In class we created a chart like the following. The students placed in each column the kinds of decisions/laws that they felt SHOULD be controlled at each level of government.
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Family
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City
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State
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National
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International (Supranational)
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We considered in-depth the placement of two areas: education and war crimes. We defined sovereignty as the power to make and execute laws (or the final say) in a particular jurisdiction.
Some students suggested sovereignty for education should be shared between family, city, and state levels. We considered some of the problems with local sovereignty (For example, what if the city wanted to educate all students solely from the Qu'ran? Or what if the city was too poor to provide a good education?). We also considered some of the problems with centralized sovereignty (For example, what if the national government wanted to secularize education? or use education to promote a particular political perspective?).
We even considered the possible merits and failures of having some educational decisions made at a supranational level (For example, richer countries could help provide education to those nations too poor to provide it for themselves. Or a supranational government could help stop the brainwashing education of terrorists. At the same time, consider the danger of consolidating that much power into the hands of the few.)
Next, we considered the prosecution of war crimes. Sometimes a nation might be weakened by factions or civil war so that justice cannot be served within the nation itself. In these cases, would a supranational court be appropriate? (We discussed the prosecution of war criminals from WWII/Holocaust and from the Rawandan Genocide.) Students pointed out that war crimes are carried out by individuals from a country, not usually by the entire populace of a country. Perhaps after stability and democracy have been restored, the governments themselves can prosecute their own war criminals (e.g., Germany prosecuting former Nazis). This would eliminate the need for a supranational government.
However, other students pointed out that in the case of intervening to stop war crimes which are currently occurring, it may not be wise to wait for the nation to autocorrect: too many lives would be lost. Perhaps then a supranational government should intervene. Of course, it wasn't a supranational government that stopped Hitler; rather it was individual nations who took upon themselves the burden of war against evil. We asked if war crimes could be stopped at the state level (say, by a state militia). Students pointed out that states may not have the means to do so. There is also a concern that state militias might create internal conflict, confusion, and duplication of effort within a nation like the U.S.
In addition to this discussion, we also had a guest speaker, Mrs. Arien Adams, share her family's stories from their first-hand experience with the Korean War. A few stories that stood out:
- The North Korean army was retreating through her mother's hometown as they were pushed out of South Korea by U.S. forces. The North Koreans tended to execute South Korean men or conscript them for labor. Her mother's father was saved on one occasion by hiding under a pile of blankets. On another occasion, her mother's brother left to go the market and never returned. The family does not know if he was taken by North Koreans or executed.
- Mrs. Adams returned to Korea as a university student. At the time many Korean students were protesting in the streets of Seoul, demanding the withdrawal of American forces from the bases there. They were saying the Americans had been there long enough, the war was long over, and they needed to leave. At first Mrs. Adams found their argument reasonable. After all, Seoul was a crowded city while the American base was located on prime real estate with lots of space for trees and lawns. But when she phoned her mother in America, who had experienced the Korean War, her mother told her that those students didn't know where their right to protest came from. Her mother did not understand why American mothers would have sent their sons to fight for the freedom of Koreans, but she was ever grateful for the freedom she'd been granted.
- Mrs. Adams talked about a photo of Korea at night which shows how capitalism and American influence has blessed South Korea, in contrast to North Korea. It is filled with light. Even an LDS temple is within an hour's drive of the border. She noted a pattern in history: the rebirth of democracy opens the way for the preaching of the gospel. We added that economic forces, such as capitalism, can often open the way for political liberty, which can then create conditions for religious liberty.
We read in class a case study in United Nations sovereignty: the Michael Brown family's appeal to the United Nations. We discussed why this family would appeal to the United Nations in a matter that seems to be related to national or even state concerns. In the hypothetical scenario that the United Nations voted for the United States to change its domestic law (laws governing its own concerns), would the United States be bound?
Homework:
- Review the United Nations Preamble handout in case there is a quiz Monday.
- Read the opinion article on the concerns that the UN will establish one world government. Be alert that this article expresses one side of a debate. We will discuss the other side on Monday.
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