From: bunker@physun.physics.mcmaster.ca (Alex Bunker)
Subject: Re: WORLD GOVERNMENT
Organization: Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, McMaster University
Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 18:52:05 GMT

In article <1992Aug12.155221.3392@ncar.ucar.edu> gary@colossus.cgd.ucar.edu (Gary Strand) writes:
>  [It would be a good idea to trim your articles so that bandwidth and cost
>   can be saved. There was no reason to include my entire article, since you
>   didn't respond to any specific part of it.]
>
>ab> Alex Bunker
>gs> Gary Strand
>
>gs> Sorry, but your WG simply has too many problems to be practical. 
>
>ab> The reasons I want a world government:
>ab> 1) The level of injustice in the world without one I find intolerable. I
>ab>    look at SU:Afganistan etc... and USA:Chile etc... as examples of big
>ab>    rich nations picking on smaller nations and working for the interests 
>ab>    of a subset of the human race at the expense of the whole. 
>
>  You merely "change" the problem from national superpower -> small nation to
>  world government -> all nations. Besides, who's to say that the US wouldn't
>  dominate a world government anyway? Also, you ignore "minor" conflicts, like
>  the ex-Yugoslavia civil war. One doesn't need to have major powers picking
>  on smaller powers to have massive bloodshed. Also, what's the expense to
>  the human race as a whole if the Serbs, Croats, etc. practice "ethnic clean-
>  sing" on each other? Sounds like you don't have a means for dealing with
>  localized problems.
>ab>   Some nations through military strength have taken more than their fair
>ab>   share of the worlds rescounces. What gives the right to the USA to use 
>ab>   up 10 times as much unrenuewable rescource per capita than another 
>ab>   country?
>
>  From which countries does the US use bald military force to seize nonrenew-
>  able resources? Also, does your "10 times" figure take into account that 
>  the US GNP is the largest in the world? Lastly, how does one decide what a
>  "fair share" is, when the distribution of these resources is most "unfair"?
>  For example, is it "fair" that South Africa has such mineral wealth? That
>  a country like Saudi Arabia has so much oil?

You have completely missed the point of what I am trying to say. I am talking
about what communists refer to as "capitalist imperialism" but since
I am not a communist I am using softer words. The US DEPOSED the democratically
elected government of Chile BY FORCE because it was a threat to US ECONOMIC
INTERESTS. (In words even Dan Quayle can understand)
>ab>   They only get away with it because they have a big powerful army that
>ab>   stomps on any government that rises in the third world that tries to 
>ab>   stop being a slave state and actually work for the interest of its own
>ab>   people instead of the multinational corporations (like 50's honduras,
>ab>   Allende Chile and Sandanista Nicaragua.)
>
>  Come on! How much trade does the US do/did with the above three nations? I
>  would bet a tiny (tiny!) fraction of what the US does with Canada, alone!
>  The vast bulk of American trade is with Canada, Mexico, Japan, Western Eur-
>  ope and Australia. What US Army keeps those nations "in line"? You sound
>  like you've read too much about Lenin's theories on capitalism and imper-
>  ialism. Also, it's hardly the fact that the US engages in nastiness with
>  regards to trade with other countries. Europe and Japan are no strangers
>  to trade wars.
I am talking about the armed overthrow of democratic governments that do
not just happen to see eye to eye with US capitalists. LIKE CHILE!
>ab> 2) There are many issues facing the world that we need to act on on a 
>ab>    global level.
>
>  Agreed. That does not mean that we need a global government, though.

Fine how else do you propose to effectively act on them?

>ab>    While garbage collection is suitable to be taken care of by a local
>ab>    govenrment and health care is suitable to be taken care of by a 
>ab>    national government there are issues of a global scale that are not 
>ab>    dealt with properly because we are missing the level of government
>ab>    that can best deal with this.
>
>  "Government" and "can best deal with <X>" are two concepts that do not fit
>  together in any reasonable fashion.

Again what alternative do you propose?

>ab>    These issues are population control,
>
>  Are you prepared to have your government force involuntary sterilizations 
>  and involuntary abortions (and perhaps more) on individuals? In other words,
>  is effective population control possible under a free system, or does it
>  require a totalitarian system, a la China?

NO NO NO! populartion control program can be EDUCATIONAL in nature!

>ab>    environmental degredation, 
>
>  Again, governments have shown themselves to be terrible at preserving or
>  fixing the environment. Look at Eastern Europe and the XUSSR for examples.

 NON democratic governments Democratic govenernments are the ONLY effective
body on this issue. We have to save ourselves from our own greed!

>ab>    peace and security,
>
>  Peace and security between nations, perhaps (by the threat of more force
>  than they can bring to bear, remember!) but what about peace and security
>  *from* the world government? If we cannot trust nations to refrain from
>  warring with each other, how can we trust a world government to refrain from
>  making war on us?

Democratically elected governments operate under a constitution and
are restricted by this. A world government can no more make war on its
people than the US govenrment.

>ab>    Labor legislation (to ensure an even global economic playing field)
>
>  Sorry, but the global economic "playing field" cannot be levelled. As I
>  tried to point out to "Frank", a ski instructor just isn't going to be paid
>  very much in Guam. Differences in geography, population distribution, re-
>  sources, and so on, make it impossible to construct an economic system that
>  overrides these differences. Just can't be done.

This is true but standard laws for the labor negotiation process etc are
nice

>ab> I am not asking for an allpowerful monolith to dictate everything but a
>ab> legislature to take care of these issue which would not be taken care of
>ab> otherwise is all I am calling for.
>
>  A legislature backed up by an all-powerful police/army, right? Otherwise,
>  a law that's unenforced or unenforcable isn't a law. You cannot get away
>  from using force or the threat of force. That's how governments operate.

no different from a regualr country

>ab> And no 5 billion people can not agree on anything but neither can 250
>ab> million but the USA seems to function pretty well as a country.
>
>  Partly because if things get really bad, one can move to another state, or
>  even another country. No such options are available under a world govern-
>  ment, unless the moon happens to be colonized by then. Also, you've got to
>  remember that the bulk of Americans have a core set of common beliefs. For
>  example, killing a person because of his ethnic heritage is frowned upon.
>  Such a belief does not exist in ex-Yugoslavia, unfortunately. What a world
>  government needs is for the bulk of the world's peoples to accept a common
>  set of beliefs, and I don't think that's possible. Like I said, you cannot
>  use force to get people to agree to these beliefs, they have to arrive at
>  them on their own.

Yes That is what I think exactly that is why it is a slow process. 
You do not seem to understand that I feel that the first step
is a very slow and uncoercive process to bring about a global ararenes
and slowly generate a sence of loyalty and patriotism to the entire human race
I want people to be educated to reject nationalism. 
I have. My creed is to REFUSE to serve the interests of any subset of
the human race based on arbitrary parameters like red lines on the map.
I will NEVER say an oath of allegience to ANY nation. I will NEVER
serve in any army that is not GLOBAL. ALL human beings who agree with my
views are my brothers and THAT is the base for my aligience.
My goal is to FIRST spread these views.

>ab> This world government would be a multi party legislature. I think the best
>ab> model is the European parliament.  In the European parliament legislatures
>ab> were elected representing political parties in their own countries but the
>ab> soon saw people with similar views from other countries and the banded
>ab> together and soon all the country lines had dissolved and instead european
>ab> political parties sat in parliament.
>
>  Given all the problems that Europe is having in unifying itself, I can see
>  that similar problems, only of much larger magnitude, would accompany a
>  world government's legislature. And, it's hardly the case that Europeans
>  don't have any problems with EEC bureaucrats running their lives. The Danes,
>  British, and others are not entirely happy with the way things are going,
>  and the EEC has the advantage that all its member countries are democracies.
>  No such advantage will exist for a world government.

A world government will naturally include only the Democratic nations of
the world. A world government will only be workable once all countries are
democracies. This I am sure will happen in the next 30 years.

>ab> The same would happen on a global scale. Instead of Chinese and Indians
>ab> banding together to boss the rest of the world Chinese, Indian, Japanese,
>ab> German,UK Social democrats would by competing aganint Chinese, Japanese,
>ab> German, UK etc.. Conservatives.
>
>  Sorry, there are no Chinese "social democrats" of any consequence. Last I
>  checked, China was still ruled by hard-line Communists. You're going to
>  have to crack that egg first. Also, what happened to the US in your list
>  of political players? The US is the third most-populous country in the 
>  world, you know (the break-up of the USSR means that the US moved up to
>  3rd, since the USSR no longer exists, and Russia has fewer people than the
>  US.) As you've bemoaned before, there are no significant social democrats
>  in the US. That's going to be another egg to crack.

Frankly if a particular region of the world does not have a following
of a particluar party I do not care. Ever heard of "yellow dog Democrat"
regions of the US? The US would be the same thing for the Conservative
party in the world legislature.

>ab> Actually in a world legislature these would probably be the main two
>ab> parties given the norms of politics across the world. 
>
>  Sorry, the norm of politics across the world isn't democracy. There is much
>  more to the world than Western Europe, you know.

I know but I am waiting 

>ab> A small liberal party would probably be aligned with the conservatives and
>ab> a small green party with the social democrats but it would basically be an
>ab> opposition/government blocks scenario and the opposition and government
>ab> would span the globe.
>
>  I simply don't understand how you plan to scale up 300 million Europeans
>  to 5+ billion humans, when the majority of those humans don't live in demo-
>  cratic societies.
 
but they will
and when they do they will mostly follow the Conservative/liberal/SDP/green
norms with some variation of the support for each party in different 
regions.

>  Sorry, but your WG simply has too many problems to be practical. 
>
>
>--
>Gary Strand                      Opinions stated herein are mine alone and are
>strandwg@ncar.ucar.edu            not representative of NCAR, UCAR, or the NSF

ALEX BUNKER

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