Useless Notions

According to the old calendar on the wall, today is United Nations Day.

Woohoo!

I must admit, I always thought that "Turtle Bay" (in New York) was an actual bay. You know, a body of water enclosed partially by land which is attached to a larger body of water. The encompassing land making the bay distinct from the larger body of water to which it belongs. (Like Cape Cod Bay, Narragansett Bay and Chesapeake Bay, all attached to the larger Atlantic Ocean, but partially surrounded by land.) Nowadays it's a neighborhood in Manhattan.

So to resolve my confusion, I went to Wikipedia. Not my most trusted source for facts, but it does in a pinch. According to Wikipedia:

Turtle Bay, which received its name in the 17th century, was a valuable shelter from the often harsh weather of the East River, and it also became a thriving site for shipbuilding.

Okay, so it used to be an actual bay. But that's not exactly the point of this post. The point is that the United Nations, the UN, is what I like to call a "Useless Notion". And of course, the UN is located in the Turtle Bay area of Manhattan. (Hence the spiel near the beginning of the post.)

Alright, so a bunch of folks got together near the end of World War II and thought it would be a good idea to have some extra-national organization to keep future bad guys in line. Of course, this time it would work because, unlike the League of Nations, the United States would be involved. (And would foot the bill, and would do all the heavy lifting, and would provide the land, etc., etc., ad nauseum.)

Perhaps a good idea. All the good guys get together and pool their various strengths to deter bad guys from causing trouble in the international neighborhood.

Problem is, they let the bad guys join too.

Now the UN is nothing more than a big alliance of nations. Where the little countries get the same number of votes as the big countries (that would be one each). Ah, but you have the Security Council, where the really big important nations can veto things. It's not like it's a democratic process. There are 15 member nations on the Security Council, five are permanent (China, France, Russia, the UK and the US). So what happens when say, one member nation invades another member nation.

Well, the Security Council can vote to take military action against the offender. But if the offending nation is a client state of one of the Big Five? Vote could be 14 in favor of kicking the offending nation's a$$. Then all the Big Five nation who is buddy-buddy with the offender has to do is veto that. Result, no action takes place. Of course there may be strongly-worded announcements and perhaps even sanctions. But if one of the Big Five is not in favor of taking action. Nothing is going to happen.

Nothing.

So what's the point of the UN? What good have they done since being founded?

Two answers: not much and very little.

It might have been a good idea at the time. But the UN is no longer of any use, to anybody except Third World loonies and dictators.

Should the US continue to be a member? My opinion is: NO!

Give them a "Notice to Vacate the Premises" and let them take their idiot debating society somewhere else.

Yeah, Happy UN Day.