G. Edward Griffin - The Fearful Master - PDF Archive

and England were enemies in two world wars. Yet both have extremely high educational
standards, and it would be difficult to name two nations that had a more thorough
understanding of each other.
There is no challenging the fact that the United Nations, through its specialized agencies,
has done some good--perhaps much good in many areas. Food and clothing have been
distributed to the needy; medical care has been provided for the sick and the lame. But for
each child so fed and clothed, for each person relieved of suffering, the UN system is
destined to condemn a hundred who can never be reached. When the United States stood
for individual freedom rather than government subsidies, it spearheaded a century of lifesaving
and relief from famine and pestilence that far exceeded anything UNICEF or WHO
can ever approach. What America gave was not primarily food, clothing and medicine
(although it did give these things in large quantities), but rather it provided an example of
what could be achieved through a system of economic freedom.
It is impossible to uplift the masses of the world through a redistribution of the existing
wealth. If every man, woman and child in America gave everything he had but the shirt on
his back, the poverty-stricken peoples of the world would hardly notice a change in their
misery. There are so many of them and so few of us. But by providing the example, the
encouragement and the assistance for these people to follow in our footsteps, they can
build their own economies to the point where real and sustained progress is possible. The
only way that the needy of the world will ever be helped, other than with sporadic and
temporary measures, is for governments to abandon the futile paternalistic programs
which are draining the economies of those countries to the point where they cannot
flourish. Only when free enterprise is introduced will the full productive capacity of these
areas be released so that their people will no longer have to worry about nutrition or
health.
The cause of war is simply the use of force to require a nation or group to accept the
dictates of another nation or group. Since the United Nations is committed to the use of
force "if necessary, in the last resort" as the cornerstone of its approach to world
problems, it can never get at the roots of war.
Instead of scrapping the whole thing, we should reorganize the UN and use it to our own
advantage. The proponents of this idea never explain how we should go about revising an
organization in which we have only one vote against 112 who do not want to revise it. This
approach may be less controversial than the "get US out" school of thought, but it simply
will not work.
With what would we replace the UN? This is, perhaps, the greatest cliché of the lot. The
implication that it has to be replaced at all is very seldom challenged, even by critics of the
UN who consequently begin to search for a NATO or a western alliance or organization of
free states. This would be like a patient who, upon being told by his doctor that he has a
cancer that must be removed, replies, "Just a minute, doctor. What would you replace it
with?"
When something is evil and dangerous it is not necessary to find a replacement before
getting rid of it. But, in the case of the UN, this is not an entirely superfluous idea. True, we
must get out of the UN whether we replace it with anything or not. But, to be perfectly
realistic, when the United States does withdraw, the UN will be replaced--but not by
NATO.