The United Nations

Growing Together

We cannot segregate the human heart from the environment outside us and say that once one of these is reformed everything will be improved … Man is organic with the world. His inner life molds the environment and is itself also deeply affected by it. The one acts upon the other and every abiding change in the life of man is the result of these mutual reactions.
(The Baha’i Faith)

The biggest difference between the people of earth is not race or nationality or religion, or even north or south, its the difference between urban and rural culture. We’re all going to have to work together, to create harmony in our interpersonal relationships.

Responsibility is our ability to respond. Being friendly and practicing loving kindness and respect for every human being is a voluntary attitude and activity. Peace and harmony are an honorable way of life. Ubuntu is respecting the humanity of every individual you interact with. Its the brotherhood of all mankind.

Self preservation is the most primal instinct in all life on earth. Self respect grows out of our instinct for self preservation. Jesus Christ taught us to love each other, exactly like we love ourselves. The antidote for those who have lost respect for themselves is to love God, with all your heart, your soul and your mind. Abha means all glorious. Radiate all love and respect for yourself and everyone else. The human race is my circle of friends.

Men must be governed (O’Brian, 2003). That is a natural and spiritual feature of human nature and civilization. My conversations with the people around me reveal that, leadership and government are absolutely vital features of human nature and civilization, at least at the present time. My complaints about various forms of leadership and government, are complaints about the form of leadership we have, not that we have, and in fact, need leadership and government.

Our government needs to serve and protect our personal responsibility, self determination and free enterprise, not undermine, suppress or control them.

How we govern ourselves is voluntary activity. Just like all normal healthy people have the capacity to speak and our social environment determines what language we speak. Once we grow up into an adult, we can continue to speak the language we learn as a child, which is hardwired into our brains, or we can for any reason, learn and speak a new language.

The United Nations, United Nations Education and Science Organization, World Trade Organization, World Health Organization, Food and Agriculture Organization, World Economic Forum and other international organizations are evolving into a new, global version of federalism, an international rule of law. A diverse assortment of peoples and cultures, of ancient and more recent civilizations, are converging into a global federation of self governing nations, a universal commonwealth.

Here are a few links to a variety of United Nations and other international organization websites and documents. I recommend that you explore them. Find out what they’re doing. Find out what they’re saying about themselves, instead of listening to someone else telling you what is going on. These are honorable enterprises, established by imperfect human beings, designed to improve life on earth for everyone.

The UN has some glaring defects. Most obviously, that every nation has one vote. It doesn’t seem fair to me for a nation like Luxembourg, with less than 600,000 people, to have a vote equal to the 1,300,000,000 people of India. Or the 50 American states having one vote all together and members of the EU having one vote each. Having all the United Nations offices in the USA and the EU is an even more serious defect.

However, the human race is growing together into one universal commonwealth. We may be crashing into each other these days, but we’re definitely coming together. We’re all one tribe, one family. We’re growing up, learning how to live in peace and harmony with each other, just like a baby learning how to walk.

The vast majority of rich and poor people, the big business executives and stockholders, the doctors, lawyers and teachers and the government bureaucrats and the working class people are all honorable, spiritual men and women.

World Citizen

Practice justice and compassion in your private affairs, your professional career, your local community and our universal commonwealth.

Voluntary and submission to God are the Yin and the Yang of human spirituality. Oppression is the absence of justice, justice is the absence of oppression. Faith is a completely voluntary attitude.

Free agency, personal responsibility and self-determination are inherent attributes of human nature. Faith is an essential attribute of healthy human consciousness. Almighty God created us that way. We are all responsible and accountable for our own actions. There is no compulsion in religion.

Freedom is lawful. Wild is lawless. (Hegel, 1812) The American revolution helped to replace the ruling class, with the rule of law. Almighty God is the Source of natural law and spiritual law. God makes the rules.

Be fair! Failure to respect the free agency of any human being is the very nature of oppression. Oppression is always harmful, to the oppressed and the oppressor. Justice is a facet of reality that just is. It is inevitable, unstoppable! That is the way Almighty God created His creation. Ahura Mazda has said so, over and over again!

Teamwork is another very important feature of human nature and civilization. Corporations can accomplish work that individuals just can not possibly achieve working separately. The way to transform these big businesses and our one world government into spiritually inspired enterprises, is for everyone to practice spirituality and family values in every detail of their own life.

There is no they; only we, the people of earth. Even the worst criminal is our brother or sister. Every human being is a precious, noble creature.

There are bad ideas and bad attitudes and the solution to the bad ideas is education, consultation, reasoning with each other and loving kindness and unity in diversity and voluntary submission to the rule of law, revealed by the Manifestation of God.

The whole world economy is booming. There is more wealth, more widespread now than ever before in history. The value that human beings are adding to the natural resources of earth can be groked by searching for “city skyline,” or “drive around Shanghai” or “Djakarta 2020” on YouTube, and taking a look at some of the cities we’re building all over the world.

Of course, traveling to as many of those cities as you can, if you can afford it, is better than watching them on the Internet. And because of the blatant censorship of big tech companies like YouTube and Facebook and Twitter, I am reluctantly starting to avoid them and recommend that you do so as well. There are alternative sources of news and entertainment.

Our one human family is evolving. It ebbs and flows and is definitely growing. The rise and fall of civilization can be described as humanity learning how to ride a bike. At first, we fall off the bike every so often. Now, we’ve learned how to ride the bike and we can get through the seasons of economic cycles, with out losing everything and falling into great depressions or dark ages.

I hear that the middle class in China is bigger than the entire population of the United States. The population of our northern tribes is not growing at all. The population of Africa and southern Asia is exploding.

Africa invented imperialism and slavery. The Sumerian people invented private property and money. The northern tribes, the Aryan, Scythian, and Slavic people, learned imperialism from the imperial civilizations of Africa and the middle east. Slav is the root word for slave. Imperialists from Africa and Asia got their slaves from eastern Europe. Evolving on the edge of the arctic ice sheet contributed to the hard working and aggressive personality and culture of the northern tribes.

Now, here comes another wave of Hominidae, migrating out of Africa. Its not necessarily a bad thing. I’m just saying, get ready, human nature and civilization is experiencing another wave of dramatic change. North and South America both still have relatively low population. Perhaps another wave of African and Asian immigration into America will change that.

The United Nations has been nation building in Africa, ever since the United States liberated the colonies of the world during the 20th century. After being ruled by colonial powers, many nations did not know how to govern themselves. The United Nations has been teaching them how to do so. The exploding population of Africa will be teaching the world the United Nations ethics from now on.

Artificial Intelligence

One of the greatest ideas that the American Revolution introduced into human consciousness is the idea of universal education. In order for democracy to work, the people would have to be educated. Now, the United States still has some of the best schools in the world and they’ve contributed to educating a generation of global citizens of earth.

Big business operates on a global scale. And now, the Internet enables small businesses and home office based businesses to operate in a global marketplace, as well. We’ve made a lot of progress, and we have a lot of progress to make.

Modern aircraft can take off from any suitable airport, ie., one with a long enough runway, anywhere on earth, and land at any other suitable airport on earth, nonstop, without refueling. Satellite images of earth supply undeniable evidence that earth is one homeland, for all the people of earth. NASA’s Mission to Planet Earth, has photographed, x-rayed and cat scanned the earth from every angle.

Cell phones and the Internet allow us to communicate with each other globally. In fact, we can now see a live, high definition video of the person we’re communicating with. The Human Genome Project has compiled and uploaded our human genome onto our global electronic library. Now, we can purchase a copy of our personal genome for less than $1000.

During the dot com boom of the 1980s and 90s; we, the people of earth, began developing a worldwide communications system. It is actually a third generation of long distance communications. The telegraph and then AT&T’s telephone network being the first and second generation, at least here in America.

Multi-national companies began developing a global network of fiber optical cables, swarms of communications satellites, warehouses full of high speed computer servers. Now, the earth is one giant computer network, one giant cloud of artificial intelligence, and we can connect to the network with a diverse assortment of appliances, such as desktop computers, laptops, touch pads and smart phones.

And it’s not just a broadcast system. We can interact with the network in a dynamic, two way, multimedia communications system. In other words, we can talk to the network, as well as listen to it. Big business is building the network. They’ve added tremendous value to human civilization. And now, we’re all adapting, individually and collectively, into a symbiotic relationship with the global cloud of artificial intelligence and with each other.

This electronic network is already having a profound influence on human nature and civilization. Digital native children are adapting to the computer and the Internet. The computers and the Internet are having a profound influence on the development of our central nervous systems, on human consciousness and in human civilization.

We can all develop an infinite variety of ideas and products and services and share them with a worldwide audience, a global marketplace. Just think what influence the World Wide Web will have had in human nature and civilization after 100 years, 1000 years.

This is actually beginning to liberate us from the culture of dependence on experts and big business and big government. We are already replacing our hierarchical social structures with networks of free agent entrepreneurs, working interdependently and holistically.

Perhaps the open source culture, with Linux, WordPress, Wikipedia, Creative Commons, natural health care and zero point energy, etc., supplying unlimited access to information and communication, education and entertainment will predominate. Free, or at least very inexpensive, access to the zero point energy field, will provide unlimited access to as much energy as anyone wants. Natural healing science and technology will be freely accessible to anyone who needs it. You can use Brave or Dissenter and DuckDuckGo to search for any subject and an overwhelming amount of up to date information is instantly accessible.

Like I’ve mentioned earlier, I don’t think there is anything wrong with private property or using money as a tool to facilitate trade. However, we, the people of earth, are fed up with a tiny minority of people using money as leverage to interfere with our government of the people, by the people and for the people, violating our universal human rights and wreaking havoc in our natural habitat.

The zero point energy, the free and open source software and natural health care industries are all facets of our effort to break free from the oppressive and hierarchical military industrial complex and to establish and defend our universal human rights in a safe, clean and decent society.

Hopefully, all of the cultures, the socialist, the capitalist and the open source economy, will all blend together peacefully. The capitalist system, with all the private property and free enterprise and the free and open source culture are already growing up together.

I’m proud of what my generation of human nature and civilization has accomplished. I’m proud of what the United Nations has accomplished so far. I am very patriotic about the United Nations. I admit that it is still weak and feeble, just like a baby. In spite of its many flaws and imperfections, it is an honorable enterprise. It is my homeland.

The one thing that we all need, to make all this material progress work for all the people of earth, is “One Common Faith;” one spiritual tradition that will hold the diverse, complex and dynamic human civilization together, from now on.

All the world’s religions are growing together in a natural process of genetic and cultural convergence. The human race is coming together. We are all one global commonwealth. “Earth is one country, and mankind are its citizens.” (Baha’u’llah)

After the 2004 earthquake and tsunami in the eastern Indian Ocean basin, the US Military were the first responders, sending in emergency food and medicine. Then, the United Nations and the global network of non-governmental organizations [NGO] came in and began long term healing projects, and building up permanent civil defense programs that will help people in that region protect themselves from all kinds of natural disasters.

Global Governance

The United Nations is building nations all over the world. It’s teaching people how to govern themselves and to enforce the rule of law in their respective nations. The UN is still primitive and relatively weak. It’s learning by experience, and growing better and stronger.

The United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are the constitutional foundation of our global federation of nations. There is a vast cluster of global, civil service organizations, evolving throughout human civilization. We are definitely making progress, and we still have a lot of progress to make.

Agenda 21, published in 1992 at the world summit in Rio de Janeiro, is a comprehensive plan to redesign and engineer our global economy to be more sustainable and to work in harmony with our natural habitat. It has not been very well received, at least in the USA, however, it is an important impulse influencing the evolution of human society.

During the year 2000, all the world’s religions met together at the World Forum at the United Nations in New York City. Later that same year, all the Kings and Queens, Presidents and Prime Ministers of the all the nations met at UN Headquarters in the World Summit.

The Millennium Development Goals [MDG], developed at the World Forum and the World Summit, are:

End Poverty and Hunger
Supply Universal Education
Encourage Gender Equality
Improve Child Health
Improve Maternal Health
Combat HIV/AIDS
Integrate Environmental Sustainability into our Universal Commonwealth
Global Partnership [UN Economic and Social Council]

The MDG 2012 annual report says that we have already accomplished some of the goals 3 years ahead of schedule and are falling behind in others. We’re definitely making progress, improving human nature and civilization for millions of people worldwide.

“The United Nations, Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.”
(UN Global Compact webpage)

The ten Principles are:

Business should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and
make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses
Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
the effective abolition of child labour; and
the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.
Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.
Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery. (UN Global Compact)

Cyber School Bus is an Internet based “global teaching and learning project.” The United Nations is building a global civilization. It’s new. It’s working. Slowly, surely. Digital native children all over the world, are growing up with a sense of global citizenship.

These are all man made institutions and none of them are perfect. They’re ideals that will be influencing the evolution of human civilization for as long as the United Nations lasts.

The UN met in 2015 to assess the success of the Millenium Development Goals and to establish the Sustainable Development Goals for the UN to work on accomplishing by 2030. The Sustainable Development Goals are the strategic plan for the United Nations for the 15 year period from 2015 to 2030.

In many nations, the UN is the only real effective government there is. We’re building grassroots programs to develop human nature and civilization at the local, national and international levels.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is our constitutional rule of law, establishing and protecting our universal human rights. It’s up to us, the people of earth, to make sure that everyone knows what they are and that they are enforced throughout human civilization.

The three pillars of sustainable social and economic development are economic, social and environmental sustainability. Agenda 21, the Millennium Declaration, the Millennium Development Goals, the Global Compact and now the Sustainable Development Goals are some of the strategies we’re using to cultivate a sustainable universal commonwealth.

They’re just reasonable ideas, that we can all agree with in order to stop the fighting over cultural values and natural resources. National self-government is one of the principles of the United Nations. We want the benefits of a well regulated global economy, but not an excess of centralized power. We want the government to serve and protect our people, our human rights, our private property and free enterprise, not threaten or suppress them!

Human beings all have the same basic instincts and emotions. I can’t imagine that any people anywhere, will ever be content to be herded around by any elite ruling class.

The Sustainable Development Goals are the strategic plan for the United Nations for the 2020s. They are:

No Poverty
Zero Hunger
Good Health and Well-being
Quality Education
Gender Equality
Clean Water and Sanitation
Affordable and Clean Energy
Decent Work and Economic Growth
Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
Reducing Inequality
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Responsible Consumption and Production
Climate Action
Life Below Water
Life On Land
Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
Partnerships for the Goals

These are good ideas. Words on a piece of paper are useless unless we, the people of earth, put them into action. We need to make the United Nations work well for all the people of earth.

Improving the United Nations

I’ve noticed that most UN offices are in Europe, a few are in America. It seems like that needs to be improved. If we are not going to have one capital city, where all the offices are, then they should be spread out all around the world.

What about building a new United Nations capital city in Jerusalem? It’s a central location. It would make that city our international capital city, solving the problem of the local tribes fighting over it.

Alternatively, India, with it’s ancient tradition of Ayurvedic Medicine, would be a good location for the World Health Organization. Spread those offices out, all around the world. Right now, the United Nations seems like the latest version of European imperialism.

There are other improvements that need to be made, such as some kind of proportional representation, perhaps an elevation of the sovereignty vested in the UN. Right now, the nations are sovereign and the UN is mainly a consultation system. That may not be all bad. The only real sovereignty is the sovereignty of Almighty God in every human heart; and the UN is learning how to govern without any official sovereignty.

I think we are going to have to assign some limited sovereignty to regulate international trade, to the United Nations, in order to turn our swords into plowshares, to establish world unity and peace and prosperity for all the people of earth. Free enterprise requires a well regulated economy and our world government needs to have some sovereignty to accomplish that valuable service.

Healing Drug Abuse

The United Nations has work to do. For example, the United Nations, Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is working to interdict drug trafficking, child labor, slavery and other forms of international corruption. The UNODC, in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), The United Nations, Educational and Scientific Organization (UNESCO), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and others, are working together to produce educational materials, including videos with graphic details of the nature of addiction and the pharmacological and sociological consequences of drug abuse and drug trafficking.

Initiate a global program, like the HIV/AIDS initiative, to educate people to,

do not start smoking tobacco,

which is a gateway drug, leading to the habit of using other drugs. Use both voluntary and court ordered drug treatment programs to heal addiction.

And make sure we design our treatment system to treat the drug users and addicts, as well as the drug traffickers. Execute global law enforcement efforts to completely and permanently purge this most grievous plague out of human nature and civilization. Harm reduction strategies seem to be working in some cases, such as Portugal. Zero tolerance of drug abuse is working in other cases, such as Singapore.

The UN Office of Drugs and Crime reports that we’re observing and measuring the drug abuse and drug trafficking problem. The UNODC, supported by the Military Staff Committee, the United Nations equivalent of the Department of Defense, should be executing an aggressive, global, anti-drug trafficking initiative.

Allowing this blatant use of chemical weapons against human nature and civilization for profit, is not peaceful or compassionate, it’s enabling the attack.

What’s the point of having a government, if it’s not going to protect the people and enforce the rule of law established by the people to insure justice for all people everywhere?

I do not want a world government interfering with my human rights, any more than anyone on this planet does. Drug abuse is devastating human nature and civilization right now; and we, the people of earth, have a right and a responsibility to do something about that.

The United Nations is our international peacekeeping organization. Allowing criminal gangsters to attack society with chemical weapons for financial gain is not peaceful.

Too many of our friends and relatives are being killed and maimed by this most serious plague. My attraction to spirituality would probably have rescued me from the devastation of my developmental experience, if the drug abuse had not diverted me into the horrific nightmare of drug addiction.

My little brother dropped dead of a heart attack, caused by drug abuse and poor nutrition, at age 32. Drug abuse and addiction is a health issue, a law enforcement issue and the greatest military threat human civilization is facing today.

Hire millions of police and train them to protect our universal human rights, private property and free enterprise, not threaten or suppress them. Keep focusing on serving and protecting the people, and especially children, from all kinds of criminal gangsters, corruption and traffickers of people, drugs and weapons.

Religious Unity

While we, the people of earth, have been building the United Nations from the ground up. The government is a service for mankind, which is owned by and operated by and for all mankind. The Kingdom of God is created by God, ie., from the Top down.

The United Nations comes from the grass roots. The Kingdom of God comes from the Top down. There is an administrative order of the Kingdom of God, which involves the election of servants of God who are accountable to God, not the people who elect them.

The United Nations and the Kingdom of God are complimentary facets of human nature and civilization. One is our material civilization, the other is spiritual reality, which is growing up in the midst of human nature and throughout human civilization.

When we, the people of earth, voluntarily recognize and submit to the divine Authority, then our civilization is sustainable. Otherwise, man made civilization will inevitably disintegrate and decline.

The Great Being saith: Blessed and happy is he that ariseth to promote the best interests of the peoples and kindreds of the earth. In another passage He hath proclaimed: It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
(Baha’u’llah)