Bill Straub: Massie’s positions indicate he thinks all American interests terminate at the border

WASHINGTON – Rep. Thomas Massie probably never met Robert W. Welch but the Republican lawmaker from Somewhereorother Lewis County is leading a campaign that would make the old, reactionary battle axe proud.

Welch, some of you may recall, founded the John Birch Society in 1958, an organization so far to the right that even the eminent conservative William F. Buckley Jr. blanched when considering it, characterizing the outfit as “far removed from common sense.” He urged the GOP to run, not walk, away from the Birchers as quickly and effectively as possible.

Massie during his all-too-long four years in Congress has staked out several positions that render him, if not a card-carrying member of the John Birch Society, a fellow traveler. He is certainly an advocate of smaller government, leaving the powerless to fend for themselves, and a citizenry so well-armed that the nation could wind up looking like a collection of little boys playing cowboys and Indians.

Until recently, the domestic side has dominated Massie’s agenda but Wonder Boy is branching out and the world should take notice. Massie is using Brexit – Britain’s exit from the European Union – to tout a bill he is co-sponsoring, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2015, which would “terminate all membership by the United States in the United Nations, and in any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body of the United Nations.’’

The measure furthermore would render the UN homeless, not that Massie has ever troubled himself over such issues. It maintains, “The United States withdraws from the agreement between the United States of America and the United Nations regarding the headquarters of the United Nations’’ along the East River in New York City.

To Massie, the issue is “sovereignty.’’

“As a member of the UN, we bind our citizens to decisions made by undemocratic countries, when in fact our constitution should be the supreme law,’’ he said.

Wonder Boy isn’t alone among Kentucky lawmakers who favor dumping the UN. Sen Rand Paul, R-KY, the ersatz libertarian who was an early casualty of the juggernaut that is Donald J. Trump in the race for the GOP presidential nomination, also has expressed his disdain.

According to the website Real Clear Politics, Paul addressed a group during a campaign swing in New Hampshire in January 2015, and told them, “I dislike paying for something that two-bit Third World countries with no freedom attack us and complain about the United States,” Paul said. “There’s a lot of reasons why I don’t like the U.N., and I think I’d be happy to dissolve it.”

Boy, the world would be a real funhouse if Kentuckians were in charge, wouldn’t it?

In an interview with Vince Coakley, who runs a radio show out of Greenville, S.C., Massie insisted that it would be “crazy’’ to “stay in the United Nations and pay the majority of their funding while it’s attended by Third World dictators who are writing rules and regulations that are supposed to bind our country.’’

That, of course, is the bunk.

For one thing, the U.S. is, as the richest nation in the world, assessed a pretty good hunk of change to operate the UN – $654,778,938 in 2015, to be exact. That, according to the UN Secretariat, comes to 22 percent of the organization’s budget – significantly less than “the majority of their funding.’’

The UN further, as Wonder Boy well knows, does nothing to usurp the authority of the U.S. Constitution and, if some effort was made contrary to American interests, the U.S. could easily and always submit a veto in the Security Council. Regardless, under Article II of the Constitution, any treaty negotiated by the president must meet constitutional muster and receive ratification of two-thirds of the Senate. If a treaty endangers American sovereignty, the Senate can easily step in and say no.

It usually doesn’t get that far. In July 1998, for instance, the UN adopted an agreement establishing the International Criminal Court in a 120-7 vote, with 21 countries abstaining. The seven countries opposing the treaty were Iraq, Israel, Libya, the People’s Republic of China Qatar, Yemen and the U.S. The Senate never ratified the treaty and to this day America does not participate in the International Criminal Court.

Yet, despite clear evidence, Massie insists the U.S. is forfeiting its sovereignty.

It’s a play right out of the Bircher handbook. On its website, the right-wing weirdos offers a page, “Get Us Out! Of the United Nations,’’ noting that Amexit, as some are calling it, “has been the signature campaign of The John Birch Society for over 50 years.’’

“The global power elites view the UN as their main vehicle for establishing, step by step, a socialistic global government controlled by themselves,’’ the organization claims. “Now, more than ever, we need to get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US. Each year, we gain more support to Get US Out!’’

Included on the web page, of course, is a glowing tribute to our own Wonder Boy, the Whiz Kid, Congressman Thomas Massie, described by the John Birch Society as “a leading constitutionalist.’’

In the Coakley interview, Massie asserted, without corroboration, that “over half of the UN’s member governments were unfree’’ and sought to undermine the organization by noting “Stalin was a founding member of the United Nations.’’

“People talk about ‘we need to stay on it because we’ve got this special position, we’ve got veto power because we’re one of the permanent members,’ well, guess what, so are China and Russia,” Massie said. “Now, ostensibly, this organization exists to keep us from going to war. I would say they failed at that. If anything, it’s nuclear weapons and the desire not to blow ourselves up that’s kept us from going to war. Yet we keep getting in all these small wars around the globe.”

If Massie wished to proclaim that the United Nations isn’t a perfect organization, he would be correct. Of course the United States isn’t a perfect organization either. After all, it has permitted individuals like him to serve in Congress.

It has troubles, primarily because nations that operate contra to the best interests of the United States – China and Russia among others – carry substantial weight. But they would have a greater say if the UN weren’t extent to put a brake on some of their more nefarious endeavors. It furthermore supplies peace keepers to some of the hottest spots on the globe and provides humanitarian aid to millions who would otherwise agonize to a greater degree than the suffering they already face.

In his speech before the United Nations General Assembly last September, President Obama cited its shortcomings, noting that “there have been too many times when, collectively, we have fallen short of these ideals. Over seven decades, terrible conflicts have claimed untold victims.’’

But, he said, the UN has pressed forward “to make a system of international rules and norms that are better and stronger and more consistent.’’

“It is this international order that has underwritten unparalleled advances in human liberty and prosperity,’’ he said. “It is this collective endeavor that’s brought about diplomatic cooperation between the world’s major powers and buttressed a global economy that has lifted more than a billion people from poverty. It is these international principles that helped constrain bigger countries from imposing our will on smaller ones and advanced the emergence of democracy and development and individual liberty on every continent.’’

The progress, Obama said, “is real.’’

“It can be documented in lives saved, and agreements forged, and diseases conquered, and in mouths fed. And yet, we come together today knowing that the march of human progress never travels in a straight line, that our work is far from complete; that dangerous currents risk pulling us back into a darker, more disordered world.’’

The U.S. could claim no real benefit from withdrawing from the UN. Chaos, at some point, would ensue somewhere on the globe with no real way to address it. But that’s okay with Massie who seems at times to insist that all American interests terminate at its borders.

In dollar terms, the U.S. contributes more in foreign aid than any other country – about $31 billion. But that figure accounts for a relatively low 0.19 percent of GDP, placing it about 15th on the list of contributor nations. Massie thinks even that is too much. On Tuesday he rushed to the House floor to halt a voice vote on a $7 billion foreign aid bill, the Global Food Security Act, which he characterized as the “Global Food Stamp Act.’’

“I know the folks who wrote this bill genuinely want to influence governments and feed the poor in other countries, but how can we keep spending money in other countries when we have so much debt and so many needs in our country?’’ he asked.

It’s called humanitarianism. And keeping the peace.

If Wonder Boy Massie, the dream boat of the John Birch Society, has his way, the darker, more disordered world Obama cited would certainly prevail.

Washington correspondent Bill Straub served 11 years as the Frankfort Bureau chief for The Kentucky Post. He also is the former White House/political correspondent for Scripps Howard News Service. A member of the Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame, he currently resides in Silver Spring, Maryland, and writes frequently about the federal government and politics. Email him at williamgstraub@gmail.com.