I would like to explain something of my mission here. . . We know from scientific observation that your planet has discovered a rudimentary kind of atomic energy. We also know that you're experimenting with rockets. . . But soon one of your nations will apply atomic energy to spaceships. That will create a threat to the peace and security of other planets. That, of course, we cannot tolerate. I came here to warn you that by threatening danger, your planet faces danger, very grave danger. . . Your choice is simple, join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration. . . I am leaving soon. And you will forgive me if I speak bluntly. The universe grows smaller every day and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure. Now this does not mean giving up any freedom. Except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them. We, of the other planets, have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all planets and for the complete elimination of aggression. The test of any such higher authority is of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked. At the first sign of violence they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk. The result is, we live in peace. Without arms or armies. Secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more profitable enterprises.

Sounds great doesn't it? Perpetual Peace and Prosperity? The Problem is that the Earth is not the Garden of Eden, in an idyllic paradisiacal state. Death and corruption exist in the world as a direct result of Adam's fall. It was this corruption, according to Aristotle, for the reason that even the best of governments degenerate over time. A Monarchy will degenerate into a dictatorship. Aristocracies into Oligarchies. Republics eventually into mob rule or anarchy. The process, over time, is inevitable.

To grant an international body the police and military power it needs to keep the "peace", such as the one Klaatu suggests in the movie, however benevolent it claims to be, will only lead over time to a grander, more wide open, tyranny than the world has ever before seen.

Jefferson saw clearly that "What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun?" as he asked rhetorically in a letter to a friend, was, "with the generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body." (1) The U.S. Constitution was deliberately designed to avoid this concentration of power. In fact, it was this attempt by our Founding Fathers at avoidance of concentrated power through the vertical (Federal, State and local) and horizontal (Legislative, Executive and Judicial) separation of powers and the use of elaborate checks and balances designed into the system is precisely where, in the words of that great Constitutionalist J. Reuben Clark, the Founding Fathers possessed both "genius . . . and divine inspiration." (2)

Yet, concentrated power in the hands of a few is exactly what has been proposed at the UN Millennium Summit last week. Among the "12 areas for urgent action" are proposals to "create a full-time international security force", ratification of both an International Criminal Court and an International environmental Court, as well as recommendations for global taxation.

As Kent Snyder who is executive director of Liberty Study Committee said recently, "Let's just say that the intentions of the U.N. are good, World peace, happiness for all ... that's all good, and let's say we don't differ on the ends, but we differ on the means."

"But the consensus is," Snyder continued, "that centralized power is the enemy of liberty, and history is replete with examples: Germany, Soviet Russia, the hierarchy of royal families, Cleopatra, the war lords of Japan."

Will we remember why the Founding Fathers rejected concentrated power? Will we reject this UN Concentration of power? "The decision", said Klaatu, "rests with you."

-- Notes

1. Jefferson said, the powers concerning "war, peace, negotiation and distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to. Let the national government be entrusted with the defense of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations; the State governments with the civil rights, law, police, and administration of what concerns the State generally, the counties with the local concerns of the counties, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations . . . that all will be done for the best. What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body." (Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Joseph C. Cabell in 1816, as quoted by Ezra Taft Benson in "The Constitution: A Heavenly Banner", September 1987)