Straight Talk from Al Jacobs

MORE NONSENSE FROM THE UNITED NATIONS

 

I notice that civil rights and homeless advocates in Orange County, California, in cooperation with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Elder Law and Disability Rights Center, have filed a petition requesting a special United Nations official to declare local governments in the United States to be in violation of international law for having enacted anti-camping ordinances which prohibit the homeless from sleeping in public spaces. The U.N. official, Special Rapporteur Philip Alston, who is currently inspecting Los Angeles, San Francisco and the District of Columbia, among other sites, declared on Wednesday, November 29, 2017, that despite the nation’s wealth, “great poverty and inequality exists in America.”

The event now bedeviling the human rights activists is that a number of communities in Orange County are in the process of cleaning up unsightly homeless encampments which have been threatening the peace and safety of both residents and passersby. Such areas as the grounds surrounding public buildings and the wooded areas adjacent to roads and bicycle paths have become debris-littered and hazardous as more and more transients illegally squat in locations not intended for human habitation. Several times this year county employees have been forced to clear these areas, citing concerns about public safety as well as the safety of the homeless.

Exactly what authority the United Nations possesses over the right of the United States and its governmental subdivisions to enforce its properly enacted laws is beyond my knowledge. If, in fact, that organization is vested with any such powers, then these arrangements should be repudiated at once. And if we, as a participant in this international community of nations, are somehow beholden to abide by the rules and regulations dictated by a majority of its current 193 members, then there’s no rational justification for our being a member. In retrospect, the late Senator Henry Cabot Lodge may have been prophetic when, in 1919, he opposed U.S. entry into the League of Nations.

The article concludes with a statement by Mr. Alston that he plans to present his report on American extreme poverty to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva in June 2018. If it’s extreme poverty which truly concerns him, perhaps he should be touring the nation of Bangladesh, another member of the United Nations, with an average hourly wage for its citizens of 24 cents.

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Al Jacobs, a professional investor for nearly a half-

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