Looking for Relevance? Try This...

(A while back, I tackled religion on this blog. Today, I'll try my hand at the other taboo--politics.)

First of all, let me state that this will never, never happen. But still, we can dream...

There's been a lot of talk lately about the United Nations being irrelevant, especially in light of the actions of President Bush's coalition in the Iraq war, which left the U.N. scratching its head on the sidelines. Since then, many have questioned its purpose, its very reason for existence. This certainly makes sense when you have things like Libya heading up the U.N.'s Human Rights Commission. But I have an idea that, if implemented, would not only make the U.N. more relevant, but it might even change the world. It would involve a simple, if groundbreaking, change to the charter in regards to membership requirements...

Two words: No dictators.

Let's face it--that form of government doesn't work, at least not for anyone besides the dictator himself and his family/cronies. In these supposedly more enlightened times, there is no reason for the sole power in a nation to be concentrated in the hands of one man. As the old phrase states, power may corrupt, but absolute power corrupts absolutely. This was reinforced with the discovery this week that Saddam Hussein siphoned off (pun intended?) 5% of Iraq's oil profits from 1970-1991 and deposited it in offshore accounts, to the tune of several billion dollars. This form of government simply has no place in the civilized world.

Granted, nobody can force dictatorships to abandon this method of ruling (and it's not like the dictators will give up their power willingly). Nations can still choose to be governed that way, but in doing so, they would forfeit their U.N. membership, along with the economic and humanitarian aid that membership entails. The politically-correct notion that all nations should be treated equally is now horribly outdated, since the aims of democracies and dictatorships are often at cross-purposes.

There are some questions that would need to be ironed out, such as where a constitutional monarchy would fall under these rules. As I said before, this will likely never happen, but imagine how the world would be if it did....

(I've meant to write about this for months now, but time has gotten the better of me; besides, I felt like a lone voice shouting in the wilderness. What prompted me to post this today was a column I read by syndicated columnist Jonah Goldberg, who goes me one farther and suggests a League of Democracies, which could actually compete with the "other guys." Check it out; it's a good read.)