INSIDE THE ASYLUM : Why The United Nations and Old Europe Are Worse Than You Think,   Jed Babbin

Regnery, Washington, DC : 2004

 Reviewed by Paul Kotik                                                                                                                                                                   HOME

I confess to having approached this book with more than a little skepticism. Worse than I think ?  Not bloody likely, I was certain of it. Mr. Babbin, however, quickly and ruthlessly put paid to my delusions of despondent grandeur. Babbin, you see, actually knows what he's talking about. I just muck about with Europe and Euros and feel it in my bones. I cannot even pinpoint the moment when my postwar boyish comity with our erstwhile extended family came to grips with reality and crossed Old Europe off the Good Guys list, but  now, thanks to Jed Babbin's all-arms factual assault on the myth of the Free World, I know why. Yes, it is worse than even I thought.

Funny, as Florence King once said, I always thought we'd go first. But no, when the cocktail hour comes upon us, we go home. Old Europe stays locked in for the night.

Oh, and the United Nations, that trade association of sleazebag kraptocracies. I mean, it's a fine idea in principle: a corporate body in which the world's cultures and nations are all represented in a sound democratic process. Sound. A body dedicated to preserving the peace, and promoting liberty and prosperity worldwide. The UN, as Jed Babbin makes depressingly plain, is none of these things, but thankfully there is another institution, a competitor in the nation-uniting business, which is succeeding most admirably in this most noble of enterprises.

It is called the United States of America.

The peoples, nations and states of the world gain representation in this body not by virtue of merely existing, but by producing delegates who have, and demonstrate, the ultimate commitment to the ideals of democracy and liberty. They do this by immigrating and becoming United States citizens. They are then free to retain a sentimental and familial regard for their ancient  origins, and to represent their kinsmen's  interests to the Congress, Executive and Judiciary of the United States.  Their influence is not weighted by the square mileage of the old countries' territories, nor by the numbers of citizens or subjects therein. Nor should it be so, as the Kafkaesque UN Security Council so amply demonstrates.

 Rather, a nation's interests are visible to the American polity to the degree that its American sons and daughters have embraced the American way and integrated themselves with it. Thus they prosper and flourish, and so it is that little Ireland and tiny Israel sit in America's highest councils while gargantuan Russia waits, still, in the corridors, ignoring the No Smoking signs.

We don't need the United Nations. We are the united nations.  The one in Turtle Bay, with the brand name, is a metastatic Bollywood sound stage. And it isn't even funny anymore.  Read it and weep.

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