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The United Nations. The name seems to fan the flames in the hearts of Ron Paul supporters and others on the far right. But why?

There is, in fact, a shining golden nugget buried beneath the muck of nationalism, racism, and xenophobia: political sovereignty - freedom from external political control. But what kind of political sovereignty? Individual? State? National? For Ron Paul and his supporters, the most heated battle at the moment is over national sovereignty, and the fear that the UN will take it away and make Americans the subjects of an all-powerful world government.

Yet national sovereignty is not even their most treasured political authority. That glory goes to individual sovereignty. No other sovereignty comes close in importance. The other sovereignties are only important insofar as they guarantee individual control over our own lives. Without individual sovereignty, the individual is simply not free, and the so-called state and national sovereignties are no more than mirages.

A dictatorship, for example, may refer to its national sovereignty, but what it is really referring to is the sovereignty of the ruler, not the nation, since the regular people have no sway over the government's policies. This kind of sovereignty is usually best described as corporate sovereignty, or fascism, because the power being wielded in the name of the nation is merely the expression of a tiny, unelected governing body that has little if any concern for the collective interests of the nation in general. Any national sovereignty claimed by a non-democratic government is a delusion at best because a nation of people without personal sovereignty is a nation of subjects, not of voting members of the highest branch of a democratic national government-the Popular Branch.

For national sovereignty to exist, then, individual sovereignty is required.

Still, individual sovereignty is only a necessary condition, and not a sufficient condition of national sovereignty. National sovereignty would mean that a nation's people could speak and act effectively, collectively in the international sphere through its government, and this is, of course, something U.S. citizens have never really had in foreign affairs.

Our lack of national sovereignty today is a reality that exposes the muddled nature of Paul et al's thinking about this issue. Although the Constitution balances the three branches fairly well with regard to domestic policy, the Founders and subsequent precedent have made the Executive

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