The United Nations is terminally paralysed: the democratic world needs a forum of its own

1. a. The keyword in Pro's debate is "improvement", in that the UN needs "improvement" and is not just left to one side. Pro suggests that we do put the UN to one side and create a new organisation. That's very much like spending months (or decades in the UN's case) writing an essay, but then putting it to one side in a dark draw because you don't think it's good enough, then starting a new essay instead of improving the original one – this doesn't to be a particularly "logical argument". "I think all in a forum for democracies would agree that genocide in Darfur and criminal rule in Zimbabwe ought to be condemned" – What stops a national government from condemning another nation or imposing trade sanctions upon it? This idea would be very much like criminals setting up their own, independent police force because they can't get ‘justice' from the normal one. Pro also confirms my point that democracies would be more likely to agree with each other in the above quote, which will make the forum far too powerful (as I said earlier), "profoundly corrupt" (as I said earlier) and the forum would be the criminal (as I said earlier), and not the rulers of Zimbabwe. 3. "The greatest step in relations between the US and China was …" Pro automatically assumes that I'm referring to the USA whereas I'm referring to the UK (as it's my home country) as a specific example whom in 1972 signed an agreement on an ‘Exchange of Ambassadors', which was the start of a smooth and cooperative relationship with China (who joined the UN just one year before in 1971) and was done with the help of the UN in that it encourage countries like the UK and China to communicate with each other. One also needs to look at the bigger picture once again and see that other countries have established relationships with other nations through the UN. 4. " Con asserts without proof or logical argument that forming a league of democracies would plunge the world into a great depression. " Maybe Pro didn't read the beginning of my fourth paragraph and therefore missed my "logical argument". Let's take the USA and China for example since Pro seems so keen on them. The USA's second biggest trading partner is China. If we were to create an only-democratic forum, the remaining nations would most probably create their own non-democratic forum and a rivalry would form between the two. This rivalry can lead to bitterness and effect trade in that the two groups of nations will not continue to trade goods between each other because they have been pushed out of world affairs. This could happen between China and the USA if they were both to join forums. Since the two countries trade so much, the success of their economies would decrease with decreases in imports and exports. This means that they will have less money to spend on goods imported from other trading partners. Since the USA and China trade with just about every other country in the world, all those other countries will be affected by this ONE break in trade and they will therefore have less money to trade with due to a domino effect. If the nations (governments) have less money, then so do the people. If people have less money, their lifestyle decreases in quality. If their lifestyle decreases in quality enough, they will live in poverty. Mass poverty is depression. We must think this far ahead. That's my "logical argument". 5. At no point in my argument did I mention, "having dictatorships is they key to success". In my eyes, the key to success is the partnership between all countries with varied political status as we can observe the view of different governments. "Democracy consists of choosing your dictators after they've told you what you think is what you want to hear. " – Alan Coren. The point of democracy is to listen to the people, not to discount certain group's opinion. In an only-democratic forum, surely they are doing exactly this by discounting non-democratic nations? "A blockade that would collapse the fragile Iranian economy" A new democratic forum would need not worry about going to the effort to create a blockade because as I mentioned previously, economies would collapse or at least decline anyway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Tensions would be raised in the short run" Pro is absolutely correct that "tensions would be raised", but incorrect about the "short run". In the past, blockades have created long-term rivalries in the past, one being the ‘Berlin Blockade' during 1948 – 1949 between the Western Allies and the USSR. That tension lasted until 1991! That's a whole 43 years and cannot be classed as a "short run". What's more is that during that time, the USA was in danger of being wiped of the map by Cuba. Does that sound familiar? Iran and Israel. As valid as Pro's point may be, we cannot risk anything like that happening again, especially while President Ahmadinejad is in control of Iran's nuclear weapons. Has anyone heard of the Community of Democracies (CD)? I didn't think so. Well, if you did know what it existed, do you know what it's done? I didn't think so. Well, all it's done is agree to "respect and uphold … democratic principles and practises". The point that I'm making is that there is ALREADY a league of democracies that my opponent is proposing and that it's not widely recognised because it hasn't done anything despite being active for many years now. It's had the chance to participate in discussions regarding Iraq and Iran, so why hasn't it done anything? Has it not done anything because it doesn't want attention from non-democracies who would form a similar group, thus creating a world rift? And aren't they just scared of a re-enactment of NATO and the Warsaw Pact? Or maybe it is limited because it's membership of only 16 democratic nations (one being the USA, which has the largest influence over the group). Wouldn't this happen if an even newer democratic forum was created? Would a country like Iran be more likely to comply with 16 democratic nations (with a major US influence) or with a global, varied organisation of 191 other countries (the UN) whom it's allies also belong to? We'll let the voters decide that one. My final statement is that in principal, the proposal sounds logical, but stop and think … History is our biggest tool here and ‘we should learn from our mistakes', therefore we should learn from history. We formed NATO, the communists formed the Warsaw Pact, this created (or tensioned) a huge rivalry for 43 years (the Cold War) in which period the USA was nearly destroyed – using history as a tool, we can predict what would happen but replace the phrase "nearly destroyed" with just: destroyed. The rift that would form would affect our economies and pull us into depression as my "logical argument" states. There is already a democratic forum (the CD), which has done nothing but stated an extremely vague objective. Would another, newer democratic forum do any better? "It could be structured to avoid corruption" – How? The structure would be "corruption" as my analogy explains. The fact that democracies would want to get together and make major, global decisions without non-democracy obstructions is corrupt. Once again, "the point of democracy is to listen to the people, not to discount certain groups opinion. In an only-democratic forum, surely they are doing exactly this by discounting non-democratic nations? " The UN needs to be improved as Pro said but we don't need a democratic forum as well because we cannot afford to create tensions between countries, especially not in this current political and economic climate. Ponder over the questions that I have asked during this debate and use your answers to the questions to reflect your vote. Thanks again RoyLatham!