How About Setting the Bar Higher?

I just finished reading an article by Michelle Malkin about the feckless and corrupt UN, directed at educating Angelina Jolie, who apparently thinks the UN is the answer to the "refugee problem."

First of all, shouldn't one ask WHY there are refugees in the first place? I can tell you from first hand experience (I spent a month traveling in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi) that the refugees are the result of corrupt (or worse) governments. Here's a hint... when putting money into countries with corrupt governments, the money gets siphoned off by the ruling elite and does not make it to the people who need it. In addition, there is a very strange phenomenon that I experienced first hand where people in those countries begin to become reliant on whatever scraps of humanitarian money filters down to them and they do not develop self-reliance.

A quick story from my travels in Uganda. I was walking down the street and saw a guy coming toward me wearing a coat and tie (not exactly fashionable... looked like what one might pick up in a second hand store), but he looked like a businessman. He saw me (I wasn't hard to spot, as I was the only white man on the street) and he immediately stuck out his hand. I was thinking he wanted to shake hands, so I reached out to shake his hand and greet him. He pulled his hand back, then put it up again, palm up. The Ugandan I was walking with said, "He think's you're UN." The guy wanted a handout. And he was a "businessman." I started talking to my escorts and they pointed out the very nice Range Rovers the UN people were driving around, and said how they live like royalty, with everyone serving them, hoping to get handouts. My friend was disgusted by it, because the people had come to see handouts from the UN and NGOs as the only way to get ahead, rather than working for something themselves. In their defense, when you live in a place where anything you build up can be confiscated by your government, or where you have to live in fear that a coup will take place and the new government will take all you have built, it does reduce your motivation.

Which brings me to my point: Instead of messing around with the UN, which is filled with socialists and dictators, we need to set a higher bar. Create an "Organization of Capitalist Democracies" (you know them... they're the only countries that are truly successful). Set standards for joining, like respect for human rights, respect for individual property rights, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, democracy, and, of course, capitalism. Let the rest of the world look at these countries, see the success, the standard of living, and let them know that they too can join, IF they meet the criteria. And, if, like countries in Africa, they have a long way to go, offer to help them get their societies moving in a constructive direction. Given that capitalist democracies also tend to have big hearts, the organization could help non-participating countries, but it could do so in a manner that got the money focussed where it is needed, not siphoned off by the ruling elite.

The countries that need help are generally very poor. It's not that they don't have resources, or they don't have people who are smart enough, it's that their corrupt ruling elites can keep siphoning off money GIVEN (as distinct from PRODUCED) them and live the high life while the people suffer. If that money was to dry up, cutting off the corrupt elites, and people (even those who crave power) saw that the only way to live well was to get the country to be productive, perhaps they'd change.

Apparently, Angelina Jolie is about to play Dagney Taggart in a movie version of "Atlas Shrugged". Perhaps in studying for the role she'll read the book and understand what Ayn Rand was communicating. People are not empowered by being GIVEN something. It's not good for the soul, and it certainly doesn't teach them how to be productive. It creates a vicious circle. The only way to stop it is to stop it and start in a different direction. The UN is not ever going to start in a new direction. It's ruling elites are now just like the corrupt regimes they facilitate.

Something new has to be created. The bar has to be set higher!