Tom DeWeese -- Entangling Alliances: George Washington vs. the UN

There are a lot of people in this country who don't believe the United Nations is a threat to American sovereignty and independence.

Many on Capitol Hill will tell you that there is not a single word in a single UN document that says the UN will control land in this country. Technically that's true. In fact, most UN documents take great pains to include language to specifically state that each nation will maintain its own sovereignty.

Here's why the UN is in fact a threat and how it all works. Sovereignty is the answer to the question: "who's in charge?" You have to answer that question before you can answer the parallel question: "who's responsible?" To have true sovereignty over our land we the people, through our elected representatives, must be in charge of decisions over it and we must have the responsibility to carry out those decisions.

Keep in mind that you can voluntarily give up both control and responsibility. However, even if it is voluntary, it's still loss of control. The United States has been taking that path of voluntary surrender of control for several years through acceptance of a number of United Nations treaties and agreements. It is through this matrix, this spider's web of so-called "international law" that this nation cedes control to the United Nations.

Consider just a few of the UN treaties and agreements that the United States has already agreed to abide. They include the World Heritage Sites Treaty, UNESCO, Agenda 21, the Convention on Climate Change, and The Man and the Biosphere program. Each of these is part of an agenda called "Sustainable Development" which calls for changing the very infrastructure of our nation, away from private ownership and control of property to nothing short of national zoning and a whole lot more.

In 1796, George Washington warned his new nation "…Against the insiddious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people out to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government." Washington said "The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible."

Sustainable Development combines social welfare programs with partnerships between business and government, using environmental issues to make it all appear to be urgent. This environmental agenda is driven by the United Nations through two specific UN organizations, the United Nations Environmental Program and the International Union of Conservation and Nature.

Would it surprise you to learn that six agencies of the United States government are active members of the International Union of Conservation and Nature, including the Departments of State, Interior, Agriculture and the Fish and Wildlife service? These agencies send representatives to all meetings of the UN Environmental Program.

This kind of intergovernmental cooperation with UN policy led to a showdown over the issue of control in 1995 when radical environmentalists and the Department of Interior wanted to stop the building of a gold mine on private land, several miles from Yellowstone National Park. This federal department simply called in the UN's World Heritage Committee to visit Yellowstone, whereupon the committee declared the park to be the world's first endangered heritage site. That designation was enough to stop the building of private enterprise and clearly establish who was in control.

By joining the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Culture and National Heritage, adopted in November 1972 at the 17th General Conference of UNESCO, the United States ceded control over Yellowstone National Park, the Everglades National Park, the Grand Canyon National Park, the Great Smokey Mountains National Park, Yosemite National Park, the Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and, you will find this astounding, Monticello, Jefferson's home, and the Statue of Liberty!

Webster's defines "sovereignty" as "undisputed political power." We no longer have this precious right, gained by the blood of patriots, over these and other so-called World Heritage sites.

Through all of the treaties, agreements and meetings, there grows an interlocking web of policy that takes root through these federal agencies, even driving down into state and local community governments.

The treaties are the roots of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act. For Congress to back out of these laws or even to consider reducing some of the regulations that are destroying industry or private property rights would put the United States in violation of the UN treaties!

It is not just about environmental policy that's involved. There are equally binding UN treaties and agreements covering education programs, child welfare, women's rights, as well as gun control.

Most recently, the UN abandoned all pretense of respecting sovereign independence.

The International Criminal Court was approved when only 60 nations ratified it, butaccording to UN policy, the court has jurisdiction over all nations, whether they ratified it or not. Never in the history of international relations has such a policy even been proposed, let alone adopted.

Now, many of you rightly complain that you keep electing politicians who promise to corral the size and scope of government and reinstate the rule of the Constitution, but it never seems to happen. Why? Because we are bound by UN treaties that say we can't and by a Federal government that says we won't.

Neither George Washington nor any of the Founding Fathers would ever have put their names to the United Nations Charter or agreed to any of these intrusive, interlocking treaties and agreements for the simple reason that they diminish American control, American responsibility and American sovereignty.

The only way for the United States of America to reassert and reestablish its sovereignty is to get out of the United Nations.

Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, a grassroots, activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, VA. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.americanpolicy.org.