My Trip to the United Nations

Earlier this year, a few students from my school and I went on a school-sponsored trip to New York and Boston. While on the trip, we visited, among other places, the U.N.. On the way there, our guide for the entire trip asked if any of us knew what the U.N. did, to which I said that they sat around a big brown table and soaked up tax-dollars--if, dear reader, you are ever asked what the Security Council does the answer is that they sit at home and absorb tax-dollars.

As we entered international territory one of the other students pointed out a statue of a gun with its barrel twisted into a knot and said that you don't win wars that way.After a security check we went into the building to see a variety of monuments and artifacts. A replica of Sputnik hung from the ceiling and a tattered U.N. flag hung on one of the walls with the words, "fallen in the cause of peace" written beneath it. Apparently the flag had been in an embassy in Irag during the invasion. I resisted the urge to attach a post-it note with "victory!" written on it.

When we went on the actual tour, the art was fine and there was evea replica of a Norman Rockwell painting. There was a list of human rights and another list of goals the U.N. had. It was all very nice and it was interesting enough to learn how the different representatives were seated but I was still more interested in whether or not the U.N. was actually doing anything.

Toward the beginning of the tour our guide had mentioned U.N. involvement in Darfur but she did not say anything about military involvement. The difference between the two is, of course, vital since the only real cure for genocide is a good dose of bullets directly into the vital organs of the whoever is responsible. To the more liberal readers who may consider this closeminded I would pose this question: If you were in the middle of a riot and you saw a line of helicopters moving into the city, would you rather they be filled with doctors or state troopers and riot police?

At the end of the tour, our de asked us if we had any questions and I decided--despite my desire to be inoffensive--to ask her about what the U.N. was doing about child soldiers. She told me that this was a very important issue to the U.N. and that there had been over two-hundred meetings about it in this year alone. In my own opinion, having many meetings means that you care--or would like to seem as if you care--but having very few meetings means you are doing something. As far as what the U.N. was actually resolving to do at all these meetings, she said "well, it's mostly just legal actions but...let me see...concrete action...concrete action...yeah its mostly just legal action."

As she led us back to into the general public, out guide said that someone had once asked why it only took God six days to create the world and yet it took the U.N. decades to do its job and that the reply--forgive me but I can't recall any specific names or positions--was that God had the advantage of working alone. She also pointed out that the U.N. was not actually a world government as it was a sort of world meeting so they didn't actually have as much power to act as was often necessary. I would have pointed out that the U.N. had used force in the Korean War but I didn't because I liked her--she was quite possibly the most honest person in the entire United Nations staff.

After the tour I bought three miniature flags, one Israeli, one Romanian--for a friend of mine--, and one South Korean. When I got back to school, I had the privilege of bragging about how I had confirmed everything Conservatives have ever said about the U.N..