I spent about two hours doing research yesterday to write a little something for y’all. The internet is a great tool, but when things aren’t meant to be found they aren’t going to be found, easily. I would assume, erroneously, that in a democracy where policies are supposedly driven by public opinion information about those policies would be readily available. I find it informative to research a country’s foreign policies to find it’s core values and what it is attempting to do in the world. The best place to find these policies is in the international democratic organization, the United Nations.

If you Google “UN votes” the first page that appears in the search is a goverment site titled Voting Practices in the United Nations. I thought I had found exactly what I was looking for and that life was going to be good. Unfortunately, the U.S. government apparently finds it useful to only post how other Sovereign entities are voting compared to their own. The site fails to detail how the U.S. voted on any issues period.

Well, the U.S. government didn’t want me to know how they were voting so I headed over to the U.N. site. After perusing their webpage for a while I finally found how to see how any given state voted. First, you search through a list of motions and what not to find the one you were looking for and then you can click and get the notes, which do very little to explain what they are voting on, you have to follow a different link for that. There is, however, at the bottom the actual votes recorded on the given issue.

I found a few issues that interested me and that seemed like no-brainers that I would approve of as a person. “The Rights of a Child,” “The Rights of Girl Children”, and “The Right to Development” are all things, after having read the bill to see exactly what they were trying to do, I agree with. On all three the U.S. voted against the motions. The U.N. site also includes explanations of countries, if given, of their vote. I looked up the one about Girl Children. No logical explanation was given, only that the U.S. claims that the motion gives no express rights internationally to anyone and does not recognize it as a binding treaty.

I would think that the biggest, most influential government that claims to promote democracy and freedom, would be the one fomenting the rights of a girl child to grow up before being encountered with sexual assault and diseases that none of us would wish on our worst enemy. Apparently, our government does not agree with those ideas.

I began researching our voting history in the U.N. to be able to publish it and make it available in another arena. Also, I was hoping to discuss democracy and how we can all do a better job of fomenting its existence here. Democratically ruled government is one that is impulsed by the will of the people, but the people aren’t being informed of what their leaders are doing. I hope that every U.S. citizen would be appalled to know that their government voted against these three issues in particular. It would be most interesting to see a full history of issues and how we have voiced ourselves.

The biggest problem impeding our pseudo-democracy is the lack of information. It is held that the Press is the fourth branch of government, the real watch dog of the people. Unfortunately, the press has been bought up and out by big business and is no longer concerned with the issues of the people. For a journalist to be successful, they must publish what it is that everyone already believes. Anyone going against the grain and trying to bring to light these things is labeled as anti-American, communist and unpatriotic.

I am a student of journalism. These are the reasons that I hope to never make any money doing what I want to do. It is a perfect gauge on how truthful and useful I am being to my readers.