Another Threat to Sovereignty

It seems that our fearless leaders who hang out around the beltway seem to believe that it's not a good thing to be a US citisen anymore. It's far better, evidently, to be subject to a universal, world organisation. And they haven't even chosen or invented a good one to hand national sovereignty to, they've decided the United Nations is the one world organisation of choice.

I could give reasons based on creditials alone as to why this particular body would not be a good choice even if forking over national sovereignty actually WAS a good idea. Honestly, has this body ever done anything right? Where are the WMD that the UN was supposedly wanting to monitor in Iraq? The UN never said they were disappearing, they just whined what they couldn't look at them. UN sanctions against "rogue nations" have never worked. The body is rife with scandal, mismanagement and violations of it's own laws. It sucks up money from it's members (or the ones who pay them anyway) and deliver very little back to them. WHO ON EARTH would want this brain trust in charge of anything!!

However, that's not what has me irritated. I don't believe forking over national sovereignty is a good idea in the first place. I have several fairly old articles posted explaining how things related to the UN undermine said sovereignty. These would be CEDAW, , the creation of world heritage sites , Conference on Human Settlements , the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These articles explain in detail why each of these things are a bad idea and what it would mean to the United States if they were applied to citisens here. And just because I've not said anything at Screw the UN recently does not mean threats have disappeared. They haven't.

Today's threat Du Jour...H.R. 2421, "Clean Water Restoration Act." But wait, isn't that federal legislation, not a UN treaty? Oh, but don't run off so fast, lately things are never what they seem. According to this Act, water is very important. (Um, duh.) This legislation claims to Sounds good so far. It protects intrastate waters and "OTHER WATERS OF THE UNITED STATES." (always get suspicious of government paperwork which has the word "other" in it. It's a frivolous term used to mean "everything else I can think of" or "whatever we decide later") The legislation does attempt to define these "other waters" and here is what our hacks have come up with...

"All waters subject to the ebb and flow of the tide, the territorial seas, and
all interstate and intrastate waters and their tributaries, including lakes,
rivers, streams (including intermittent streams), mudflats, sandflats, wetlands,
sloughs, prairie potholes, wet meadows, playa lakes, natural ponds, and all
impoundments of the foregoing, to the fullest extent that these waters, or
activities affecting these waters, are subject to the legislative power of
Congress under the Constitution."

Now, what word DON'T you see in this lovely masterpiece of legal mumbo jumbo? Well I suppose fishtank isn't in there and neither is bathtub, but those aren't what I was thinking about. The important word missing is "navigable." See, water that can't support ships and stuff has always been the property owner's property to do with what he or she likes, that's the way previous legislation has always defined it. Standing water, farm ponds, sink holes and such are automatically private property cause, well you can't run a ship through it.

This bill has nothing to do with making sure we have safe drinking water for all the people and animals that depend on it. It's about restricting land use. It used to be said that if a person had a large puddle on their property and the government wanted your land it would be labelled a "wetland" and had to be protected...Now the government doesn't need to contort itself that much. Your mud puddle, creek, personal swamp, whatever, are "other waters of the United States."

Now, in case you think you're lost, you're really not. So far I have not mentioned the UN. This, so far, has ended State Sovereignty and Private Property rights if the government so chooses to exercise the power vested in this abominable legislation. That is bad enough. However, there is more.

There is the "LAW OF THE SEA TREATY." (aka as LOST). The Law of the Sea Convention is a set of rules for the use of the world’s oceans, which cover 70 percent of the earth’s surface and a treaty resulted in 1982. To date 154 countries and the European Community have joined. So far the US has not joined this treaty. At the time Reagan was in power and refused to sign the abomination. He even fired people for suggesting he do so. Eventually Clinton did sign it, but the Senate has refused (so far) to ratify it.

If we did we would be subject to the UN Court and UN rules about various things including fishing, environmental protections, and navigation. IF the US Senate ratifies LOST and HR 2421 kicks in, the United Nations will in effect have jurisdiction over our private property. Remember how inclusive the "other waters of the United States" can be. You really want some uneducated nutcase from some minor third world nation telling you what to do with the sink hole in your backyard?

The UN World Heritage Sites Violate National Sovereignty

Did you know that there are several "World Heritage Sites" in the U S? And if you did, would you have any idea how dangerous this is to US Sovereignty?

If you are like most people, you probably never even thought about it, and if you did you thought that this UN designation would be good for tourism and historical preservation of many national treasures. ANd that is how they get away with it.

According to the UN World Heritage Operational Guidelines, "The cultural heritage and the natural heritage are among the priceless and irreplaceable possessions, not only of each nation, but of mankind as a whole. The loss, through deterioration or disappearance, of any of these most prized possessions constitutes an impoverishment of the heritage of all the peoples in the world. Parts of that heritage, because of their exceptional qualities, can be considered to be of outstanding universal value and as such worthy of special protection against the dangers which increasingly threaten them."

This sounds innocuous on the surface of it, doesn't it? The UN does not directly control how the sites are maintained, and it never has done. The problem with the program is it's link to various treaties and agreements which would destroy the fabric of US sovereignty should congress ever ratify them. These treaties provide partnerships and other forms of cooperation between the US and the UN which gives the UN influence over US policies. This is in direct violation of the US constitution. ANd I'm not just paranoid. Here is an example.

In 1995, the Dept of the Interior decided it would be a good thing for the World Heritage Committee to Visit Yellowstone, in order to declare it a World Heritage Site...In Danger. The designation "IN DANGER" would then mandate the US to correct whatever put the Park in danger or face world scorn as the site gets removed from the list of Heritage Sites. Only the World Heritage Committee can remove this designation, and in order to do so, the US would have to abide by the UN recommendations, thus giving up our right to determine how our land and historical sites are to be preserved. Indirectly then the US has to give up it's rights to govern itself.

Some great, politically minded muckity muck (or probably quite a few of them) has decided that this sort of thing is for the greater good of society in the US. It is, however, a very dangerous precident. ANd there is more...

Like the topic of Buffer Zones...

According to Paragraph 44b of the Operational Guidelines for this program these buffer zones "Should include sufficient areas immediately adjacent to the area of outstanding universal value in order to protect the site...from direct human encroachment and impacts of resource use outside of the nominated area. The boundaries of the nominated site may coincide with one or more existing or proposed protected areas, such as national parks or biosphere reserves."

As is the case with most things in the US, the lands surrounding these World Heritage Sites are private property, which then leads to the federal government needing to control how the land outside the sites are used, in direct violation of the private property clauses of the US Constitution. In the case of Yellowstone, the feds wanted a gold mine to be halted, and it used the "IN DANGER" designation of Yellowstone to prevent it. Any land directly outside of Yellowstone is in danger of federal infringement due to the designation of the park. Such federal control of the land is in direct contradiction of the Constitution and the intention of the Founding Fathers. I could, if I were to travel so far, hear Jefferson rolling over in his grave.

Ok, so some environmental nuts prevented a gold mining operation, big fat hairy deal right? No so fast, lets look at what has been done in other countries. In Australia, this dude had a farm which included a small piece of rainforest (I didn't know there were rain forests in Austrailia, learn something new every day). He'd also preserved some ancient trees, which was a very nice thing to do, no doubt. However, the government found out and decided they wanted his land too, these types of trees had somehow disappeared from government protected property. They didn't ask for seeds, or cuttings, or to transplant the trees, no, they had to have the land too.

Austrailia is a signatory on the WHC treaty too, and the wet tropics became protected by the U N in 1988. Environmentalists counted and catalogued the trees and plants in and around this poor fellow's property. Despite the landowner's protest, the World Heritage Adminstrators claimed control of his land. He tried working with the agencies to preserve these plants, but apparently his small orchard adjacent to the forest somehow endangered the rain forest and his little orchard was regulated away. Finally he just couldn't take it anymore and sold what limited rights he did have to someone else who wanted to sponsor ecotourism.

See, the UN seems to think that the private citisen has no idea how to properly care for land and has no basic rights to property. Inevitably this belief will clash with the US Constitution and our rights to private property and freedom from interference. It's just what is going to happen, and someone should have pointed this out years ago. In the 1970s when this abomination called a treaty was signed.
Just another reason the US needs to get out the UN.

Lady Raven

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Oh, and here's the proper documentation, so you can see for yourself:
UNSECO WHSites Operational Guidelines http://whc.unesco.org/en/guidelines
RE Yellowstone: http://www.sovereignty.net/p/land/wildlandtom.htm
Re the Austrailian Farmer: http://www.crossroad.to/text/articles/whpwans97.html#anchor1035023