And this is where left/libs/dims really step on their richards. They want socialism AND personal rights/freedoms. It becomes a circular argument IMHO which can be fun when used to whack 'em over the head ;-)
Posted on 10/14/2005 4:00:35 PM PDT by RWR8189
PRIOR TO THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, John Calhoun and Abraham Lincoln articulated two very different ideas of equality. Each idea was powerful, and if followed, would lead to radically different outcomes. Calhoun's organizing principle can be boiled down to two words: state sovereignty. He believed in the equality of sovereign political states. In contrast, Lincoln's organizing principle of equality was the idea of individual natural rights. While Lincoln's idea of individual rights triumphed in the United States with the passage of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Constitutional Amendments and the success of the civil rights movement a century later, the Calhoun / Lincoln debate is, in a sense, still blazing in the arena of international law and in the dilemma of the United Nations.
From a perspective of organizing political principles, it is fair to say that above all else, John Calhoun stood for the idea of "entity equality." He believed that there was no higher level of political morality than that of a state being free to govern itself. Accordingly, if a group of citizens that held all of the political power in a state sought to enslave another group of citizens, the governing group was entitled to do so with the full protection of the law. In Calhoun's logic, this was derived from the fact that the governing group represented the sovereign and equal entity of the state.
For Calhoun, this idea of state equality was the only rational basis of organizing a free society in a stable federal system. No state could infringe upon the rights of another state. For, if state equality was not held sacrosanct and inviolable, then the people of a state could tyrannically infringe upon the rights of the people of another state. There would be no legal principle to stop, for example, the people of Massachusetts from imposing their will upon the people of South Carolina. All that would remain to prevent such imposition would be political and martial power.
In contrast, Lincoln stood for the idea of the natural rights of the individual. Lincoln believed that the fundamental principle of the Declaration of Independence must illuminate all valid legal systems, and accordingly the U.S. Constitution. That fundamental principle, of course, is the idea that "all men are created equal" and "that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." Lincoln, like the Founders, understood these rights to be universal.
Lincoln held that the purpose of government--at all levels--was to secure the rights of the governed. In Lincoln's framework, no government, even if democratically elected by a certain segment of society, had the right to enslave its citizens, for such would violate the natural rights of the governed. For Lincoln, Calhoun's principle was a farce; one could not, in the name of state liberty, deny individuals their God-given liberty.
Given this context, it is worth asking, whose ideas serve as the guiding principle of the United Nations system of international law? Calhoun's or Lincoln's?
THE UNITED NATIONS is based, first and foremost, on a principle of national sovereignty. In the U.N. framework, all nation states are sovereign equals and are entitled to the same legal protections from outside aggression. According to international law, North Korea's borders are as sovereign and sacrosanct as those of the United States. As a baseline, it is of little import that North Korea is governed by a tyrannical dictatorship that starves and functionally enslaves its citizens--it is still a sovereign nation, legally protected by Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter. Just as it was not the black slaves, but rather the slave owners who were represented by the southern state governments prior to the American Civil War, it is not the people of North Korea who are represented in the U.N. system but rather Kim Jong Il and his governing junta.
In other words, the Calhoun / Lincoln dilemma is still with us, albeit elevated to the international level. As was true prior to the Civil War, a legal ideology has emerged that seeks to place primary emphasis upon state equality at the expense of human freedom within the various states. It is plain that the United Nations principle of sovereign equality, like Calhoun's idea of state sovereignty prior to the American Civil War, can lead to the legal protection of the oppressors at the expense of the oppressed. This is necessarily accomplished when equality is emphasized among governments, regardless of their treatment of the individuals they govern.
If Calhoun's idea of "entity equality" is the organizing principle of a legal system, then there is indeed no basis for challenging the internal governance of an autonomous and equal entity. There is no basis upon which to say that a free state is better than a slave state (and thus just in acting to free the slaves), or that a constitutional democracy is better than an absolute despotism (and thus just in removing the despot). In such a framework, what matters is the principle of non-aggression between equal sovereign entities--in the case of Calhoun this meant states, and in the case of the United Nations this means nation states.
Perhaps because Lincoln's ideas have prevailed so emphatically in the United States, it is difficult for Americans to embrace a U.N. system that is moored so securely to the "entity equality" logic of John Calhoun. Just as the moral bankruptcy of Calhoun's political philosophy is so apparent when placed in the natural rights framework of Lincoln, so too is the U.N. framework undermined when viewed in the context of individual human freedom.
To Abraham Lincoln, the value of a government was to be determined not by its sacred sovereignty, but rather by the degree to which it secured the rights of the governed. Lincoln recognized that it is not states, but rather the individuals within states who are the true possessors of rights. Accordingly, even an international legal system cannot remain forever indifferent to the character of the governments it purportedly governs; nor can it remain perpetually neutral between freedom and bondage. The degree to which sovereignty should be afforded states that do not secure the rights of the governed is a question that demands asking now as much as it did in Lincoln's day.
Michael Brandon McClellan lives in Southern California and runs the weblog PortMcclellan.com. He was a 2005 Lincoln Fellow with the Claremont Institute.
I think the author took an idea and twisted it to fit some facts. That sentence was a little backward on purpose.
The idea of the UN is to make everybody (states) equal, make the rick states pay and run everything from the UN.
Funny I kind of sniffed that out as well.
Just as the moral bankruptcy of Calhoun's political philosophy is so apparent when placed in the natural rights framework of Lincoln, so too is the U.N. framework undermined when viewed in the context of individual human freedom.
I see what the writer is trying to say, but to the UN “individual human freedom” translates into global socialism. There is no value added to the world by this organization.
The UN is organized on the principles of Marxism.
B4L8r
The UN was designed to be a super-forum for diplomacy and provide a framework for certain levels of voluntary collective action. Of course, Americans despise it because it's a miserable socialist failure attempting to enslave everyone on earth.
On the other hand, the United States was Constituted sovereign for specific purposes by the sovereign people and their several sovereign states. The Constitution with the Bill of Rights and later Amendments defined and limited the power (sovereignty) of the Federal Government while reserving all other power to the sovereign states and ultimately, The People.
That is the beauty of our federal government as opposed to the repulsiveness of the UN's "system".
Tragically, we are not the republic our founding fathers crafted with the Constitution. The sovereign states have lost their federal voice with the direct election of senators, thus invalidating the "Great Compromise" key to the Constitution. The Legislative Branch acts way outside of the Constitution by abusing the Interstate Commerce Clause. And the Judicial Branch legislates from the bench through the false doctrine of Judicial Review and just plain Judicial Decree.
Even with all of that dysfunction our system of government is vastly superior to anything the UN can conceive. And the average American knows this.
I do not understand how the average American knows of the superiority of our government over all others. It certainly is not from the public school system. And it certainly is not through the author's specious fractured comparison of perceived Calhoun/Lincoln government philosophies to the UN abomination. But the average American knows he has a government and the UN isn't a government.
The average American does not need a fellowship to know the UN is his enemy and the enemy of freedom.
Think old Calhoun is getting shanked here a bit.....
And this is where left/libs/dims really step on their richards. They want socialism AND personal rights/freedoms. It becomes a circular argument IMHO which can be fun when used to whack 'em over the head ;-)
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