Over the last few months I’ve heard more than one of my mostly liberal and intelligent friends say that we need a united world government to solve our problems.

It’s a terrible idea.

Fortunately nobody with any real power has been calling for this as a solution, oh, wait? What’s that? The Prime Minister of England, Gordon Brown has been calling for a New World Order for the last year and a half? That’s just brilliant. (In a sarcastic American English kind of way, not in a genuine, enthusiastic British English kind of way.)

One of the biggest problems with international crises is that people always tend to overreact to them.

Hitler was defeated over 60 years ago, but his legacy is as alive and strong today as ever. It’s not Nazism that I’m speaking of: it’s the idea that every single dictator is bent on world domination and the very hope for civilization itself rests in the possibility that a few good men will stand up to them… BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.

Hugo Chavez is nothing like Hitler.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is nothing like Hitler.

Saddam Hussein was nothing like Hitler.

It’s an insult both to these world leaders and to the millions upon millions of people who suffered at the hands of this man to compare them to Hitler and it’s a dangerous precedent to set, because terrible, albeit justified things were done in the name of stopping him.

Today’s Hitler is not a rogue leader or a charismatic politician: it takes the guise of the international financial crisis.

The language used to describe the crisis is eerily Churchillian. If we do not bail out these financial giants, then the entire global economy could collapse, we could enter another Great Depression, unless we all come together and unite now to solve this problem, the world will be in great danger!

No Sting to save us this time

A number of people are comparing our situation to Germany in the 30’s. They need to remember that Germany was STARVING in the 30’s, and the last time I checked, nobody in the U.S. or in any of the other major western industrial nations was starving. We’re going without health care and a decent education, but nobody is hungry in the street. So, let’s all take a deep breath and remind ourselves that hasty action can bring on even worse consequences.

Let’s not forget the fact that this crisis would not be nearly so widespread if our markets and politics weren’t already so intertwined. As I write this, the markets in Asia are opening and are up, mainly due to the promise of more aid for Citigroup here in America. Just imagine what would have happened if this economic crisis struck a world that was functioning under the rule of a single government, while using a single currency. There would be nowhere to invest, no one to borrow from, absolutely no way to get credit flowing again.

I believe that governments should pave roads, protect borders, and provide health care for its citizens, but I think that one massive world government is not the answer for poverty, disease, and war: I think it’s a recipe for disaster.

Some of the people I talked to about this say that there should be no executive branch in such a global government. In theory I agree, but this would make the entire idea a pipe dream. Do you really think that a worldwide government could function without an executive? Necessity would demand one. Multiply every thread of bureaucratic red tape in the world today by a thousand, and try to come up with a way to get anything done without a strong executive.

It can’t be done.

Therefore, I think the whole notion of one world government is inherently flawed.

Could it solve some problems? There’s no doubt. But the possibility of having one human being with that much power is a risk that none of us should be willing to take. Don’t think so?

This month, if Sarah Palin had gotten her ticket nine million more votes (a small number, globally speaking) then she would now be just one heartbeat away from becoming the leader of the free world. If that’s not a sobering lesson about the dangers of executive power, then I don’t know what is.