Back in 2009 I published a book with the title We Are Doomed, subtitle "Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism." Prior to the book's publication the Economist magazine asked me to do an online interview about it with them, so I did. The interview is preserved at the Economist website.

One of the questions was: "Give me some examples of how conservative pessimism might translate into policy." I rattled off a whole list, quote:

Abandonment of "nation-building"exercises. Abolition of the federal Department of Education. A 1924-style immigration freeze. Repeal of No Child Left Behind. End of all federal subsidies to "community groups" End of all federal subsidies to arts and culture. End of all foreign-aid programmes that are not plainly and obviously bribes for pro-American behaviour. Restart construction of neutron bombs. Full-bore federal-subsidised research on missile defense. Withdrawal from the UN, followed by razing of all UN structures on American soil and sowing the ground with salt. How many d'you want?

Twelve questions for John Derbyshire, July 18, 2009

That interview generated a comment thread, which seems is preserved at Archive.org. To my surprise, my negativity towards the United Nations caused considerable outrage. How could I be so reactionary, so heartless, as to want us out of the U.N.?

Even allowing for the fact that the Economist is a globalist publication, I thought the outrage was out of proportion. It's been plain to me for most of my adult life that the United Nations is a corrupt racket.

Look at the four nations with whom we share the distinction of being Permanent Members of the U.N. Security Council: China, Russia, Britain, and France. That's two lawless Asiatic despotisms and two has-been ex-imperial powers rapidly turning themselves into Afro-Islamic slums.

Or look at the General Assembly: a parking lot for the more troublesome nephews of Third World dictators and for C-list First World politicians like Nikki Haley, with enough popularity to need appeasing but judged useless for any important job.

U.N. peacekeepers are notoriously the worst thing that can happen to a nation.

“The Associated Press found nearly 2,000 allegations of abuse and exploitation by United Nations peacekeepers in the past 12 years in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Haiti. More than 300 of the sexual abuse cases involved children”https://t.co/lY6xzYFevK

— Eliza (@elizableu) May 6, 2022

Following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, their main contribution to the relief effort was, to quote a Boston University report, "the sexual abuse and exploitation of women and children,"

So color me not at all surprised at this week's news that UNRWA—that's the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, UNRWA—is up to its elbows helping Arab terrorists trying to destroy Israel, a member nation of the U.N.

Why is there a separate U.N. agency—funded, of course, by your tax dollars and mine—why is there a separate agency for Palestinian refugees? Why doesn't the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees deal with them?

Why, in any case, are there still Palestinian refugees, 76 years after they lost their homes in Israel? Even on the worst possible view of that dispossession—leaving aside, for example, the fact that a lot of the Israelis doing the dispossession had been kicked out of their own homes in Arab countries, Iran, and Europe—leaving that aside, it was a long time ago.

World War Two in Europe generated plenty of refugees: Germans and East Europeans fleeing the advancing Russians, for instance. How come they aren't still refugees under U.N. care 76 years later? They settled where they could and got on with rebuilding their lives.

"Ah yes," a Palestinian might say, "but we can reclaim our homeland! With the help of our Arab brothers we shall drive the Jews out! From the river to the Sea …!"

No you won't. If it looks as though you're about to, Israel will exercise the Samson Option and fry you and your Arab brothers with nukes, perhaps us too.

Are you just going to live forever in fantasies of revenge, feeding on the charity of foreigners? Get on with your lives, as refugees elsewhere have done for centuries past—including plenty of Jewish refugees.