Posted on 07/06/2002 7:08:20 PM PDT by Carl Pearlston
The Legacy of Garry Davis
On this Fourth of July, when 89% of Americans express pride and satisfaction with their country and its institutions, and are praising the blessings of liberty while listening to patriotic music and watching joyous fireworks, we might reflect on the case of Garry Davis, who, at the age of 26 in May 1948, flushed with youthful idealism, renounced his US citizenship and became a self-proclaimed Citizen of the World. He declared that nationalism had been "rendered obsolete by actual world conditions" and needed to be supplanted by a world government that would guarantee world peace.
Garry was a pre-war drama student and some-time actor-dancer before becoming a bomber pilot with the 8th Air Force. After the war, he resumed drama studies, briefly returned to Broadway, before going to work for the United World Federalists. From that association, his world-consciousness suitably raised, he declared himself a stateless person and sought "global political asylum" with the newly-created United Nations, then meeting in Paris. Expelled by both the UN and the French government, he created a World Citizen Identity Card. He later interrupted a UN General Assembly meeting in Paris to urge the creation of a world government via a world constitutional convention; he was again expelled. He called for individuals the world over to abandon their nationalistic allegiances and become world citizens. In 1949, he created an International Registry of World Citizens, to which over 750,000 persons from 150 countries subscribed within the next two years.
He was imprisoned and/or deported from various countries, and returned to the US in 1950 as an immigrant. He declared his World Government of World Citizens in 1953, and in 1954, founded the World Service Authority, now headquartered both in Washington DC and Tokyo Japan to administer that new world government. On its own non-governmentally recognized authority, it issues passports, identity cards, birth certificates, residence permits, exit visas, marriage certificates, postal stamps, and host of other documents, all for a fee. In the following years, he traveled widely on his World Passport, and was again variously prosecuted, imprisoned , deported, and excluded by the US, France, the UK, Switzerland, and Japan. He returned to the US in 1977 where he continues to reside as a resident alien. In 1986, he ran for Mayor of Washington DC as a candidate of the World Citizen Party, garnering 585 votes. He ran for election to the office of World President in 1999-2000, stating that he would consider himself "elected" if he got votes from 1% of the world's population, or 50 million votes. Since no results have been announced, he either fell short in the balloting or is awaiting a more propitious moment to announce his assumption of the office.
Now, why is Garry Davis important? Because his ideas won. It is the heady stuff of Star Trek and Star Wars, in which entire planets take over the role once served by the nation-state. It is the essence of Kyoto treaties in which all the countries of the world abandon their individual national interest in favor of the perceived global interest. Being a "citizen of the world" is no longer an idiosyncratic or kooky idea. Among the intellectual and enlightened elite, nationalism is out of favor; school children are taught that it is the source of most of the world’s problems, and that we should be more concerned about planet earth than our nation.. The United Nations was founded to give the world's individual governments a forum in which to air their differences and to unite for their common good. Davis, however, foresaw that nascent organization as the forerunner of a supra-national Government of the World, in which all sovereign power would be vested for the sake of humanity in order to make war obsolete. He was one of the earliest proponents of a world criminal court to supplant the courts of the sovereign nations, which has been a long-term goal of the United World Federalists, the chief non-governmental organization backing the new International Court of Criminal Justice. The very fact that this Court has come into being is a tribute to the determination of those intent on world government at the expense of national sovereignties. International law has itself been reshaped by the globalist partisans toward that end. Consider that a few years ago a Spanish magistrate issued an arrest warrant against Pinochet, then visiting the UK for medical treatment, for alleged crimes against humanity committed as head of state in Chile. Only Pinochet’s medical condition stopped the UK from extraditing him to Spain. Similarly, only the fact that Ariel Sharon was not in Belgium prevented the Belgian court from indicting the Israeli Prime Minister for alleged crimes committed in Lebanon. Such are the precedents for the new International Court of Criminal Justice. .
. That Court, to which 140 nations have ceded part of their sovereignty, exists to try "war crimes" and "crimes against humanity", however those terms may be defined by the individual independent prosecutors and judges, who will be chosen from the participating nations. The US, along with Israel, has withdrawn its support from the court, because both nations fear that their own troop deployments will be the natural focus of the court's attention. When George Bush and Ariel Sharon are both called "war criminals" by various world factions, it follows that troops obeying their orders will be similarly labeled, and subject to the court's jurisdiction. That jurisdiction runs not just to signatory nations, as with the International Court of Justice, but to the individual citizens of all nations, whether signatory or non-signatory.
Every member of our military takes the following oath: " I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God." Our Constitution’s Article VI requires a similar oath to support and defend the Constitution by all Senators, Representatives, members of state legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers of the United States and the several states. All public officers take a similar oath. There is no mention in any of these oaths of supporting the Charter of the United Nations, nor the canons of international law, nor the rules and regulations of the International Court of Criminal Justice.
It is the reasonable expectation of any person in the military or the government that their governmental actions will be reviewed in accordance with the protections and institutions of the very Constitution which they are sworn to defend, not by some extra-Constitutional authority with lesser protections and different standards. Military personnel who commit crimes in the course of their duties are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Civilians are subject to the requirements of the Constitution's Amendment VI, requiring jury trials in all criminal cases. The President and Congress are sworn to uphold that Constitution, and cannot, consistent with their oaths, permit American governmental personnel to be subject to the jurisdiction of a non-Constitutional, foreign, supra-national court. Europe, which is in the throes of overthrowing state nationalism through the European Union, thus creating a United States of Europe, may desire to submit to such a court. That is no reason for the United States of America to subvert its Constitutional sovereignty, and the protection of its citizens.
Carl Pearlston
Ya, it is.
Ditto! Hiya bud! Good ta see ya again............FRegards
LOL!
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