Dictatress of the World?

The last time I was in the voting booth, New World Order wasn't one of the choices on the ballot. But ready or not, here it comes. In a question and answer session at the Economic Club of New York, George Bush confirmed that by this phrase he means world rule by the U. S. government through the Security Council of the U.N. Or, as he once defined the purpose of the recent war, making sure that "what we say, goes."

The U.S. government – which can't balance the budget or make Washington, D.C., safe – now seeks global dominion. "Globaloney," Clare Booth Luce called it.

The Founding Fathers would have recognized this as the hubris that destroyed ancient Rome. From their study of history and politics, the Founders knew we could not have limited government at home and imperial sway overseas. A State that claimed the right to topple other governments would hardly abstain from running our homes and workplaces.

Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that "In no other country in the world is the love of property keener or more alert than in the United States, and nowhere else does the majority display less inclination toward doctrines which in any way threaten the way property is owned." That was the foundation of America's economic greatness. The welfare state obliterates our property rights. The New World Order (NWO) targets what's left.

The cost of bribing and bombing other countries – added to an already gigantic military and foreign aid budget – will bankrupt us. During the Iraq war, there were 33 other wars going on. Is the U. S. going to cure them too?

Since bureaucracies exist to devour what is private, the NWO provides a new excuse. From HHS ("ensuring healthy soldiers for the world") to the Department of Education ("teaching children to bear any burden, pay any price, for global democracy"), every agency will bloom.

Worse, the NWO breeds deference to the government. If D.C. can run the world, why not our families and companies too?

Some libertarians say: Don't worry, be happy. The global economy, because it's global, hampers interference by domestic bureaucrats. In fact, it gives the government incentives to expand internationally, as we already see in securities, banking, and tax law.

Some conservatives, seeing the linkage between global trade and global government, urge protectionism. But this wealth-destroying policy makes no more sense than outlawing American industries because the government will aggress against them. In addition, the institution deciding who does what to whom under protectionism is the executive, the very branch of government seeking world hegemony.

Left-liberals like Robert Kuttner in his End of Laissez-Faire champion a NWO and its politically managed trade, world currency and central bank, global EPA, and universal welfare – exactly the arrangement John Maynard Keynes advocated in the 1940s.

Ludwig von Mises called this "the delusions of world planning."

While politicians may talk of world law and world peace, their regulatory and financial apparatus must create conflict, Mises demonstrated. "Government can give to one group only what it takes from another." Thus it merely creates at the world level what it begat at home: "bounty receivers" and the "more numerous class of bounty payers."

"All talk" about a "world authority" to bring "world peace" is "in vain," wrote Mises. It would simply divide nations into two groups: "the exploiting and the exploited; those restricting output and charging monopoly prices, and those forced to pay monopoly prices." The "inevitable result" must be "new wars."

It need not be that way, of course. George Washington urged us to "observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all."

"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible."

"Why, by entangling our destiny" with foreign governments, should we "entangle our peace and prosperity" in the toils of their "ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?"

In this century, we have heeded that advice about as often as we have obeyed his injunction to "cherish the public credit" by using it "as sparingly as possible."

Some urge, wrote John C. Calhoun, that it is the mission of America to spread "liberty over all the globe by force." He called this "a sad delusion" that would threaten our liberty. Instead he urged "moderation and justice toward all nations" and the avoidance of "war whenever it can be avoided."

America should send "her benedictions, and her prayers" to "wherever the standard of freedom has been or shall be unfurled," said John Quincy Adams. But "she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy" lest she be entangled "beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxim of our policy would insensibly change from liberty to force."

Yes, America "might become the dictatress of the world," but "she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit."

Is this not the New World Order? Give me the old American republic.