The United Nations Separates the Good From the Bad

I never thought I'd say this, but: I think the U.N. may have gotten something right for a change. Albeit, no doing of their own. But right, nonetheless.

What I'm referring to when I make such a, normally, unfounded and irresponsible statement is their recent list of the 21 most desirable places to live in the world (yes, The United States is, surprisingly, on the list...at number 13. To be honest, I wasn't even expecting it to be on there at all). What the list tells us, what is so obvious to any right-thinking, freedom-loving, comfort-seeking human being is that the U.N. cannot, at least, deny facts all the time. Even the U.N. eventually has to succumb to the harsh realities of a world divided into two very separate distinctions: where would one want to live on Earth, and where would one not want to live? It's almost as simple as a game you would play out of boredom and over a few cocktails. If you were to ask a large group of people (drunk or not), you would get something close to the list of 21 countries the genius machine over at the U.N. came up with.

So, no, they don't get any credit for being necessarily original, or interesting, for that matter. All I said when I opened this diatribe was that they got something right. It's shocking, for sure, that they came up with a relatively normal and non-aggravating compendium. You would expect a list out of the shifty lot that named 21 out of the 47 countries in Africa as the most desirable places to live. But this particular list, to their chagrin, wasn't compiled based on opinion or deceptive propaganda. The list was based on data (something the U.N. typically uses to line their exotic bird cages). Figures regarding gross domestic product, education, and life expectancy. These are things that can't be ignored, they just are.

Of course, their report has to explain the hell out of their findings, just to make sure they don't lose any of the audience that typically cares what they say. The report says of countries on the bottom of the list, like Niger and Afghanistan, that, 'despite significant improvements over time, progress has been uneven.' That's one way of putting it. I mean Niger has it's problems, but Afghanistan? Come on, that's not even their fault. Afghanistan was completely 'even' before Bush started throwing his weight around. I'm surprised the list didn't have footnotes for the bottom countries. Something like:

#180-Sierra Leone* *-Bush took jobs away from child soldiers.
#181-Afghanistan* *-Bush's unnecessary and destructive war (obviously).
#182-Niger* *-Bush lied about yellow cake uranium (people died).

But I digress. What is telling about the list, and what I say the U.N. got right, but not by any motivation of their own, is that all 21 of the countries listed as the 'most desirable to live' are Western countries and/or Democracies (or some form of a constitutional monarchy). Of course this is an obvious result of the numbers, which, try as some might to get them to, don't lie.

The thing about the U.N. in the first place (and why the publication of this list is so ironic, and humorous to me) is that it functions as a unity of all nations despite the factors (or lack thereof) that came together to create this list. 'Gross domestic product, education, and life expectancy,' are usually things that get overlooked when the U.N. decides a country's worth. Even Obama said, in his speech to the U.N. in September:

"In an era when our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game. No one nation can or should try to dominate another nation. No world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will succeed. No balance of power among nations will hold. The traditional divisions between nations of the South and the North make no sense in an interconnected world."

Well, Mr. President, according to the data, countries 22 through 182 have some catching up to do. It's no big secret that the countries who don't exhibit a form of modernized civility are the countries in which one wouldn't want to relocate. Or at least it shouldn't be a big secret. But these days we're not supposed to judge another country despite their evident flaws. Whether they're neglecting their own people, harboring terrorists, proliferating nuclear weapons, denying the Holocaust, or abusing power and bleeding their own country until is dries out and dies. C'mon, man, we're all one big village. According to Obama, and many of the leaders he was speaking to, it makes no sense to espouse some "world order" for bottom-of-the-barrel and "developing" countries to live by. No, that would surely seem absolutist, and absolutism among nations is unspeakably politically incorrect. If it's obvious to you that the lower countries need to take some pointers from the top 21, then you need some hard lessons in multiculturalism, buddy. You think just because you have running water, you can go around saying you're right all the time.

However, the U.N. has inadvertently done just that for us with their analysis. It all goes back to a hypothesis: Where would a human being be the most happy? And, after all that data was gathered, the conclusion could have ended with the prediction: In a Democracy, stupid.