Agenda 21 - It's Collectivism Evil Out Of The United Nations.

[Spiral Architect]

The idea of “National Sovereignty” (in how it is used, not the real meaning) or whatever the floating abstraction is called is also very big with a lot of people.

I remember when my wife and I went to the Mammoth Caves (mid-90’s) they had a sign up saying it was a U.N. recognized site for some reason. I don’t remember what it said (I honestly didn’t care, it sounded more like a travel brochure stamp of approval) but what I do remember is several people on the tour getting fairly angry over the U.N. notice at all – They were convinced it was a sign of the U.N. trying to take control of American land by getting it approved for UN oversight. The poor tour guide had to waste time trying to talk them down and I think she did as well as she could, but you could tell they were skeptical.

It was silly but telling.

[Darrell Cody]

I encourage everyone to take a look at Brad Harrington's post on Agenda 21.

http://forums.4aynrandfans.com/index.php?showtopic=13839

On Agenda 21: The United Nations' Plan For Collectivization And Enslavement, And On How It Is Being Implemented On A Local Level Right Here In Cheyenne, Wyoming

By Bradley Harrington

This commentary was first published in the October 30, 2012 issue of Liberty’s Torch.

Before proceeding to demonstrate the connections between the United Nations's Agenda 21 and Cheyenne's local regulations, the new Unified Development Code (UDC) in particular, there’s an ancillary issue that needs to be dealt with first, namely, the claim that whether or not such a connection exists is really even a “Tea Party” issue - i.e., that the “Tea Party” should, as a political movement, stay focused on the issues of fiscal responsibility and the promotion of private property rights. That we should, as one proponent of this idea recently put it to me, “stay on message” and “lose the tin foil hats.”

Well, I’m not nearly as sure that those two sets of issues are as mutually exclusive as such claimants would have us believe.

Consider a couple of groups of observations, for instance:

(1) It bears remembering that the original Boston Tea Party, from which we “Tea Party” types derive our name, was... “A political protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, a city in the British colony of Massachusetts, against the tax policy of the British government and the East India Company that controlled all the tea imported into the colonies. On December 16, 1773, after officials in Boston refused to return three shiploads of taxed tea to Britain, a group of colonists boarded the ships and destroyed the tea by throwing it into Boston Harbor. The incident remains an iconic event of American history, and other political protests often refer to it.” (Wikipedia Entry for the “Boston Tea Party.”)

The “Sons of Liberty,” in turn, was... “A group consisting of American patriots that originated in the pre-independence North American British colonies. The group, started by Samuel Adams, was formed to protect the rights of the colonists and to take to the streets against the taxes from the usurpations by the British government after 1766. They are best known for undertaking the Boston Tea Party in 1773, which led to the Intolerable Acts (an intense crackdown by the British government), and a counter-mobilization by the Patriots that led directly to the American Revolutionary War in 1775.” (Wikipedia Entry for the “Sons of Liberty.”)

So, with that history in mind, would it be safe to say that the Boston Tea Party and the Sons of Liberty were events and movements dedicated to the promotion of freedom, fiscal responsibility, property rights and national sovereignty? I would think so.

(2) Now let’s turn out attention to the United Nations for our second set of observations.

“The United Nations... Is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace. The UN was founded in 1945 after World War II to replace the League of Nations, to stop wars between countries, and to provide a platform for dialogue. It contains multiple subsidiary organizations to carry out its missions.”

(Wikipedia Entry for the “United Nations.”)

And more, from the U.N. Charter itself:

“WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED -

- to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind -

- to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person...

- to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”

Now, I have a few questions and comments on this - observations which will not only bear on whether connecting Agenda 21 to local UDC codes constitutes wearing a “tin foil hat” or not, but also on the larger issue of that connection itself.

( a ) “To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”? And the method the U.N. used to attempt to achieve this goal? The establishment of the Security Council, which contained, as permanent members, the two bloodiest and most brutal dictatorships in all of man’s history, i.e., Soviet Russia and Red China. This was a guaranteed recipe for failure.

Consider: “Wars,” as the philosopher Ayn Rand once noted, “are the second-greatest evil that human societies can perpetrate. The first is dictatorship, the enslavement of their own citizens, which is the cause of wars.” (From “The Wreckage of the Consensus.”) As evidence of this thesis, Rand points out that “World War I was started by monarchist Germany and Czarist Russia, who dragged in their freer allies. World War II was started by the alliance of Nazi Germany with Soviet Russia and their joint attack on Poland.” (From “The Roots of War.”) Remember that these two wars, started by statist dictatorships, were the very two wars mentioned in the U.N. Charter as the “scourge” to be avoided.

From the same essay, Rand concludes: “If men want to oppose war, it is statism that they must oppose. So long as they hold the tribal notion that the individual is sacrificial fodder for the collective, that some men have the right to rule others by force, and that some (any) alleged ‘good’ can justify it - there can be no peace within a nation and no peace amongnations.”

Yet, with an “anti-war” Security Council packed with statist dictatorships, what could one rationally expect but a continuation of war? “What would you expect from a crime-fighting committee whose board of directors included the leading gangsters of the community?” (Rand, “The Anatomy of Compromise.”)

It also bears noting, in follow-up, that the political opinions of most of the so-called “anti-war” advocates are decidedly to the Left on the political spectrum - to say nothing of the actual membership of the U.N. itself, independent of the stupidities surrounding the Security Council. So much for the so-called claim of seeking to eliminate the “scourge of war” - and the U.N.-stamped enslavement of 300 million citizens of Eastern Europe for nearly half a century by Commie Russia slams that point home for anyone with half a brain to see.

( b ) “Fundamental human rights”? “The dignity and worth of the human person”? Such concepts are meaningless without first being defined as, and couched in terms of, individual rights - and individual rights cannot be practiced without property rights. Observe, however, the complete absence of both in the U.N. charter. What possibility can ever exist, therefore, of any action which could ever lead to the “promotion of social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom”? “Social progress” and “freedom” are not the by-products of any sort of collectivist system but functions of capitalism and individual liberty instead. Any nation that seeks to obtain those results, therefore, that employs political policies based on the former instead of the latter, is as doomed to failure as is the attempt to end war by placing despots in charge of anti-war efforts.

And observe that the historical results of such a misguided attempt bear that out: Decades of U.N appeasement concerning the destruction of the individual property rights of the citizens of such nations as Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq and Iran - while most Security Council condemnations are reserved for the relatively free societies of the world, such as the United States, England and Israel. Destroy individual property rights and you destroy all liberty and individualism right at their root - and the so-called vehicle for promoting “social progress” becomes a hearse by which the rights of the citizens of nation after nation are delivered into the hands of despots, tyrants and dictators everywhere.

( c ) In view of such realities, therefore, how is the “Tea Party” type of person, oriented in liberty, to judge any attempt to implement the following portion of the U.N. Charter?: “To employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples”?

In the absence of individual property rights, this is nothing less than a call for the international implementation of a level of slavery never before seen on Planet Earth - with cute, warm and fuzzy buzz-words such as “rights,” “dignity,” “justice,” “respect,” “progress” and “freedom” serving as the window-dressing by which we, the United States, as a nation, willvoluntarily seek to tyrannize ourselves and obliterate our own national sovereignty. What will the end result of such a policy be? One national neck ready for one international leash.

And, just to prove that stupidity and moral cowardice are not monopolies of the U.N., observe that the United States herself played a major role in the U.N.’s inception and continues to promote and support this destructive organization today - both economically and philosophically.

So, to summarize: If the Boston Tea Party and the Sons of Liberty were about promoting freedom, fiscal responsibility, property rights and national sovereignty, and the United Nations is organized around collectivist coercion, budgetary insanity, the destruction of property rights and the abolition of national sovereignty - what issue could possibly be better suited to our modern-day “Tea Party” cause? Aren’t these the very issues the original Boston Tea Party was thrown over???

And, indeed, it has long been a legitimate Rightist position to end our involvement with the United Nations: To quit funding it, to kick it off our shores, and - most importantly - to quit granting it a philosophical legitimacy it does not deserve and has not earned.

From where, then, creeps the notion that opponents of U.N. enslavement wear “tin foil hats”?

(1) First of all, unfortunately, a large number of the opponents of this international idiocy also choose to immerse themselves in all manner of conspiracy hypotheses as an explanation for how we arrived at this state of affairs - such as the involvement of the Illuminati, or the Zionist Jews, or the Rockefellers and their banking empire. Such “explanations” are truly unnecessary: All that is needed to explain and understand our current international state is to recognize the power of principles and the role they play in human affairs. As Ayn Rand once stated in “Philosophy: Who Needs It”: “Politics is not the cause, but the last consequence of philosophical ideas.” No hypotheses concerning conspiracies of men are needed when a “conspiracy of principles” adequately explains our state of affairs - but observe that it is the promulgation of the former that gives rise to the “tin foil hat” syndrome of which we speak.

(2) Again, unfortunately, many of the individuals who recognize the socio-politico-economic connections between U.N. enslavement policy and local UDC-style codes do not do a good job of demonstrating those connections - which cannot properly be done without establishing the philosophical underpinnings first - and, in the absence of such a demonstration, such proponents merely appear as babblers and entrench the rule of the collectivist planners.

Which is not to say that I disagree with the notion that local, state and national issues involving liberty, fiscal responsibility and property rights shouldn’t take precedence, because Ido. We also need to recognize, however, the grave threat being posed to us from outside those spheres of influence as well - and the claim that we don’t need to specify the particular sources of where these sundry and various property-rights violations originate, but merely need to focus on fighting them when they show up, is erroneous at best. If you’re in a war and taking enemy fire, would it not be of interest to know where the bullets were coming from? As opposed to just “focusing” on them when they’re about to splatter you in the face?

So, let’s establish those connections... And the starting point for that, of course, is the Agenda 21 document itself.

We’ve already seen how the U.N. Charter promotes and facilitates slow international enslavement, all the while in the name of “rights” and “freedom” - and this policy of adopting the target’s words, concepts and principles in name only, while violating anything and everything those ideas are based upon, is both a strategy and a tactic carried forward with Agenda 21. The key to understanding the thrust and intent of Agenda 21 lies in recognizing that it is the extension and implementation of the U.N. Charter itself; that Charter is the source, the seed, from which Agenda 21 springs.

“Agenda 21,” short for the U.N.’s “Agenda for the 21st Century,” was created at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in June of 1992. This document can be found on the U.N. website under the “Division for Sustainable Development” section.

What perceived international threats, you might ask, served as the justification for the creation of this document? From the Agenda 21 Preamble, Section 1.1: “Humanity stands at a defining moment in history. We are confronted with a perpetuation of disparities between and within nations, a worsening of poverty, hunger, ill health and illiteracy, and the continuing deterioration of the ecosystems on which we depend for our well-being. However, integration of environment and development concerns and greater attention to them will lead to the fulfillment of basic needs, improved living standards for all, better protected and managed ecosystems and a safer, more prosperous future. No nation can achieve this on its own; but together we can - in a global partnership for sustainable development.”

Observe the tacit assumptions - that ( a ) current methods of development are unsustainable; and ( b ) that the listed social ills can be successfully addressed through collectivist U.N policies as opposed to implementing more capitalism and freedom.

Buying into the false notion that the world’s ills center around the need for “greater equity in income distribution” (“Combating Poverty,” 3.1), “global environmental problems” (“Preamble,” 1.4) and achieving “a more efficient and equitable world economy” (“International Cooperation to Accelerate Sustainable Development in Developing Countries,” 2.1), the Agenda 21 document is, literally, a detailed blueprint for total, top-down control of all property as it relates to urban development, “planned” communities, resource-allocation, environmental controls, monetary stability, energy development and consumption, land use and transportation; no major stone of a modern industrial society is left unturned.

As such, Agenda 21 flows out of the same socio-politico-economic errors as the U.N. Charter itself, and is nothing less than a systematic, comprehensive and all-inclusive call for the international institutionalization of a command economy with the surface of the entire planet constituting its geographical boundaries.

And the purpose of this document? How does Agenda 21 intend on addressing these perceived ills? From the Preamble, Section 1.3: “Agenda 21 addresses the pressing problems of today and also aims at preparing the world for the challenges of the next century. It reflects a global consensus and political commitment at the highest level on development and environment cooperation. Its successful implementation is first and foremost the responsibility of Governments.”

Remember that guff out of the U.N. Charter about employing “international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples”? Here you have it, in the flesh - a recipe for the enslavement of the American citizen to the dictates of the half-fascist, half-socialist, 100-percent-collectivst U.N.

And if you think that’s just paranoia on my part, that this whole thing wasn’t written to slowly bleed us dry, you’d better wake up and read on. In “Strengthening the Role of Business and Industry,” 33.10, for instance, we are told that “The implementation of the huge sustainable development programs of Agenda 21 will require the provision to developing countries of substantial new and additional financial resources. Grant or concessional financing should be provided according to sound and equitable criteria and indicators.”

What kinds of “sound and equitable criteria” are possible with a scheme that calls for the sacrifice of the wealth of the “haves” to the demands of the collectivist “have-nots” (“...the provision to developing countries of substantial new and additional financial resources”)? The criteria of the “haves” handing over their wealth to the “have-nots” a piece at a time.

One question will suffice to reveal the hidden enslavements intended by such a policy: To be provided by whom? YOU - the taxpayer, whether you like it or not. That’s right, your hard-earned money is now going to be taken from you at the point of a gun and handed out to the savages of Africa. Why? Because they NEED it. Never mind your economic development - that’s now taking a back seat to the economic and environmental concerns of all the “have-nots” of the entire planet. Your mission, as the producing slave, is to merely keep producing. So much for freedom, capitalism, private property rights and the true social progress all of those mechanisms create. And all of this in the name of love and concern for man. Anyone truly interested in solving the world’s social ills would have discovered capitalism long ago. Those who buy into it, have it coming.

So, what is the plan here? How do the collectivist slavers intend to pull this heist off? How, precisely, are we to be fooled into implementing such policies?

From “Financial Resources and Mechanisms,” 33.8: “All countries should assess how to translate Agenda 21 into national policies and programs through a process that will integrate environment and development considerations. National and local priorities should be established by means that include public participation and community involvement...” (The blather about “public participation” and “community involvement,” of course, is just a red herring; in reality, you’ll have no say in the process whatsoever.)

Here in the United States, we began implementing such policy on a national level with Bill Clinton’s “President’s Council on Sustainable Development” (PCSD), established in 1993 and active until 1999 - which, from their website, sought to “Advise President Clinton on sustainable development” and “bold new approaches to achieve economic, environmental, and equity goals.” (Italics mine.)

Sound familiar? The now-infamous “3-E’s,” straight out of Agenda 21. And if you think that qualifies me for a “tin foil hat,” you’d better wake the Hell up. From a PCSD meeting on June 19, 1998: “The concept of sustainable development was first proposed in 1972 at the United Nation's Conference on the Human Environment, yet it was not until 1987 that sustainable development became a policy goal... The 1992 Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro refined the concept. Agenda 21 claimed that countries must ‘seek the mutual goals of economic development and environmental protection for the purpose of fulfilling the basic needs for all.’”

With thanks to the PCSD, it didn’t take long for Agenda 21 policy to gain implementation in all sorts of federal bureaucracies. Through the establishment of the PCSD’s “Task Forces” on “Climate Change,” “Environmental Management,” “International Leadership” and “Metropolitan and Rural Strategies,” the Agenda-21-promoting federal alphabet soup included: The Dept. of Energy; the EPA; HUD; FEMA; the Dept. of Commerce; the Small Business Administration; the Dept. of the Interior; the Dept. of Commerce; the USDA; the Dept. of Education; and the Dept. of Transportation, just to name a few.

With the PCSD’s Task Forces as the motive power and these and other agencies as the vehicles of transmission, the word quickly went out: All grants to states and localities were henceforth to be given on the basis of preconditions adhering to the concepts of “sustainable development,” “environmental quality” and “smart growth.” Via such grants, Agenda 21 policy has, from the top down through hundreds of thousands of grants, slowly but insidiously made itself felt in every state and nearly every city in America.

Consider, as an example of this, the HUD “Community Development Block Grant” (CDBG), governed by CFR Title 24, Section 91, where the “Overall Goal” (Section 91.1) of HUD community planning and development programs are defined as: “To develop viable urban communities by providing decent housing and a suitable living environment and expanding economic opportunities principally for low- and moderate-income persons.” Straight out of Agenda 21, “Human Settlement Objective,” 7.4: “The overall human settlement objective is to improve the social, economic and environmental quality of human settlements and the living and working environments of all people, in particular the urban and rural poor.”

Recognizing early on that the top-down approach wasn’t all that was needed, however, the United Nations sought to sock it to us all from the bottom-up, local level as well - and this approach culminated in the establishment of the “International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives” (ICLEI). ICLEI was founded at the World Congress of Local Governments for a Sustainable Future, a U.N. conference held at the U.N. in 1990. And ICLEI’s goals?

“ICLEI promotes local action for global sustainability and supports cities to become sustainable, resilient, resource-efficient, biodiverse, low-carbon; to build a smart infrastructure; and to develop an inclusive, green urban economy... We have developed stable, long-term programs to support local-level sustainability and continue to develop innovative new programs to respond to issues of international concern.” (From the ICLEI website.)

Indeed, in Agenda 21’s “Promoting Sustainable Human Settlement Development,” 7.21, ICLEI’s role is directly addressed: “Cities of all countries should reinforce cooperation among themselves and cities of the developed countries, under the aegis of non-governmental organizations active in this field, such as the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA), the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) and the World Federation of Twin Cities.” ICLEI, as the local implementation arm of Agenda 21, and as of the date of this writing, presently has 526 United States counties and municipalities on its membership rolls.

Within the last 20 years, the two-pronged approach established by Agenda 21 advocates - the top-down approach of national mandates and grants coupled with the bottom-up approach of snaring local governments in ICLEI-style “sustainability” nonsense - has had a tremendous impact on building and zoning codes throughout the United States, as well as right here in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Consider the International Codes of the International Code Council (ICC), for instance, an organization founded in 1994 and “Dedicated to helping the building safety community and construction industry provide safe, sustainable and affordable construction through the development of codes and standards used in the design, build and compliance process.” (ICC website.)

Agenda 21 7.60 promotes a “culture of safety,” and the ICC has dutifully leapt in to fill that void with its Agenda-21-based “International” codes. Need proof? Earlier this year, the ICC teamed up, in a Webinar Series promoting its Building Energy Code, with none other than our bottom-up, Local-Agenda-21-promoting, United Nations organization ICLEI. One of the topics for discussion? “An introduction to building codes as a policy tool conducted by ICLEI and targeted to primary staff liaisons and code officials.”

A partial listing of the International Codes developed by the ICC and pushed by both the ICC and ICLEI with their “sustainable” goals in mind would include: The International Building Code; the International Residential Code; the International Fire Code; the International Mechanical Code; the International Plumbing Code; the International Fuel Gas Code; the International Electric Code; and the International Energy Conservation Code.

Now, keep in mind that our Cheyenne Governing Body members - Patrick Collins in particular - love to ask us “tin foil hat” types for proof of the connections between City codes and Agenda 21. Very well: In the “Plan Review Information” section” of the City’s Building and Safety Dept. page, under the heading of “Code Information,” you will find all of the above codes listed as in place and practiced by the City of Cheyenne. So much for the claim that Agenda 21 hasn’t arrived, safe and sound, in Cheyenne.

Nor are the presence of Agenda 21 tentacles here in Cheyenne limited to ICC codes: Consider those HUD CDBGs we were speaking of earlier, for instance... And also consider that the City of Cheyenne’s website has a special CDBG section reserved solely for a discussion of its adherence to the policies, procedures and standards involving such grants.

Next, consider that in Fiscal Year 2011, the City of Cheyenne received over $7 million in federal grants from not only HUD ($686,880), but also from several other federal agencies tasked by the PCSD Task Forces to establish their grant-allocations on the basis of an adherence to Agenda 21 principles and that hand out hundreds of billions of grants every year in order to accomplish the Agenda 21 objective.

Need more proof of the insidious manner in which Agenda 21 has infiltrated our local government? Then one need look no further than the Metropolitan Planning Organization’s (MPO) “Plan Cheyenne” documents, all of which are shot through with Agenda-21-style references to “smart growth,” “sustainability,” “development vision,” ad nauseam.

Consider: In 2005, the EPA, as one of its PCSD-based, Agenda-21-style grant programs geared towards implementing Agenda 21 on the local level, kicked off its “Smart Growth Implementation Assistance Program,” a funding grant for communities “That want to incorporate smart growth techniques into their future development.” The collectivist planners at the Cheyenne MPO took the bait, and - according to the “Smart Growth Plan Cheyenne” document - from that point forward, “City officials discussed project goals and objectives with the EPA” in “identifying options that would implement ‘Plan Cheyenne’ and formulate a development plan... To reflect smart growth principles and Cheyenne’s growth vision.”

Consider: Further referenced in the appendices of “Smart Growth Plan Cheyenne,” as integral resource stepping stones to the resultant document, are:

( a ) The American Planning Association’s (APA) publication, “Model Smart Growth Codes.” And the APA’s source of funding for the development of its “Smart Growth” balderdash? From the APA’s website: “In 2003, the American Planning Association's Research Department received funding from the EPA to develop a guidebook on smart land-development regulations... Promoting the U.S. EPA Smart Growth Principles.” Said principles which were passed down straight from the PCSD... Which were passed down straight from Agenda 21.

( b ) The Local Government Commission’s (LGC) “Smart Growth Zoning Codes: A Resource Guide.” And the LGC’s mission? To assist “local governments in establishing and nurturing the key elements of livable communities: A healthier human and natural environment; a more sustainable economy; an actively engaged populace; and an equitable society.” (LGC’s website.) An explicit declaration of support for Agenda 21’s “3E’s” of “environment, economy and equity.”

( c ) The Mountain View, Calif., “Downtown Precise Plan.” Mountain View, as a survey of ICLEI’s membership rolls will reveal, is a member of ICLEI and - with its “Council Environmental Sustainability Committee” and “Environmental Planning Commission,” functions as a model of Agenda-21 based whacko environmentalism.

THESE sources, ladies and gentlemen, are what produced “Plan Cheyenne.” I could go on demonstrating the connections between Agenda 21 and the rest of “Plan Cheyenne’s” sources, but at this point, that would be beating a dead horse.

And then, finally, as the explicitly-declared political implementation of “Plan Cheyenne,” we have... Cheyenne’s new “Unified Development Code” (UDC), a 282-page listing of orders and demands, voted in by our Governing Body and in effect as of April 30.

Like Agenda 21 and “Plan Cheyenne” themselves, the UDC is a detailed blueprint for total, absolute government control over private property, with regulations covering everything from signs (“Alterations of existing signs that replace more than 50% of the surface area of the existing sign shall require full compliance with all standards in this Section,” 6.5.2) to building construction (“Building types are regulated by T-Zone as listed in Table 7-4,” 7.3.1) to sidewalks (“Sidewalk width will be as specified in Article 4 of this Code,” Appendix E) to the “percentage of living materials” required to be present upon your property (“Any required landscape area... Shall consist of a minimum 75% ground cover by living grass or other plant materials based on mature size of vegetation,” 6.3.7) to anything and everything in between.

With thanks to the UDC, you are no longer a property owner, but a property holder instead, with all the responsibilities but none of the advantages - similar to the King’s serfs in feudalistic times, and just exactly what the dictates of Agenda 21 call for. Take the dictates of Agenda 21, localize them for the particulars of Cheyenne, and what pops out of the collectivist planner pot is “Plan Cheyenne” and the UDC. One local neck ready for one international leash.

Non-“tin-foil-hat” types love to tell the rest of us, who are rightly and greatly disturbed by these Agenda 21 influences, that Agenda 21 isn’t a binding resolution anyway - but Cheyenne’s new UDC, with the full force of law, certainly is. Break it at your own peril, with real fines and real jail-time as your reward.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg, folks. I simply do not have the time or space to further document the hundreds of other links between Agenda 21 and City codes, the UDC in particular. Not that they are needed: We already have enough smoking guns lying around to cinch the case - to say nothing of being able to start the next war. Nor have I even touched upon the many words of the many contractors I’ve spoken with over the last few months who have told me of the business-killing, jobs-destroying, production-plundering destructiveness flowing forth as a result of these command-style collectivist plans.

Now, please do not misunderstand me: I am certainly not attempting to claim that every assault on our freedoms comes from the U.N. To the contrary; most of it originates with the “normal,” run-of-the-mill, philosophically-bankrupt collectivist principles that have been clogging our intellectual arteries for decades - and of which the formation of the U.N. itself was but one deadly result. Still, those assaults have international sources as well, and we’d do well to be aware of them - and to reject them when found. “Liberty,” as Thomas Jefferson once remarked, “requires eternal vigilance.”

Nor am I making the claim that the particular individuals involved with our local planning process are all closet United Nations internationalists deliberately seeking to enslave us. To the contrary, I’d be surprised if any of them have even the glimmering of a clue as to the nature of the destructiveness they’ve succeeding in wreaking. And that, perhaps, is far worse: Bereft of any true philosophical understanding of the principles of freedom, individualism, capitalism and private property rights, such people blissfully absorb the intellectualstatus quo without further thought on the matter. But the intellectual status quo is... Collectivist enslavement.

So, in summary: ALL property-rights violations, on whatever horizon they appear, must be challenged and defeated if we are to retain our liberties - but, most importantly, a solid definition and understanding of just what property rights are is absolutely crucial: “The right to property” is the right to peaceful use and disposal. ANY city code, whether it be the UDC or even the former building, traffic and zoning codes which the UDC supplanted, needs to be abolished outright. No compromise and no “halfway-points” are possible, folks; you either have your individual property rights or you don’t. Which do you prefer?

Bradley Harrington is the Publisher of Liberty’s Torch; his email is [email protected].

[mdegges]

Here is the one thing I do not get about this whole thing. Why now? Agenda 21 has existed for 20 years. Governments at all levels have been signing up to it all along. Why is the Tea Party bringing this up now? Why all of us a sudden, is this an issue (not to say it isn't worth discussion but why not 20 years ago)? I have not heard of Agenda 21 until recent and primarily either through here, or my liberal friends posting anti-Tea Party stories on Facebook. Searching around the interent most of the Agenda 21 stuff I find is from a bunch of conspiracy theory nut bars, referring to UN's Globalist Agenda.

So why is the Tea Party picking this up as a cause, and why now?

If you really want to get into it, google "transnational jurisprudence", and the name Harold Hongju Koh. While this debate isn't new, a lot of the conspiracy minded loons on the right have really jumped on this guy for being a supporter of using various foreign precedents and international legal tenets as arguments in American Court proceedings (he also wrote on the history of the practice, ever since the country was founded), back when he was nominated for a position at the State Department (and, if I remember correctly, his name also came up as a potential SCOTUS nominee).

Again: this is about American Courts doing what they have always been doing: considering arguments and legal concepts people who aren't in the United States came up with. That's all. It's unavoidable, judges and lawyers are going to learn about what's going on in the legal environments of other countries and at the UN. Some of the things they learn about will be good ideas, others bad. They should all be considered, and the good ones should be adopted or at least adapted.

No one is suggesting or trying to impose foreign laws on American citizens. But that is what the conspiracy nuts are making it out to be. And, because this is an election year, we have new members from both camps starting threads about the latest talking points on right wing and left wing websites. This thread, as you may have guessed, is borrowed from the Right side.

Thanks, I was wondering about that too. This is like another Kyoto protocol, only much larger in scope. Anyone know if Agenda 21 is legally binding? (I read that John Baird, Canada's Environment Minister, was trying to get out of Kyoto, "just a day after committing to a future legally binding deal at a major UN climate summit." The Canadian government was even brought to court by Friends of Earth for their "inaction on the Kyoto Protocol." I don't know what's become of these charges.. but Baird's defense was that Kyoto was a "'risky, reckless scheme' that would result in a recession and 275,000 Canadians losing their jobs." No doubt the losses would be greater with Agenda 21.)

[mdegges]

Here is the one thing I do not get about this whole thing. Why now? Agenda 21 has existed for 20 years. Governments at all levels have been signing up to it all along. Why is the Tea Party bringing this up now? Why all of us a sudden, is this an issue (not to say it isn't worth discussion but why not 20 years ago)? I have not heard of Agenda 21 until recent and primarily either through here, or my liberal friends posting anti-Tea Party stories on Facebook. Searching around the interent most of the Agenda 21 stuff I find is from a bunch of conspiracy theory nut bars, referring to UN's Globalist Agenda.

So why is the Tea Party picking this up as a cause, and why now?

If you really want to get into it, google "transnational jurisprudence", and the name Harold Hongju Koh. While this debate isn't new, a lot of the conspiracy minded loons on the right have really jumped on this guy for being a supporter of using various foreign precedents and international legal tenets as arguments in American Court proceedings (he also wrote on the history of the practice, ever since the country was founded), back when he was nominated for a position at the State Department (and, if I remember correctly, his name also came up as a potential SCOTUS nominee).

Again: this is about American Courts doing what they have always been doing: considering arguments and legal concepts people who aren't in the United States came up with. That's all. It's unavoidable, judges and lawyers are going to learn about what's going on in the legal environments of other countries and at the UN. Some of the things they learn about will be good ideas, others bad. They should all be considered, and the good ones should be adopted or at least adapted.

No one is suggesting or trying to impose foreign laws on American citizens. But that is what the conspiracy nuts are making it out to be. And, because this is an election year, we have new members from both camps starting threads about the latest talking points on right wing and left wing websites. This thread, as you may have guessed, is borrowed from the Right side.

Thanks, I was wondering about that too. This is like another Kyoto protocol, only much larger in scope. Anyone know if Agenda 21 is legally binding? (I read that John Baird, Canada's Environment Minister, was trying to get out of Kyoto, "just a day after committing to a future legally binding deal at a major UN climate summit." The Canadian government was even brought to court by Friends of Earth for their "inaction on the Kyoto Protocol." I don't know what's become of these charges.. but Baird's defense was that Kyoto was a "'risky, reckless scheme' that would result in a recession and 275,000 Canadians losing their jobs." No doubt the losses would be greater with Agenda 21.)

[Nicky]

Thanks, I was wondering about that too. This is like another Kyoto protocol, only much larger in scope. Anyone know if Agenda 21 is legally binding? (I read that John Baird, Canada's Environment Minister, was trying to get out of Kyoto, "just a day after committing to a future legally binding deal at a major UN climate summit." The Canadian government was even brought to court by Friends of Earth for their "inaction on the Kyoto Protocol." I don't know what's become of these charges.. but Baird's defense was that Kyoto was a "'risky, reckless scheme' that would result in a recession and 275,000 Canadians losing their jobs." No doubt the losses would be greater with Agenda 21.)

It's not like the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol is a binding agreement ratified by 190 countries (pretty much everyone except for the US, and now Canada which withdrew from it).

Agenda 21 is an entirely non-binding plan of action.

Besides, with the massive new discoveries of fossil fuels in North America setting the continent on a long term path of oil and natural gas fueled economic boom, it's doubtful that either country will ever agree to any kind of reduction on emissions any time soon. So the Kyoto protocol is pretty much dead too, on a global scale. The only ones sticking by it are Japan and the EU, both with economies that matter less and less in the grand scheme of things. Hopefully the rest of Asia will force Japan's hand and cause them to abandon it too. I also doubt the UK is going to stick to the plan, and with Germany's recent decision to abandon nuclear power, they won't be able to either.

Edited November 6, 2012 by Nicky

[mdegges]

It's not like the Kyoto Protocol. The Kyoto Protocol is a binding agreement ratified by 190 countries (pretty much everyone except for the US, and now Canada which withdrew from it).

Agenda 21 is an entirely non-binding plan of action.

Ah I see. I wasn't sure if there were any legal repercussions for withdrawling.. I guess Canada faced charges because they had signed a legally binding 'climate change' treaty. (As an aside, it's interesting that almost the same number of nations signed Agenda 21: 179 to 190.)

Edited November 6, 2012 by mdegges

[ewv]

It's good to see so much common sense rejection of this fad about a UN plot, but one of its effects is as a distraction diverting attention from the very real problems of assaults on property rights in this country and the actual causes of them. They have already been experienced for decades and are still growing under a similar banner of preservationism, 'sustainability', government controlled 'smart growth', etc. It certainly exists, but to blame this on a UN plot is to reverse cause and effect. The ideology, its legal authority and policitical momentum have come from 'mainstream' viro pressure group lobbyists, whose agendas are only parroted by equally radical functionaries in the UN who have no authority to do anything. As someone who has been directly involved in fighting this for a couple of decades, I have to emphasize that you should not dismiss the problem as unreal or unimportant along with dismissal of UN plot conspiracy theories.