The narrator guy states the U.S. pays “billions” in annual dues to the U.N. Not “millions”, but “billions”, with an s at the end, meaning thousands of millions.
In fact, the current annual dues assessment the U.S. is at 800 million – 80% of one billion. Not “billions”, not thousands of millions – hundreds of millions.
Regardless, the fact is that the U.S. historically has always been in arrears of its dues payable to the U.N.. In 1999 there was a law pushed by a pair of left wing commie radical U.S. senators to ‘regularize’ this situation. You might remember them: their names were Jesse Helms and Joe Biden. And they were able to get a redneck U.N. hating president, Bill Clinton, to sign their bill. Look it up on Wikipedia: the Helm-Biden Law of 1999.
The U.S. is the biggest dues payer into the U.N. because that was the deal the U.S. made at the time in order to get the U.N. located in the U.S. It actually would make a lot more logistical sense if the U.N. were located in some European country like Denmark or Switzerland. Those things should tell you that in 1945, for some reason or reasons, the U.S. was really really anxious to have the U.N. headquarters in the U.S. Now, you could say that was a Democrat thing, as Truman was president at the time. Fine, but since then, we’ve had Republican presidents over 36 of the last 60 years, and this is how many U.S. presidents have pushed to get the U.N. out of the U.S.: none, zero, for a percentage of 00.00.
You can’t ignore the obvious conclusion: that the U.N. is in the U.S. because the U.S. WANTS the U.N. in the U.S. And if the U.S. didn’t want to pay its dues at all, it simply wouldn’t pay them, and the U.N. would have to close down, since the U.S. is BY FAR the biggest source of revenue for the U.N.
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The narrator guy states the U.S. pays “billions” in annual dues to the U.N. Not “millions”, but “billions”, with an s at the end, meaning thousands of millions.
This is a statement that, taken literally, is true, but it can easily be made where what you intended to say is obscured by the literal (and arguably correct) way to say it.
The correct way to say it would be to say “The U.S. pays billions to the U.N. through our annual dues”. With annual dues at $800 million, it only takes three years to reach the “billions” mark; and we’ve been doing this for how many decades? Thus, while a bit unclear, I think the sentence is generally correct, although the wording is awkward.
As for the obvious conclusion: I don’t see what it has to do with the conclusion of “U.N. Me”, that we shouldn’t be in the United Nations; that we shouldn’t even want to be in the U.N. And the first step in getting us out of the U.N. is convincing the voters that we shouldn’t be involved, who will then put pressure on both the President and Congress to get out.
I am a so-called “anarcho-capitalist”; it took a lot of reading for me to get to that point. And even then, I’m likely at odds with Joe, and with most of the people who comment on his site–and (with the occasional glaring exception) most of these commenters are liberty-supporting people. Yet, when I was in school (and that’s a major part of the problem, right there!) I fully supported of the U.N. and the ideals of International Government to End All War.
I’d like to think a documentary like this would open my eyes…but I was young and stupid then. At the very least, I would have likely spent a lot of time in internal dialogue trying to refute what I saw. Now that I’m a bit older (but by no means “old” yet), I don’t think I’m all that much less stupid–and I’m likely still far too gullible for my own good! (Having said that, I have a greater tendency not to believe all the little anecdotes than I used to. I’ve seen too many stories and “facts” that I’ve accepted as the Gospel Truth, destroyed before my very eyes, by the cold logic of fact. And, oddly enough, seeing scientific truth vaporized this way has been more traumatic than seeing “faith-promoting” stories vaporized. I don’t know why that is, though, because I still have faith in both God and scientific endeavor.)
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I just re-watched the video; the narrator says “we spend billions annually to support the United Nations.” The introduction says nothing about dues, although undoubtedly dues pay a role in the claim. Although I don’t know how things break down, there is also certainly more to funding the U.N. than just paying dues.
At the end, the trailer says we paid $38,000 to the United Nations; for what it’s worth, I ran the numbers, and that comes out to be about $8.5 billion dollars, if I did everything correctly. I have the funny feeling that the narrator is talking about more than just dues.
What org put that together, Joe?
@Rivrdog: Viseo Entertainment, in association with The Moving Pictures Institute.
See also http://www.unmemovie.com/
The narrator guy states the U.S. pays “billions” in annual dues to the U.N. Not “millions”, but “billions”, with an s at the end, meaning thousands of millions.
In fact, the current annual dues assessment the U.S. is at 800 million – 80% of one billion. Not “billions”, not thousands of millions – hundreds of millions.
Regardless, the fact is that the U.S. historically has always been in arrears of its dues payable to the U.N.. In 1999 there was a law pushed by a pair of left wing commie radical U.S. senators to ‘regularize’ this situation. You might remember them: their names were Jesse Helms and Joe Biden. And they were able to get a redneck U.N. hating president, Bill Clinton, to sign their bill. Look it up on Wikipedia: the Helm-Biden Law of 1999.
The U.S. is the biggest dues payer into the U.N. because that was the deal the U.S. made at the time in order to get the U.N. located in the U.S. It actually would make a lot more logistical sense if the U.N. were located in some European country like Denmark or Switzerland. Those things should tell you that in 1945, for some reason or reasons, the U.S. was really really anxious to have the U.N. headquarters in the U.S. Now, you could say that was a Democrat thing, as Truman was president at the time. Fine, but since then, we’ve had Republican presidents over 36 of the last 60 years, and this is how many U.S. presidents have pushed to get the U.N. out of the U.S.: none, zero, for a percentage of 00.00.
You can’t ignore the obvious conclusion: that the U.N. is in the U.S. because the U.S. WANTS the U.N. in the U.S. And if the U.S. didn’t want to pay its dues at all, it simply wouldn’t pay them, and the U.N. would have to close down, since the U.S. is BY FAR the biggest source of revenue for the U.N.
The narrator guy states the U.S. pays “billions” in annual dues to the U.N. Not “millions”, but “billions”, with an s at the end, meaning thousands of millions.
This is a statement that, taken literally, is true, but it can easily be made where what you intended to say is obscured by the literal (and arguably correct) way to say it.
The correct way to say it would be to say “The U.S. pays billions to the U.N. through our annual dues”. With annual dues at $800 million, it only takes three years to reach the “billions” mark; and we’ve been doing this for how many decades? Thus, while a bit unclear, I think the sentence is generally correct, although the wording is awkward.
As for the obvious conclusion: I don’t see what it has to do with the conclusion of “U.N. Me”, that we shouldn’t be in the United Nations; that we shouldn’t even want to be in the U.N. And the first step in getting us out of the U.N. is convincing the voters that we shouldn’t be involved, who will then put pressure on both the President and Congress to get out.
I am a so-called “anarcho-capitalist”; it took a lot of reading for me to get to that point. And even then, I’m likely at odds with Joe, and with most of the people who comment on his site–and (with the occasional glaring exception) most of these commenters are liberty-supporting people. Yet, when I was in school (and that’s a major part of the problem, right there!) I fully supported of the U.N. and the ideals of International Government to End All War.
I’d like to think a documentary like this would open my eyes…but I was young and stupid then. At the very least, I would have likely spent a lot of time in internal dialogue trying to refute what I saw. Now that I’m a bit older (but by no means “old” yet), I don’t think I’m all that much less stupid–and I’m likely still far too gullible for my own good! (Having said that, I have a greater tendency not to believe all the little anecdotes than I used to. I’ve seen too many stories and “facts” that I’ve accepted as the Gospel Truth, destroyed before my very eyes, by the cold logic of fact. And, oddly enough, seeing scientific truth vaporized this way has been more traumatic than seeing “faith-promoting” stories vaporized. I don’t know why that is, though, because I still have faith in both God and scientific endeavor.)
I just re-watched the video; the narrator says “we spend billions annually to support the United Nations.” The introduction says nothing about dues, although undoubtedly dues pay a role in the claim. Although I don’t know how things break down, there is also certainly more to funding the U.N. than just paying dues.
At the end, the trailer says we paid $38,000 to the United Nations; for what it’s worth, I ran the numbers, and that comes out to be about $8.5 billion dollars, if I did everything correctly. I have the funny feeling that the narrator is talking about more than just dues.