RIGHT SPEAK: Don’t Defund the U.N., Just Say ‘Go!’

The United Nations flag flies outside the headquarters
building in New York. (Reuters photo: Mike Segal)

The organization of crooks and dictators needs us much more than we need it.

There are some swamps that we have to drain because they’re our swamps. Washington is our swamp. The lesson of the 2016 election is that people across the ideological spectrum are furious at Washington. Our incoming president won because he convinced enough people that, while Hillary was a swamp creature, he — the self-styled outsider non-politician — would make like a big, shiny Trump colander. But Washington is not going away; once the ooze seeps out, the idea is to build something better — like how New Jersey keeps building new stadiums on the marshy Meadowlands. Well, good luck with that.

A U.N. Security Council Meeting

But look, even if we’re not very good at cleaning up our own messes, the fact that we know we should, that we know our messes sully us, is a sign of mental health.

So let’s see if that healthy instinct can help us grasp a principle that ought to be easier to apply: When it’s not your swamp and yet you’re being sullied by it, you don’t drain it. You leave it.