
on respect for the law its a government based on an understanding
of how to capture critical wedges of a largely faith-based and
superstitious population.

I think the "PostHuman era" is actually further away now than it was
pre the re-election of the Bush government.

Brett Paatsch

[Neither a socialist nor a libertarian]