Despite all of the recent lawsuits smashing down every reference to any religion that isn’t Islam (such as the County of Los Angeles being forced to remove a mission from its seal because there is a cross on top, a teacher being refused permission to give his students excerpts from the Declaration of Independence because it mentions a “Creator”, and the mayor of Denver allowing the Gay Native American Holy People and a karate dojo to march in the annual “Holiday” parade but barring an actual church because they wanted to sing hymns and say - gasp! - “Merry Christmas"), there are still some very basic facts that the ACLU seem to keep forgetting one thing: the rest of the First Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Well, they have just been reminded that even Christians have civil rights, as a Florida resident sues her city to put the Nativity scenes back on display.

Good for her. I wonder how well that kind of argument would fly here in the Ninth Circus…

There are also many other problems:

• Oil-For-Food scandal
• Inability to prevent genocide (Rwanda, Sudan, Kosovo, etc.)
• Inability to enforce the Resolutions of the Security Council
• Roughly 1/3 of all votes in the General Assembly are critical of Israel
• A nation with a robust economy, a democratically-elected government, a relatively powerful military, a free press, and one who is a multi-billion dollar trading partner of the United States is not permitted to become a member, because another member says, “None of what you think you see with your own eyes is true - we own that island”. (Imagine what would happen if the US tried that with Cuba or if France tried that with the Ivory Coast… oh, wait...)
• Inability to prevent wars of aggression
• One of the world’s greatest abusers of basic human rights (death sentences for those who simply want to move, lifetime prison sentences for the survivors, but hey! He’s got free health care and 100% literacy - that makes up for it) is currently sitting on the UN Human Rights Commission, and an even more serious violator of those rights (genocide, anyone?) is the Chairperson
• Iraq was a member in good standing of the UN’s Disarmament Commission. (that’s the very same Iraq that was under investigation by that very same Committee)

etc., etc., ad nauseum

The need for the elimination of the UN is clear. The need for some kind of replacement organization is equally clear, because there is no doubt that a few of the UN’s subsidiary agencies has done wonderfully (the World Health Organization has effectively eliminated smallpox and polio).

Question: What should be the requirements for admission into such an organization? Free economy? Regular elections? Minimum levels of literacy? Human Rights? Universal Health Care?

Or would we be better off without anything like the UN, just cut away those parts that work and send them on their way, while putting together a “Coalition of the Willing” whenever the need arises?