podpolia

I hope things in Lebanon are going as well as they seem here. I doubt they’re quite that rosy, but we can always hope.

There is an excellent piece here on one of the biggest real failings of the UN. This is one of my pet peeves about the UN (and believe me, I have many) — their unwillingness to do their actual job, and instead start rubbing their grimy noses into stuff that really isn’t their business. Your job is to make the world a better place, ok? Not to try to expand your power until you’re a world government. I think that’s one of the reasons the UN hates the US as much as it does — the US provides much of the UN’s funding and resources, and yet also restricts what the UN can do. In an organization that is essentially a bureaucracy for a state that doesn’t exist, bureaucratic rules apply to the exclusion of the regulatory effect that an executive, legislative, or judicial branch would have. The General Assembly really doesn’t bother to control the bureaucracy at the UN because for the most part, what the bureaucracy does would not provide political power to the constituent governments represented in the Assembly. Not having a true executive or even a concrete reason for existance, the UN serves as a tool to obtain power for the governments that take part in it.
The only true limitations on bureaucratic bloat at the UN are political, not constitutional or procedural. The US provides a strong check in the amount of political power the UN can pick up, so that makes the US the primary opponent to the natural trend of the bureaucracy. It also provides ammunition for other countries who can accuse the US of not ‘cooperating.’ The UN would be a whole lot better if it could be reconstituted with more concrete rules, and a more constitutional system.
Oh, and the link (you know, the one before I started wandering off topic) was via Rantingprofs.

There is an excellent piece here on one of the biggest real failings of the UN. This is one of my pet peeves about the UN (and believe me, I have many) — their unwillingness to do their actual job, and instead start rubbing their grimy noses into stuff that really isn’t their business. Your job is to make the world a better place, ok? Not to try to expand your power until you’re a world government. I think that’s one of the reasons the UN hates the US as much as it does — the US provides much of the UN’s funding and resources, and yet also restricts what the UN can do. In an organization that is essentially a bureaucracy for a state that doesn’t exist, bureaucratic rules apply to the exclusion of the regulatory effect that an executive, legislative, or judicial branch would have. The General Assembly really doesn’t bother to control the bureaucracy at the UN because for the most part, what the bureaucracy does would not provide political power to the constituent governments represented in the Assembly. Not having a true executive or even a concrete reason for existance, the UN serves as a tool to obtain power for the governments that take part in it.
The only true limitations on bureaucratic bloat at the UN are political, not constitutional or procedural. The US provides a strong check in the amount of political power the UN can pick up, so that makes the US the primary opponent to the natural trend of the bureaucracy. It also provides ammunition for other countries who can accuse the US of not ‘cooperating.’ The UN would be a whole lot better if it could be reconstituted with more concrete rules, and a more constitutional system.
Oh, and the link (you know, the one before I started wandering off topic) was via Rantingprofs.