You will hardly find a stauncher opponent hater of the United Nations in American politics than Ron Paul. He wants to cut off all American funding for the United Nations and abolish the UN completely. He also spreads cooky conspiracy theories about UN takeovers of the US government.
It’s nutty stuff, so naturally you would think he’d be the last person to avail himself of help from the United Nations. Right?
Wrong.
Here’s the story: RonPaul.com is owned by Ron Paul fans and supporters, not Ron Paul himself. Ron Paul the person wants control of the domain name and is accusing the owners of RonPaul.com of cybersquatting. The institution that arbitrates and adjudicates domain name disputes just happens to be a United Nations agency. So, last week Ron Paul took his case to the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
The irony here is worth dwelling upon for a moment. Just four years ago, Ron Paul found the UN so odious he introduced the American Sovereignty Restoration Act. The bill would kick UN headquarters out of the USA and end all American participation and funding for UN agencies. That would include groups like the World Health Organization, UNICEF…and WIPO. Now, Paul is turning for help to the very institution he so recently wanted to destroy.
Ron Paul isn’t the only UN-bug to go this route. In October 2009, Glenn Beck (who recently authored of a nutty book about a nefarious UN plot to take over America) petitioned WIPO over the Glenn Beck parody site glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com. It seems that when the going gets tough, even the most vocal UN bashers think the UN can be a valuable and useful global institution.