Ron Paul in the US House of Representatives, April 29, 2003

Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge the leadership of this body to bring a very important vote to the House floor.   I recently reintroduced HR 1146, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act, which would end our participation in the United Nations.  Millions of Americans have begun to question why we continue to spend $300 million each year funding and housing an organization that is actively hostile to American interests.  Surely Congress, which routinely spends 15 minutes renaming post offices, can spare 15 minutes to vote on this fundamental issue of American sovereignty.

Obviously many Americans now want to get out of the UN because they resent its refusal to sanction our war in Iraq.  The administration deserves some credit for ultimately upholding the principle that American national security is not a matter of international consensus, and that we don’t need UN authorization to act.  But the administration sent mixed signals by doing everything possible to obtain such authorization, and by citing UN resolutions as justification for our actions.  The message seems to be that the UN is credible when we control it and it does what we want, but lacks all credibility when it refuses to do our bidding.

Perhaps it’s time to stop trying to manipulate the UN, and start asserting our national sovereignty.

If we do not, rest assured that the UN will continue to interfere not only in our nation’s foreign policy matters, but in our domestic policies as well.  UN globalists are not satisfied by meddling only in international disputes.  They increasingly want to influence our domestic environmental, trade, labor, tax, and gun laws.  UN global planners fully intend to expand the organization into a true world government, complete with taxes, courts, and possibly a standing army.  This is not an alarmist statement; these goals are readily promoted on the UN’s own website.  UN planners do not care about national sovereignty; in fact they are openly opposed to it.  They correctly view it as an obstacle to their plans.  They simply aren’t interested in our Constitution and republican form of government.

The choice is very clear: we either follow the Constitution or submit to UN global governance.  American national sovereignty cannot survive if we allow our domestic laws to be crafted or even influenced by an international body.  This needs to be stated publicly more often.  If we continue down the UN path, America as we know it will cease to exist.

Noted constitutional scholar Herb Titus has thoroughly researched the United Nations and its purported “authority.”  Titus explains that the UN Charter is not a treaty at all, but rather a blueprint for supranational government that directly violates the Constitution.  As such, the Charter is neither politically nor legally binding upon the American people or government.  The UN has no authority to make “laws” that bind American citizens, because it does not derive its powers from the consent of the American people.  We need to stop speaking of UN resolutions and edicts as if they represented legitimate laws or treaties.  They do not.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I’m merely asking House leadership to schedule vote on HR 1146.  Americans deserve to know how their representatives stand on the critical issue of American sovereignty.

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.