FROM THE EDITOR.

GARY BENOIT

If evil could be eliminated from the hearts of men, there would be no more terrorism and no more tyranny. There would be no need for the government to protect us from evildoers and no need for the people to pay any attention to the affairs of their government. But although we should always strive to do good and to encourage others to do the same, we would be very foolish indeed if we were to conclude that we could somehow eradicate sin.

Americans have enjoyed the blessings of liberty for centuries. We have been so blessed because our Constitution provides the federal government with enough power to protect freedom but not so much power that the government could extinguish the very freedom it is supposed to protect.

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master," George Washington is reputed to have said. Historically, our Constitution has proven to be a durable fire wall against tyranny and terror. Other peoples in other lands have not been so fortunate. In the last century, the Communists killed tens of millions of innocent human beings and the Nazis killed millions more. Such are the deadly consequences of allowing men to acquire a monopoly of power over their fellow men.

The evil that struck our country on September 11th was a wake-up call. It showed not only that the wickedness that resided in the hearts of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and Hitler still exists today, but that even a country as great and prosperous as America can not afford to be complacent. We must protect our freedoms against the terrorist threat by restoring the internal security safeguards we have neglected and even dismantled. But we must not be stampeded into accepting the loss of our precious freedom and national independence in exchange for a false promise of security -- a false promise that will result in neither freedom nor security but in the terror of the police state.

This special issue of THE NEW AMERICAN shines the light of truth on the United Nations, an organization that, its architects promised, would be "mankind's last best hope for peace." And how would it achieve world peace? Not by changing the hearts of men but by imposing its will on all the peoples of the earth. Never mind that the UN is infested with terrorists and despots -- including the sponsors of the international terrorist network. A United Nations given sufficient power to enforce world peace would instead use the power to impose world tyranny. If such an empowered United Nations is created, then the sponsors of terrorism who seek the total concentration of power in the hands of a global government will have won.

But the totalitarians and would-be totalitarians who hope to use the terrorist threat and other crises to build their new world order have their work cut out for them. They may favor the UN flag, but the American people still love and cherish the stars and stripes. The tremendous patriotic response to September 11th has proven that.

Yet, without an understanding of the dangers of UN empowerment, the wonderful patriotic spirit of the American people could be misdirected. It is our hope that wide distribution of this issue will help create some of the necessary understanding. We can and must protect ourselves from terrorism -- but not through the loss of our Constitution, and not through the UN.