The Founding Fathers. What a group they were. Regardless your points of view regarding the United States, or this democratic experiment, perhaps running amuck, no one can deny that they were a convenient, albeit unlikely, gathering at that time in world history.

To be sure, the naysayer will point to obvious hypocrisy and governing by the wealthy, but who among us would not have wanted to be a fly on the wall as they hammered things out in Philly?

What they said, collectively, has pretty much been law ever since, although the Bill of Rights has seen considerable adjustment. No big surprise, The Ten Commandments have also been mitigated to the ten suggestions over time.

The Commandments put first things first. “I am the Lord, thy God”. The idea of monotheism was critical. The Constitution also put first things first, and of vital importance was the notion of free speech. The Constitution foresaw the political and social upheavals of the decades, and possibly centuries, to come.

The framers understood the importance of a guaranteed freedom of speech to insuring those events proceeded democratically and with some modicum of civility.

The streets of Philadelphia must have been quite the display circa 1778. Horse hooves clattering upon cobblestone, wagons rattling along, the town criers’ bell clanging hourly, street fights and the occasional musket blast .

Black folks humming; while busy doing the jobs Americans wouldn’t do, and the air scented with horse dung, garbage, various types of fires, outhouses and the tannery; God! The tannery. Miscreants came out from the shadows as the lamplighter made his rounds.

Inside Independence Hall the noise was every bit as robust as that without. Debate, reasoning, compromise and agreement has its’ own cacophony. Considering their environment the Framers were majestic in their vision and we, as a nation, have always placed great value upon their words.

But their time was so 18th Century, ya know? Like really backward and all? There are but two remnants that remain from those times: miscreants and jobs Americans won’t do.

The Founding Fathers considered every angle politically. They considered every angle socially. They considered every angle religiously. They considered how governance and the governed should interact. They considered how government should protect itself from itself.

But it would come to pass that these thoughtful and enlightened men were to be blind sided by a word they had never heard. A word even Benjamin Franklin could not have envisioned although he touched its’ edge with his kite. The word? Technology.

Weapons technology has led to many an adjustment to another Constitutional sacred cow, the second amendment. General Washington knew nothing of machine guns and bazookas. He imagined even less. But over time the government has stepped in and prevented us all from driving around in tanks.

How far has technology come from the town crier and sharpened quill? Lots. How much fiddling around with the first amendment? Little. A debate on the relativity of the first amendment would be damn near ludicrous.

Sit George Washington in front of a TV and show him a funeral procession for a fallen soldier that finds streets lined with a handful of Christians cursing the soldier, calling obscene names and wishing him to hell.

Take Thomas Paine to the NAMBLA website in search of some common sense.

Show Benjamin Franklin how easily a child can double click their way to a world teeming with filth, vulgarity and smut of every imaginable sort, 24/7/365. All shrouded in anonymity, all couched in the first amendment.

The First Amendment is a wonderful freedom. One we all dare never take too lightly. But the Founding Fathers, God bless them, hadn’t a clue what was to come.

It is well past time to begin writing The First Amendment 2.0

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about for quite a long time. I know what I want to say but I’m not sure how to put it in words. I survived Catholic School. That was a bumper sticker making it’s way around a few years back. It may still be around but I don’t know as I don’t get out much. But I did survive it. As I watch kids these days I wonder if some of the things I most resented about Catholic schools may have been a blessing in disguise.

In high school the boys were in one part of the school while the girls were across the street in another. Same campus, same studies, but boys over here and girls over there. I hated that. Here I was, blossoming into a screaming pile of adolescent hormones and the very focus of my life was across the street. How screwed up was that?

As it turned out, not screwed up at all. We still had plenty of time to socialize before and after school. There were no rules against that. There were Friday night football games and some kids would have parties at their houses after the games or on a Saturday night. It wasn’t as if there was no mingling of the sexes but being at school was all about being at school and we were there to study and learn. We were not there to socialize and show-off.

So maybe that was a good thing, I don’t know, but it seems as though it was. These days schools seem more a social event than a learning experience. The quest to learn has deteriorated to the point that schools lower test standards rather than raise expectations.

Corny stuff like multiplication tables, memorizing poetry, remembering historical dates, knowing the states and their capitals, art appreciation and music, spelling and syntax, all gone the way of the dinosaur. Teachers are afraid to challenge students but students don’t hesitate to challenge teachers.

I doubt I would have learned those things either if I spent my days being the class clown and chasing after the girls from one classroom to the next. Which girl was seeing which guy, who was going to be my next steady, all the things that school shouldn’t be about but seems to be these days. Learning has taken a back seat.

Having the girls in the classroom would have been an endless distraction. Speaking for myself, my every move would have been to impress the girls. No reason to try impressing the guys as most of them were as big a jerk as me. I always thought that the separation of boys and girls had to do with the Catholics being a bunch of prudes but it wasn’t. It was about keeping out the distractions. You were there to learn and they took that responsibility seriously. Think that would work today?

But wait! There’s more. I had another complaint and it was even bigger. It was right out in public and public school kids were relentless in their ridicule. It was those damned uniforms. I remember one year a friend of mine wanted to borrow one of my uniforms to wear out trick or treating. In grade school the uniform was dark blue trousers and a white shirt. The girls wore a white blouse and those pleated plaid skirts. In high school the boys added a tie. Remember ties?

If you are in high school these days and are somehow reading this post, I gotta tell you that you scare me. There is every chance that you are a nice boy or girl and wouldn’t hurt a flea but the clothes you wear are scary. Baggy britches, two or three ill-fitting shirts, untied shoes and the ever present chain dangling from somewhere, or something.

The girls aren’t much better. Pants with a waist down around, well let’s just say embarrassing low and grubby T-shirts with some unsavory comment silk screened on them. Oh yes, and tattoos. Lots of tattoos. More tattoos than even the gnarliest of sea dogs would sport.

In all of this let’s not forget the hardware. Metal stuck into and dangling from everywhere. Eyebrows, lips, tongues, cheeks, navels, ear lobes, every imaginable location. It’s like you have become the Shrapnel Generation. If all that regalia isn’t enough to impress everyone add the predictable shuffle. When you folks walk the halls of your school do you drag your feet like they are just too heavy to endure?

What if, and that’s a huge what if, what if school boards began a systematic introduction of uniforms? Kids can be awfully cruel and I’m sure there are many children teased about their clothes. I’m sure there is plenty of peer pressure to wear what has, somehow, become stylish. I can’t imagine the amounts of money parents shell out just to keep youngsters in scruffy clothes, tattoos and metal.

Maybe the catholic school had that in mind as well back in the day. There were no distinctions between rich kids and poor kids. Everybody wore the same thing. There were no gang emblems, no metal, no leather, no chains. Just kids wearing clothes that suggested they had some measure of self respect. Kids that seemed to know that a presentable image was a benefit to them.

Do you think it would work these days, or do you think the ACLU would be suing every school board in the country. What about free expression? Why can’t we be who we are? We have a right to look and dress like street urchins. What’s happening to our rights, don’t they even matter?

What’s happening to your education, doesn’t that even matter?

How idiotic is that? That’s like saying Ecoli doesn’t kill people, spinach does. I guess the gun toters could take that pragmatic attitude a step further and say that it actually isn’t the gun or the people, it’s the bullet. People shot with a gun don’t die from the gunshot wounds, they die of lead poisoning.

Just last week some kid went into a school and began shooting an AK47. By the grace of God the weapon jammed after a single round. But there are two important words in that first sentence; KID and AK47. What’s a kid doing with artillery such as that? Where would he have gotten it?

Well, you say excusingly, he misappropriated it from his father’s arsenal. So the bottom line is that an irresponsible adult has an AK47. That doesn’t make me feel any better. What I’m wondering is why anyone has an AK47. What is the use? What is the need?

Can any Rambo wannabe fill in this blank: All I want for Christmas is an AK47 because_____________. If your answer is self protection wouldn’t it be safer just to dig a moat around your house?

Last year a kid in Pennsylvania took a gun from his fathers’ cabinet of war and killed his girlfriend’s parents. The kids made it as far as Indiana where they wrecked their car. The most telling information to come out of that horrible and needless tragedy was that the boy’s father owned 56 guns.

56! What need is there to possess 56 guns? Does it fill some macho void like a puny man buying a big, noisy truck or a 65 year old sporting a Corvette?

This may surprise you but I don’t endorse any gun control laws. I support a gun elimination law. Aside from a Constitutionally mandated armed militia I fail to see the need for any guns. I can hear the NRA now, going on and on about the rights of hunters.

Well, what about them? They aren’t hunters at all, they’re killers. But hunter has an innocuous, politically correct ring to it; killer doesn’t. Are the NRA lobbyists asking me about someone’s right to kill?

Girly men may buy oversized trucks and Corvettes but real men have the head of a deer hanging on their wall. Talk about a fish out of water. What’s a deer doing in the den? When asked, does the owner of such an obnoxious thing say he hunted it? No, he says he killed it.

Oh sure, there are all the joys of sitting around a Coleman lantern and saying ‘guy’ things. Eating canned food, drinking, and laughing at gas passed. Telling stories about the one that got away. But in the end the only joy in hunting is killing.

It’s fun to kill. Deer, squirrel, bird, anything; just kill. So maybe the title of this post should be changed. How about: Guns don’t kill, people who want to kill do.

If I were king of the world, or had a single wish from the genie out of the bottle, I would attach a huge electromagnet to a helicopter and fly all over the country picking up every single gun. Every single one. John Lennon didn’t have the market cornered on imagination. Imagine a world without guns.

And a fine piece of real estate it is. Nestled along the East River at 42nd Street the land itself was purchased by the Rockefellers in 1946 for a whopping 8.5 million dollars. The property affords panoramic views of the river and the New York skyline. Zoned commercial, this acquisition includes four buildings, in need of modest refurbishing, and could be easily restored as office space or condominiums.

Following the purchase in 1946, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. donated the land for use by an organization dedicated to world peace and prosperity. An organization whose primary mandate was to follow in the footsteps of it’s predecessor, promote international cooperation and achieve peace and security. By 1950 the buildings were completed and the United Nations was open for business.

This wasn’t the first attempt at world peace. As the victors met, at Versailles in 1919, to divvy up the spoils of World War One, Field Marshall Jan Christiaan Smuts put forth the idea of the League of Nations. Smuts was a South African who served Britain meritoriously during the First World War. It was the goal of the League of Nations to promote international peace, cooperation, security and prosperity.

As we know, the League of Nations failed in its’ mission and collapsed as World War Two began. But Smuts was undaunted and at the end of World War Two he again put forth the idea of a world body determined to promote peace, prosperity and international cooperation. This new and improved version was to become the United Nations. The first General Assembly was held in London and from then on it occupied the new digs in New York City.

(for trivia buffs, Smuts was the only person to sign the treaties ending WWI and WWII. He was also the only person to sign the charters of both the League of Nations as well as the United Nations)

There was plenty of international discussion leading up to the inception of the UN and some of the best can be found in the post below which looks at a conversation between Churchill and Stalin at Yalta, some diary entries from Joseph Goebbels and an excerpt from Anthony Edens’ autobiography, “Memoirs: The Reckoning”, which discusses in detail the Yalta meetings between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.

Also to be found within the post below is a brief list of United Nations mandates and projects which, over time, have pretty much stumbled and failed. The writings are far too extensive to include in this post but are well worth reading through.

But it is in this present day that the United Nations has raised the concern of more than a few Americans. The scandals, bribery, nepotism and downright theft have raised the eyebrows of even the staunchest of UN supporters.

Accusations, depositions and subsequent resignations followed exposure of the 'oil for food program' which singlehandedly financed Saddam Hussein for a decade or better. Large sums of that money also financed the son of the seventh Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, of Ghana.

UN peacekeepers in central Africa have been accused of child molestation and the rape of the very people they were sent to protect. UN peacekeepers have completely failed in Darfur and the Sudan and within that failure seemed to care even less. Bosnia? Somalia? Cambodia? UN peacekeepers weren’t up to the task in their occupation of the buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

Financing of the United Nations is generated from the member nations. There are 192 members of the United Nations. Annual assessments are levied based on the ability of the individual nation to pay.

Currently the largest bankrollers of the United Nations are: United States 22%, Japan 19.63%, Germany 9.82%, France 6.5%, the UK 5.57%, Italy 5.09%, Canada 2.57%, Spain 2.53% and Brazil 2.39%. These percentages are of 100% total operating budget. Countries not listed are assessed at less than 2.0%.

The corruption notwithstanding, the United Nations had rendered itself impotent most recently in matters concerning Iraq and Iran and North Korea. How many times did Saddam Hussein laugh in the face of UN mandates? Didn’t the United Nations tell Iran to stop it’s nuclear expansion by August 31st? Has anyone heard anything in the month and a half that has since passed?

Wasn’t that the President of Iraq sitting before the General Assembly last month basically telling them to take their mandate and shove it? To coin a phrase heard before here on blogstream, don’t even get me started on Hugo Chavez. Now the UN is going to huddle up and talk about North Korea and their alleged nuclear bomb tests. Does anyone think anything will come out of that before, say, 2008?

There comes a time when things just outgrow their usefulness. Why just last week my blogger friend, FUZZY, threw out his 8 track for a cassette player. The hundreds of committees comfortably ensconced within the United Nations are stumbling all over themselves. Cristo himself would run out of red tape trying to wrap the place up for arts’ sake.

Over the past 50 years the United Nations has morphed into a parody of itself. It seems no longer interested in world peace but rather in blatant, and often illegal, self promotion.

Would the world be better off if the United Nations were to disband? Would the world be better served if the United Nations relocated to the Middle East or central Africa? Do you think the United States needs to be in the United Nations and, conversely, do you think the United Nations needs to be in the United States?

24 January 1946
General Assembly adopts its first resolution. Its main focus: peaceful uses of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction.

7 January 1949
A UN envoy, Ralph Bunche, secures cease-fire between the new State of Israel and Arab States.

4 January 1969
The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination comes into force

13 November 1974
General Assembly recognizes the Palestine Liberation Organization as "the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people".

18 December 1979
General Assembly adopts the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, covering political, economic, social, cultural and civic values.

25 November 1981
General Assembly adopts Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.

December 1984
Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar sets up a UN office for Emergency Operations in Africa to help coordinate famine relief efforts.

10 December 1984
General Assembly adopts the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

September 1987
Efforts of UNEP lead to the signing of the Treaty on the Protection of the Ozone Layer -known as the Montreal Protocol -a follow-up to the 1985 Vienna Convention on the Ozone Layer.

17 June 1992
Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali issues "An Agenda for Peace" on preventive diplomacy, peacemaking, peace-keeping and peace-building.

6 May 1994
The Secretary-General produces a report on "An Agenda for Development", a blueprint for improving the human condition.

10 September 1996
The General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. This is a turning point in the history of efforts towards nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. The treaty was opened for signature on 24 September.



Notes from a conversation between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, Yalta, 1945.
Winston Churchill: "The peace of the world depends upon the lasting friendship of the three great powers, but His Majesty's Government feel we should be putting ourselves in a false position if we put ourselves in the position of trying to rule the world when our desire is to serve the world and preserve it from a renewal of the frightful horrors which have fallen upon the mass of its inhabitants. We should make a broad submission to the opinion of the world within the limits stated. We should have the right to state our case against any case stated by the Chinese, for instance, in the case of Hong Kong. There is no question that we could not be required to give back Hong Kong to the Chinese if we did not feel that was the right thing to do. On the other hand, I feel it would be wrong if China did not have an opportunity to state its case fully. In the same way, if Egypt raises a question against the British affecting the Suez Canal, as has been suggested, I would submit to all the procedure outlined in this statement. Colleagues on the Security Council."

Joseph Stalin: "I would like to have this document to study because it is difficult on hearing it read to come to any conclusion. I think that the Dumbarton Oaks decisions have, as an objective, not only to secure to every nation the right to express its opinion, but if any nation should raise a question about some important matter, it raises the question in order to get a decision in the matter. I am sure none of those present would dispute the right of every member of the Assembly to express his opinion. "Mr. Churchill thinks that China, if it raised the question of Hong Kong, would be content only with expressing opinion here. He may be mistaken. China will demand a decision in the matter and so would Egypt. Egypt will not have much pleasure in expressing an opinion that the Suez Canal should be returned to Egypt, but would demand a decision on the matter. Therefore, the matter is much more serious than merely expressing an opinion. Also, I would like to ask Mr. Churchill to name the power which may intend to dominate the world. I am sure Great Britain does not want to dominate the world. So one is removed from suspicion. I am sure the United States does not wish to do so, so another is excluded from the powers having intentions to dominate the world."

Winston Churchill: "May I answer?"

Joseph Stalin: "In a minute. When will the great powers accept the provisions that would absolve them from the charge that they intend to dominate the world ? I will study the document. At this
time it is not very clear to me. I think it is a more serious question than the right of a power to express its intentions or the desire of some power to dominate the world."

Winston Churchill: "I know that under the leaders of the three powers as represented here we may feel safe. But these leaders may not live forever. In ten years' time we may disappear. A new generation will come which did not experience the horrors of war and may probably forget what we have gone through. We would like to secure the peace for at least fifty years. We have now to build up such a status, such a plan, that we can put as many obstacles as possible to the coming generation quarreling among themselves."

Diary entry: Joseph Goebbels, April 3, 1945.
As far as the political crisis of the war is concerned dissatisfaction with the Kremlin's policy is increasing among the American public. The San Francisco Conference is already written off almost everywhere. It is hoped to substitute a new Three-Power meeting for it. No one knows, however, whether Stalin will agree to this. Stalin is treating Roosevelt and Churchill like dunces and it is only to be hoped that this sort of provocation will gradually make the pot boil over in the Western enemy camp.

As far as the San Francisco Conference is concerned, it is already a thing of the past. It is thought that Churchill intends to fly to Moscow again to try to persuade Stalin to give way. The progress of the political crisis among our enemies depends on the next fortnight's developments. The main and deciding factor is whether we succeed in organising some form of resistance in the West again.

The Jews have applied for a seat at the San Francisco Conference. It is characteristic that their main demand is that anti-semitism be forbidden throughout the world. Typically, having committed the most terrible crimes against mankind, the Jews would now like mankind to be forbidden even to think about them.

Diary entry: Joseph Goebbels, April 4, 1945.
Smuts has made an extraordinarily gloomy speech at the Imperial Conference now sitting in London. He regards San Francisco as the last chance for civilised mankind. If San Francisco fails, then what we regard as cultured mankind would be doomed. A human catastrophe of unimaginable proportions would be the inevitable result. A third world war would be waged with new and even more devastating weapons. What remained of mankind would be neither worthy nor capable of existence.

From “Memoirs: The Reckoning”, Anthony Eden, 1965.
Roosevelt was, above all else, a consummate politician. Few men could see more clearly their immediate objective, or show greater artistry in obtaining it. As a price of these gifts, his long-range vision was not quite so sure. The President shared a widespread American suspicion of the British Empire as it had once been and, despite his knowledge of world affairs, he was always anxious to make it plain to Stalin that the United States was not 'ganging up' with Britain against Russia. The outcome of this was some confusion in Anglo-American relations which profited the Soviets.
Roosevelt did not confine his dislike of colonialism to the British Empire alone, for it was a principle with him, not the less cherished for its possible advantages. He hoped that former colonial territories, once free of their masters, would become politically and economically dependent upon the United States, and had no fear that other powers might fill that role.
Winston Churchill's strength lay in his vigorous sense of purpose and his courage, which carried him undismayed over obstacles daunting to lesser men. He was also generous and impulsive, but this could be a handicap at the conference table. Churchill liked to talk, he did not like to listen, and he found it difficult to wait for, and seldom let pass, his turn to speak. The spoils in the diplomatic game do not necessarily go to the man most eager to debate.
Marshal Stalin as a negotiator was the toughest proposition of all. Indeed, after something like thirty years' experience of international conferences of one kind and another, if I had to pick a team for going into a conference room, Stalin would be my first choice. Of course the man was ruthless and of course he knew his purpose. He never wasted a word. He never stormed, he was seldom even irritated. Hooded, calm, never raising his voice, he avoided the repeated negatives of Molotov which were so exasperating to listen to. By more subtle methods he got what he wanted without having seemed so obdurate.

Bibliography:

Milestones In United Nations History, A Selective Chronology, Department of Public Information, United Nations, New York, New York.

Anthony Eden, “Memoirs: The Reckoning”,1965.

James F. Byrnes, “Speaking Frankly”, 1947.