“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none.” -- Thomas Jefferson

The annual Bilderberg Conference will convene this weekend, thus throwing the Internet into a tizzy. One hundred forty or so of the world’s most powerful persons or their proxies, titans from industry, banking, media and a host of nongovernmental organizations, will covertly huddle at a ritzy Swiss resort.

The Bilderbergers ostensibly meet each year to brainstorm about the day’s great international issues. Their discussions remain off the record so that politicians and others in sensitive roles can speak candidly without risking “gotcha” exposés.

Conspiracy theorists believe the Bilderbergers control the course of world events. That through crisis and uncertainty they steer society’s great developments with an ultimate goal of establishing a New World Order. Naturally led by them, of course.

It is certainly concerning that representatives from Washington, Wall Street and the media will meet with no account of their dealings or details of their plans. Their counterparts from across the North Atlantic will attend too. It reeks of collusion and intrigue. The lack of transparency and potential for concentrated power spurs the imagination, while unsettling the mind. The media, despite some of its most influential personalities participating, will ignore the proceedings.

Admittedly, it’s fascinating that some secret society, like the Wizard of Oz, choreographs events on a global stage. Puppet masters of the public’s fate. Conspiracy theories punctuate the otherwise mundane din of modern life, but riveting as it all appears, I’m not buying it. Would they? Absolutely. Could they? Implausible.

Are there sinister schemes undermining our national sovereignty? Are shady business dealings being conducted through illicit favoritism? Is insider trading and collusion occurring that would land mere peons behind bars? Will the fourth estate, supposedly free to check government encroachment, serve as willing accomplices to corruption?

Yes!

There is abundant evidence trans-nationalists plot to establish global hegemony and diminish our national sovereignty. A very large international organization has been conspiring with our elected officials for exactly that purpose for decades.

It’s called the United Nations.

The UN publicly seeks enhanced global governance to redistribute wealth, enact environmental restrictions, systematize regulatory bodies, impose financial controls and even enforce politically correct social engineering. The UN’s intentions are surely worrisome and its corruption is staggering, but it’s hardly clandestine. It’s one of the world’s most visible organizations.

Thankfully it’s also dysfunctional.

Numerous other international bodies pop up in the news periodically, but nobody really knows why they exist or what they do. Why is there still an International Monetary Fund forty years after Bretton Woods expired? Why does NATO remain 20 years after the Warsaw Pact imploded? Why does Washington care what they say?

There is also ample proof politicians are being bought and powerful business interests regularly secure unfair advantages. TARP was enacted in broad daylight and quickly superseded the confining pretenses under which it was enacted. Washington bailed out its Wall Street benefactors and anyone else with the right connections.

The crude manner in which AIG’s bailout transpired or how Merrill Lynch was foisted upon Bank of America reveals a government undistracted by the rule of law. This column will never begrudge wealth fairly earned, but why were some rescued and others not? Why does our government violate its own disclosure rules? Most of our elected officials seem quite unperturbed.

The press barely noticed, but Ben Bernanke quietly funneled trillions of American dollars abroad to rescue foreign firms. The Fed’s Quantitative Easing programs continue generating lucrative windfalls to Goldman Sachs and other standard villains of conspiracy lore. Fiat, an Italian firm with lengthy Bilderberg connections, was gifted a chunk of Chrysler by our own president.

It’s also clear that those in media have specific agendas. George Soros spends lavishly to influence the media and domineer the FCC. He even financed the campaigns of corruptible election officials through his “Secretary of State Project,” which begat Senator Al Franken.

Other election events seem curious. Why did Barack Obama jet to Europe preening as “a citizen of the world” mid-campaign? Whom did he cajole? What was resolved? Why then did the media ignite an economic explosion almost at the instigation of Obama’s handlers?

No financial upheaval and no President Obama. In normal times, the American people would never have elected an un-vetted candidate with distinctly anti-American views. It makes one wonder: Who programs the ubiquitous teleprompter?

The Bilderbergers, Trilateralists and most everyone else in power manipulate anything they can conceivably manipulate to gain any advantage they might gain. The media only cover what they will to accomplish what they wish. And it’s not limited to this weekend. Power is a magnet and power corrupts.

These shady organizations likely have vast plans, but life isn’t so easily planned. It's not that they wouldn't scheme in such manners. Many no doubt do, but economies can't be controlled from above and governments can't be made competent beyond the local level. No one can predict the inscrutable variations in human endeavors. The future will progress in as many diverse directions as there are people seeking diverse ends.

It’s frankly preposterous to presume several hundred of the world’s biggest egos could set aside their pride and selfish dispositions to concoct a world takeover in perfect lockstep. Does anyone really believe our inept government or their equivalents in Europe could secretly steer anything effectively? If the misfits in Washington were thus capable, the economy wouldn’t be sputtering along pathetically today.

Former majority leader Trent Lott deemed controlling senators from his own party “herding cats.” Many a medieval king, frustrated at his inability to temper the machinations of his vassals, would sympathize. Petty feudal rivalries rendered nascent nation states mere geographic expressions. Thinking today’s aristocrats could be so tamed across party lines, international boundaries and diverse cultures – quietly no less – defies logic.

Bernanke may be plotting international conspiracies to reward his Wall Street buddies and their global compatriots. But he can’t even get ours – the most vibrant and self rejuvenating market in the world – to rebound. Thinking that some ultra secret cabal dominates the world defies man’s very nature and gives the conspirators too much credit.

Corruption and intrigue aren’t really conspiracies, just the nature of big government. That’s why Washington’s power must be limited and its duties precisely defined.