By Tom Ryan, Kansas City Star Reader Advisory Panel

I remember the commercial when I was young…the smiling hostess from some far away land. “Come to the UN”, she said, as if it was this magical theme park. It seems amazing, this farmers market of international relations. Some conservatives get nervous at the UN, though.

Itching for a debate? But no one is crying wolf about the UN today. No one’s really slamming the President for humbly entering the fray. Those voices of our “Kingdom of Fear” (borrowing Hunter S. Thompson’s book title) must be scratching their heads over health care. That bill is very complicated by the way. But one would think someone would scare us today, telling us we’re about to lose our independence from the forces of world peace domination. Could someone pop out of a Congressional lunch and make us worry, please?

Plenty of old speeches out there to use. No need to write anything new. Our military might shall be weakened by peace-keeping duty! We will lose our national treasure on programs we can do better ourselves. Those representatives use this forum for their own political purposes…there’s three ideas.

We use the UN forum when it’s in our national interest to do so. So goes government. Have people become too practical or just pre-occupied with the John Edwards counseling reality show? I’m here if anyone wants to talk about the UN…