Libertarians don't believe in abolishing the state. You have to be an anarchist to want that. And personally, I think it would be funny to strip anarchists of their citizenship, and deny them all services (including police protection) unless they paid for it. Meaning, the state would ignore any crimes committed against them, unless they paid for protection. Of course, purchasing the right to protection and economic participation would ultimately cost less than the taxes paid to the government, and I can see the appeal to libertarians, but no.

Unless, of course, the libertarian wanted to be stateless and forfeit all rights to political participation and welfare. Not sure why they would want to do that though, unless economic freedom was worth sacrificing their political rights.

Worn,

If a state is not bound by contract to protect someone, as in the case of foreign citizens or its own, a person is in a state of nature. The state can therefore do whatever it pleases with them. That doesn't mean the state has particular reason to hunt them down, but it will if the state's own citizens are targeted or become collateral damage.

I'm speaking philosophically, of course. The UN has made decisions regarding stateless people, but it doesn't concern me because, as you know, I don't consider the UN a legitimate authority.

I think most anarchists tend to be anti-big business/anti-globalisation nowadays.

"I don't consider the UN a legitimate authority."

Noone considers it to be an authority, it is not what it was established to do. The General Assembly was designed to act as a forum to hear issues and come to agreements on disputes, whereas the Security Council was established for large powers in the world to maintain their strength and power.

When did he surrender control of the US army?

NATO =/= UN right? This was clearly a topic on the UN, and although the UN Security Council did issue a resolution, I believe it did not state that the US MUST bomb Libya, but it allowed nations to take action against Libyian rebels without backlash from the International community. Nowhere in my original post did I bring up NATO nor the relationship between the US and NATO.

As far as the congress goes, I have no idea about what Obama stated, but lets take a look at the previous president, George W Bush. After congress approval for the invasion of Afghanistan, he actually stated that he would proceed with the invasion with or without the UN support. How does this factor into giving up of control?

But ok, Obama stated he gave up control (a figure that was elected because one of his promises was to bring troops home right?), but what level of control? Does the international community now control individual units/soldiers, their arsenol? Do they also control the US national defence policy? It might be in the way that the sentence of yours is constructed, but it sounds to me like the president said that they would only go to war/take action in the event that the UN approve it (and not ONLY when Congress tells them to). For example, if Congress said, lets bomb the shit out of Canada, that will teach them Canadians for being so Canadian!, then the US would still want UN approval before they proceeded with their plans. Furthermore, all military actions are currently decided by the UN Security Council, which the US does still have VETO power in that Council, and as such, still have control over when and where they want their troops commited.

Maybe there is an example where the US has commited troops under order by the UN where they did not want to commit troops?

"How was my being thorough and posting both organizations he surrenders sovereignty to problematic? You'll notice that the UN is one of the two organizations I mentioned."

I did notice this, but you did only provide one example where force was used for another that was decided by another International identity. My original point was that the UN had no authority, nothing about NATO. I basically said that the UN is a toothless organisation that has no real authority or power.

"What do the actions of Bush have to do with anything? He wasn't particularly good at following the law either. What's it got to do with anything?"

I wanted to point out a position of the former president in regards to the UN organisation. I was making a point that the US acted with or without consent from the International community, and it did so blantantly in the face of the UN. It also demonstrates that the UN has very little power to stop nations with dominant regional power from doing what they will.

I cannot access the website you linked, am blocked for some reason (who would have thought a US political site was blocked here), but I am willing to accept the point that Obama has stated that he considers the UN has authority of when and where the US goes to war with, but what does that really mean? The UN has no authority within itself, there is no leader making decisions, and the only form of control within the UN is the powers of VETO within the Security Council (hence why I brought this up). IF, and I feel that this is a big IF, the US commited forces SOLELY on the order of the UN, then it would need to come from the Security Council (which the US still has control over). So my point is that any decisions made by the UN to commit US forces needs approval by the US in order to proceed (so is the decision-making process bypass the US, no, it just bypass your Congress, which I did not dispute at all). Based on many recent posts regarding Obama and Congress, I would actually say that Obama wants to cut out Congress from the decision-making and keep it within his own administration (so Obama, as the president, decides himself when and where he wants his forces sent).

The UN has no power of influence (apart from influence that exists even if the UN never existed, for example, larger countries pressuring smaller countries to do their dirty-work). UN Treaties have no process to enforce them (and I am sure Zarf would Chime in here and say that the World Bank can setup tariffs for certain countries as a means of influence, but we once again go outside the realm of the UN and furthermore this would still come from the country concerned and not from the UN). There are trade sanctions, but do you notice that China still does trade with North Korea and Iran? Does the UN have the power to stop China from doing this? I guess they could setup more trade sanctions against China, but that would hurt large parts of the world yes? (I know my country would be hurt a lot by this, and as such would never go along with it). The UN has no authority, no power, and the only action that is taken is done so by the states concerned/involved.

"I merely pointed out that Obama considers the UN an authority over Congress on the matter of waging war."

No, you stated that he has surrendered control of it, which is not the same. You are saying that the internal processes of your nation have been shifted, but the commitment of troops still rests with your nation, not on the UN on when and where troops are commited. Troops would only be commited with US approval, which is not surrendering at all. If the president/his officials take the consideration of the UN over Congress, or taking this one step further, Obama wants to be able to bypass Congress by getting approval from the Security Council first, then this is nothing more than a domestic issue, and doesn't really give the UN any more authority/control.

"It means he ignores the Constitution -- the law -- which gives power over declaring war to Congress."

Oh I don't dispute that, but where did the power go? To the UN? I do not think so, since the UN itself has no internal authority. It is a forum to handle the anarchic international relations of nations.

"You're presuming that Obama would reject the desires of his international handlers in saying he doesn't consider the UN an authority. This remains to be seen."

No, I am saying that the UN is not a body that can make the US do whatever the UN asks. If another international nation, for this example I will use France and England (for obvious reasons), then this influence is done so through bilateral requests not through a forum body (ie. the decision to attack Libya would be made before it was even mentioned in the UN Security Council). If you want to make the claim that Obama is being controlled by certain international governments, fine, and if those governments use forums to make the official request, fine, but this doesn't mean that the body itself (The UN) has the ability to control the US armed forces. Otherwise, the US would be involved in EVERY UN peacekeeping mission since it would be the most cost effective method for the rest of the nations involved in the decision making process. This has certainly not been the case this far, with a perfect example being the UN peacekeeping force in Timor-Leste (and even when US support was requested, it was denied, so the forces were mainly Australian).

You brought up your official policy in response to my argument regarding the UN authority, stating that the president has "surrendered control of the US military to it". If this was the case, then essentially Chiina has control over the US military (*checks to see if Taiwan has been reintegrated with China* Nope!). Assisting certain nations (whether or not in relation to treaties) does not mean that they surrender their army to be controlled by global bodies. They have certain obligations under these bodies, but control still rests in the hands of the administration of the US (they still get the final decision, whether Congress or the President).

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This is more of a train of thought, adding it in but also recognise that it isn't on topic, so will attach it to the bottom more for a read:

I am curious now though, if places like France and England use NATO to gain US support in one of their issues, and the US Congress disagress, then there would be no assistance by the US. With that in mind, why on earth does any nation have a defence alliance with the US? Australia has a defence alliance with the US, and if in the time of need the US went "nah, Congress says we dun wanna" then Australia, who has lived up to their end of the bargain, would be super angry yes? I think it would be interesting to see if the US had an obligation to assist the attacks on Libya under NATO (and if Congress supported joining NATO in the first place).
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I do have mid-semester exams starting next week, but if you would like to continue this further, please reply and I will be able to reply better next weekend (need to find someway to remember about 1000 chinese characters over the next 3 days, how they are written, spoken, their meaning, and how to use them in a sentence, so will be rather busy over the weekend and the start of next week doing this )

To expand on Kemp's point:

It's one thing when a president flexibly interprets the constitution to serve their foreign policy objectives. But it borders on treason when they comply with UN orders because they recognize it as their commanding organization.

Put another way, a president becomes a traitor when they depart too far from what would be expected from a political realist. That doesn't mean Obama is a traitor, as it could still be a realist move on his part, but his actions make me suspicious of his motives.

Impeachment time?

Actually, Obama is a product of very corrupt times. Impeachment isn't good enough. I want the military to restore freedom and stain the marble floors of the capitol with the blue blood of our would-be aristocrats.