The United States pays more than any other nation to fund the United Nations. Roughly twenty two percent of the UN’s regular budget comes from American taxpayers. More than double what Japan pays. Nearly triple what China pays.

And now a senior UN official has publicly called for the United States to be isolated (see comment).

Not sanctioned regimes. Not dictatorships. Not governments that jail dissidents or persecute Christians. The United States.

This was not a fringe activist. It was the UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese speaking under UN authority, appointed by the Secretary General, urging the world to treat America as a pariah.

If an organization takes your money, condemns you, and calls for your isolation, the proper response is not reform. It is withdrawal.

The United Nations has failed morally, practically, and structurally. It is not a neutral referee. It is a political body that rewards voting blocs, excuses tyranny, and punishes the nations that actually carry the load.

The UN claims to exist to prevent atrocities. To protect the innocent. Its record proves otherwise.

In Rwanda in 1994, nearly one million people were slaughtered in roughly one hundred days. The UN was present. The warnings were explicit. The peacekeeping force was ordered not to act. Troops were withdrawn as the killing accelerated.

This is not disputed history. It is one of the clearest institutional failures of the modern era. The UN later admitted it failed. Admission did not resurrect the dead.

In Srebrenica in 1995, the UN designated a safe area. Civilians were told they would be protected. Dutch peacekeepers were present. When Serbian forces advanced, the UN failed to defend the zone it had promised to secure.

More than eight thousand men and boys were executed. The UN issued an internal report later acknowledging that the catastrophe occurred under its watch.

An institution that cannot protect people after explicitly promising to do so forfeits its moral authority.

Haiti is the most damning case against our continued involvement in the UN because it combines failure, harm, and denial.

For decades Haiti has been flooded with international aid. Billions of dollars. UN missions. Administrative control. Development plans.

Conditions are worse than ever.Gang rule dominates much of the country. Infrastructure has collapsed. Political order barely exists.

Worse still, the UN itself introduced cholera into Haiti through negligent sanitation practices at a peacekeeping base. Thousands died. For years the UN denied responsibility. When acknowledgment finally came, accountability did not.

If an organization cannot even be trusted to avoid poisoning the people it claims to help, it does not deserve unlimited funding or deference.

The UN insists that abuses by peacekeepers are isolated incidents. The record says otherwise. Their peacekeepers regularly prey on the most vulnerable.

From the Democratic Republic of Congo to the Central African Republic to Haiti, UN peacekeepers have been implicated in rape, sexual exploitation, and abuse of minors.

In many cases the perpetrators were quietly repatriated. Prosecutions were rare. Victims were left with trauma, children, and no justice.

This is not just individual failure. It is institutional failure. A system that lacks meaningful enforcement and shields offenders is complicit in the harm it enables.

An organization that cannot police its own agents does not get to lecture sovereign nations on human rights.

The UN human rights system routinely includes governments with appalling records. China sits on human rights bodies while operating internment camps. Iran lectures on justice while executing dissidents. Russia pontificates while leveling cities.

The problem is not hypocrisy alone. It is structure. The UN is not a merit based institution. It is a numbers game. Countries vote in blocs. Accountability disappears into committees. Moral clarity is buried under process.

The result is predictable. Those who abuse power face fewer consequences than those who restrain it.

Imagine letting my family vote on every major decision. There are seven of us. Five are children. They can easily agree on things that feel good and make life worse. More treats. No bedtimes. No work. No consequences.

That does not make them evil. It makes them unqualified.

In real life, those who provide food, shelter, and security make decisions. Those who depend on that provision do not get equal authority over how it is used.

At the UN, many nations contribute little or nothing while demanding aid, protection, and obedience from those who actually pay the bills. That is not democracy. It is dependency weaponized.

Charity does not mean surrender. Aid does not confer ownership. The United States feeds millions, secures trade routes, responds to disasters, funds medical research, and underwrites global stability. We do this while being told we are the problem.

At some point a responsible nation says no. Defunding the United Nations is not isolationism. It is realism.

America can engage directly with allies. We can fund humanitarian aid without laundering it through bureaucracies that reward failure. We can build coalitions based on shared values rather than shared resentment.

The UN had a purpose after World War Two. That purpose has decayed. What remains is an unaccountable institution that shelters tyrants, enables abuse, and condemns the very nations that sustain it.

It is time to stop paying for our own condemnation. It is time to defund the United Nations. NOW!

Clayton Wood is a Knoxville attorney and pastor who runs Thrive and Wears Valley Ranch.. He is a regular contributing writer for tristardaily.com.