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LaVerkin, UT vs. the United Nations:
21
st
Century Anti-Federalism?
On July 4
th
, 2001, the small town of LaVerkin, Utah became the first municipality in the
United States to become a “United Nations-Free Zone.” Choosing the day celebrating U.S.
national independence was no accident—the proponents of the ordinance intended to make a
connection between the founders’ patriotism and their own stance against the United Nations.
My academic interest stemmed from the question asked of me from an International Law and
Organization student who had just attended an on campus meeting sponsored by the John
Birch Society: “What would the founders have thought of the United Nations?”
Learning more about the LaVerkin activists, I found echoes of the Anti-Federalist
rationale for opposing the Philadelphia Constitution in their rationale for opposing the United
Nations. Since the Western Political Science Association Meetings invited cross-pollination
within our subfields, such a topic fit the general theme of “Borrowing from Ourselves:
Intradisciplinary Discussions in Political Science.” This paper first describes the events, issues,
and context of the anti-U.N. movement in LaVerkin, and then identifies 3 key common
denominators characterizing the political arguments and worldviews of both the 18
th
Century
Anti-Federalists and the 21
st
Century anti-U.N. activists.
Convention