The United Nations is an organization dedicated to something... does anyone know what? The homepage of the UN has a 20+ page "charter" which outlines its purpose--and it's nothing short of delivering nirvana to all the world. My personal favorite is the goal "to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom." Okay, where is my hot air pocket translator... One might say "larger freedom" is a person’s ability to exercise their free will to lawfully pursue and achieve personal successes as he or she defines them. Sound like a reasonable place to start? The UN makes our freedom smaller in countless ways; it endorses environmental policies to save trees that would so hinder economic health that survival of said trees is fabulously irrelevant; a poor citizenry would have to cut them down to burn for warmth. It endorses a global military authority which could override any single country's autonomy. They openly endorse the coercive practices of tyrannical governments as long as it benefits one of their charter goals, such as China's one-child policy and its coerced abortions; less people = environmentalist ecstasy. Standard of living is commonly defined by access to medical care, housing, heat, clean water. None of these things is achieved without a healthy economy to support it. Does the UN really believe we will exist on this earth with medical care, housing, heat, clean water, in a tattered economy and NO impact to the planet? Its stealth agenda seeks to continue, not relieve, the misery of the world. The UN would willingly trade the cure for HIV/AIDS or brain cancer for a fracture-free iceberg in the Arctic. Since the standard of living in Guatemala, Haiti, Tanzania, Namibia, South Africa, Sudan, Congo (how many should I list) haven't improved under the 50-year stewardship of the UN, we can put a check mark in the failure column of row number one... "better standards of life in larger freedom", since they have achieved neither.