While seeking an answer for why anyone in their right mind would oppose the Convention on the Rights of the Child, I found a rather lengthy article on the Heritage Foundation website. You can see the full version here.
As a warning, it is really long. But that is to be expected as it takes a lot of work to make idiocy sound like wisdom. I'm going to run through the most important of their points, and show you why only dipshits could have thought of them. Here we go!
The essay, or whatever, starts with a quote. Amusingly, by Whittaker Chambers. Who is he? Oh, nobody, just a Soviet Spy who went Benedict Arnold for the U.S.A. Good start to your paper, Heritage. America hates traitors! Unless, of course, they betray someone else for us after we bribe them with lots of money! Let's listen to what the rat has to say!
"Whittaker Chambers once described the Cold War as the "critical conflict of…the two irreconcilable faiths of our time-Communism and Freedom."[1] Freedom prevailed in that grave clash of the 20th century, but it remains embattled in a new cold war of ideas."
Okay, they are setting up a rhetorical argument to make peace-time akin to war-time. Wait for it!
"As the United States defends its freedom at home and abroad, it can expect to be endlessly engaged in cold wars of ideas. America is a nation built on an idea: specifically, the principle "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with cer tain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." That idea had its enemies in 1776, and it continues to have them today.
"[W]ars of ideas are fought in terms of ideas and for the sake of ideas. It follows that ideas…must be in good fighting shape," wrote the late Adda Bozeman, an expert on the interrelation of culture and statecraft.[2] Today, a number of the ideas essential to the American order-including those about the importance of family, religion, and civil society in relation to freedom-are not in prime "fighting shape." This leaves the United States vulnerable to opposing views advanced in the international arena, particularly at the United Nations."
Of course! Now that the Cold War is over, and the threat of nuclear annihilation not quite so imminent, it's important to remember that the U.S.A. is in constant warfare with anyone who disagrees with it.
Do you like Twilight? You did? I didn't! WE ARE AT WAR!
Look, Heritage. People disagree all the time. Nations disagree all the time because nations are run by people. These disagreements are not wars. Wars are wars. Until someone shoots and someone dies, everyone is just talking (and perhaps putting hands in each other's pants to either stroke or squeeze).
Finally, how is an idea in "fighting shape"? What the fuck does that even mean? An idea gets "in-shape" by "fighting" against other ideas. It's called a discussion. You know: those things you must think you're having all the time, but since you never listen to the people talking back to you, it's more like a dictation followed by a nap.
But, for the sake of argument, I'll humor you. Let's take a look at these ole' "fighting ideas".
The first, and only, real concern of Heritage: Power.
"One defining characteristic of national sovereignty is the authority to protect and preserve both a public and a private sphere. A nation must defend its government and its people in their private lives. In the case of America, the self-stated purpose of sovereignty is to secure a society in which citizens are free to enjoy the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Preserving American civil society is an inherent purpose of U.S. national security."
This actually sounds solid. It makes sense. It has a good purpose. Or so you might think.
See, this is where they lure you in. This paragraph sounds reasonable, but they are just setting up their argument AGAINST international human rights legislation (you know, the stuff the entire rest of the world agreed on). See, to the Heritage Foundation, the POWER to make child soldiers is more important than the need to make sure child soldiers don't exist anywhere. In the back of their minds, they are thinking: "Well, what if we want to send American kids to war sometime? What if someone calls us on our evil? We can't have that! We better not sign this paper!"
Does this happen is real life? YES! In Somalia, the government AMERICA SUPPORTS is using NINE YEAR OLDS WITH AK47s to advance AMERICAN INTERESTS.
Child soldiers are bad, unless they are black and fighting for America, then GO FOR IT!
Let's see how this develops! I'm excited! Are you? :D
"From the U.S. constitutional perspective, such social issues fall within the sovereign domain of the United States. Further, many of them remain the province of state or local authorities or are outside the purview of public policy altogether as matters subject to individual private decisions. These social issues properly belong within the jurisdiction of the citizens of the United States, who should determine which level of government should formulate public policy or whether the matter should be left within the sphere of civil society, protected within-but not regulated by-the constitutional order of the United States.
'U.S. government officials should protect American civil society and retain jurisdiction over domestic social issues by resisting policy encroachment into these areas by the United Nations and its many subsidiaries. As the elected, legislative branch of U.S. government with the primary responsibility for policymaking at the federal level, Congress should maintain increased awareness of the scope of U.N. policymaking and exercise greater over sight of U.S. involvement in U.N. policymaking bodies. Preserving constitutional authority over domestic policy should be a clear objective within overall U.S. foreign policy. Protecting civil society is critical to the freedom agenda."
Again, this sounds perfectly reasonable. Until you remember that the "policy encroachment" into "domestic social issues" is the various laws for human rights as agreed to by the U.N. Basically, Heritage Foundation is resisting the idea of U.N. involvement based on the idea that it could potentially conflict with the desires of the American people.
Now, this is a viable argument because history does back it up.
In the 1800s, the United States of America was the last Western Nation to uphold human slavery. We often faced and eventually bowed to international pressure to end the slave trade, but resisted efforts to end slavery itself (we could just breed them like cattle, said the conservatives of the time). The world was at odds with the general desire of the American people.
But, as seems to be forgotten by Heritage, this was FUCKING HUMAN SLAVERY. If there had been a U.N. around to stop the evil of that foul institution, by God, it had better done its fucking job.
Heritage lives by the naive` idea that America is some great well of goodness, from which the eternal waters of blissful freedom bubble to envelop the world.
FUCKING WRONG.
America is a land of ignorant, blind, selfish assholes who are so busy polishing the pedestals they placed themselves on, they forgot about the 80% of humanity they are crushing beneath them.
The U.S.A. needs to be curtailed by U.N. human rights laws because, in our neo-imperialism, we are one of the biggest violators. That is what Heritage is worried about: Our tire companies, our sweatshops, all of the tiny, little ways we make the world miserable so we can buy a dozen clothes hangers for a dollar. A dollar! So cheap!
Okay, let's move on.
Naturally, you have to throw in the desires of the Founding Fathers somewhere. After all, where better to find the solutions to today's problems than hundreds of years in the past?
"The American Founders frequently asserted that virtue and religion are essential to maintaining a free society because they "secur[e] the moral conditions of freedom."[5] Man is capable of both justice and evil, they believed, and needs to be inspired to love his neighbors and restrained from harming them by a moral authority beyond government edict. Political solutions must take man's nature into account, moderating it through checks and balances for those in power and encouraging it toward profitable activity in the private sphere.
If affections like familial love and religious faith have the power to pacify the human passions that provoke conflict, family and religion can be counted among the allies of freedom. Furthermore, if the family can provide for the welfare of individuals, particularly children, more effectively than the state can, then marriage and parental authority should have the respect of the law. In a free society, law and policy should create an environment in which family, religious observance, and private associations will flourish. This means, in part, securing the private sphere in which these institutions can thrive free from both external threat and internal governmental encroachment."
I wonder what drinks the Founding Fathers had their black slaves bring them while they discussed the human capacity for justice and evil.... perhaps a good corn whiskey on the rocks, made from that plant the Native Americans gave us, and in thanks, we then committed mass genocide on their people and culture.
Anyway, this is just the same argument again. You'll find that in most conservative writing: the same shit, over and over again. It goes with the definition, I suppose. Did you know that the congressional speeches against immigration have remained unchanged since conservative Americans thought the Irish were the scum of the Earth? Now they just thinly veil their racism against Mexicans because it's passe`. Sigh. Gone are the days when you could rely on racial slurs to elect you all the way to Capital Hill.
And no, this isn't going off topic. I have a point here. It is this:
America has NEVER been a land where justice has ruled. Injustice is king, and remains so until the underdog party of the oppressed rises against the foot on its neck to stand tall; Only to then put its own foot on the neck of the group next in line.
Any argument based on the inherent justice of the American people is pure folly.
And. Of course. The external threat of encroachment the Heritage Foundation is worried about is human rights legislation. OH NOES! THEY WON'T LET US BEAT OUR WOMENZ!
Next in the Foundation's paper, the destruction of the U.N.'s reputation! Another common rhetorical strategy of the conservative to debunk a program it does not agree with: make all of its successes seem trivial, and flout all the ways it doesn't work perfectly, no matter how trivial.
"Headlines about cease-fires and negotiations to avert war often obscure the ongoing functional work of the United Nations. Far from being merely a forum in which the nations of the world can assemble in moments of crisis, the U.N. and its agencies in fact debate, oversee, and budget for projects and issues well beyond military and humanitarian emergencies. Although not originally promoted as an entity that would become involved in actively seeking to shape member states' domes tic policies, the U.N. has become increasingly intrusive in these arenas.
"But while functional interaction among nations has increased through the U.N. and related organizations, it has not ushered in an era of peace. The internationalization of the administrative state has merely opened a new front for political conflict among nations. States lacking military power have a new means of confronting traditionally stronger nations on the world stage. Expanded international policymaking has thus heightened, not transcended, power politics."
Yes! Ignore all those headlines about the U.N. preventing war! It's only doing exactly what it was designed to do! You know: world peace, kthx? Don't you see? The U.N. is a bureaucracy! GASP! They hold meetings about budgets and about what they are going to do and how! GASP! Everyone knows the TRUE way of doing something: get an idea in your head, say FUCK YOU to anyone who disagrees, and do what you want anyway.
According to the Heritage Foundation, the U.N. hasn't ushered in an era of peace (despite the first sentence of the first paragraph, but the reader is expected to be an idiot and forget that concession). Don't you see? People in the U.N. argue all the time! They never agree on anything! They are WAGING WARS OF WORDS.
Do you begin to see the terrible circulation of the conservative mind?
If ideas fight, then discussions are wars, and so whenever the nations gather at the U.N. to have a discussion, it's a WORLD WAR!!!
Not just, you know, diplomats seeking peaceful solutions to international differences.
Moving on...
What would a conservative think tank be without the corruptive dogma of Christian thought?
"The Universal Declaration recognizes "the inherent dignity and…the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family."[29] Unlike the United States' Declaration of Independence, how ever, it never identifies a source of or rationale for humanity's inherent dignity or man's inalienable rights. The failure to address these fundamental philosophical questions has hampered the efficacy of human rights law and has not prevented egre gious violations of basic human rights. More than 50 years after the creation of the U.N., ongoing wide-scale abuse and genocide, most notably in places like Sudan, demonstrate the inadequacy of U.N. functional bodies in promoting and protecting basic human rights."
I believe the "source" that the Heritage Foundation is trying to avoid naming here is God. Just a hunch.
So apparently, according to the Heritage Foundation, only laws mired in the desires of the Christian God can truly promote human rights. That is why Sudan is messed up. Because the U.N. laws are not "Christian". Not because of age-old ethnic and religious tensions aggravated by wide-scale poverty and corruption. It's so obvious!
And let us not forget the fact that Christians are pinnacles of moral authority throughout history! After all, Christianity has only massacred billions of people, practically wiped clean both North and South America of native human civilization, and committed such atrocity in the Middle East that no amount of modern Islamic Terrorists could ever shed as much blood. So yes, only the Christian God could ever know goodness.
You know what else is common in conservative thought? Ethnocentrism. It's practically a defining tenant: My shit is soooo good, it should never change!
Finally, I hold this final argument to be self-defeating. If you read the following and expect the Heritage Foundation to give a reason as to why it believes women should not have the right to abortions, no one should have contraceptives, and why it thinks homosexuals and trans-genders do not deserve legal protection, you will be disappointed. They just take it for granted. Don't you see? God HATES those people, so why protect their human rights?
"Reproductive and Sexual "Rights." "Reproductive health" has become one of the most contentious social issue battlefronts at the United Nations, and abortion has been at the center of the ongoing debate. The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the product of the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, defines reproductive health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity, in all matters relating to the reproductive system and to its functions and processes."[37] The Platform for Action-the document that details the strategic objectives and actions that governments committed to undertake to achieve the Beijing Declaration's stated goals- goes on to assert that people ought to be "able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and…the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when and how often to do so."[38]The U.N. Population Fund explicitly "calls for women's empowerment in all spheres of life, particularly regarding their reproductive and sexual health and rights."[39]
International advocacy groups have gone a step further. According to Human Rights Watch, for example:
[W]omen's decisions about abortion are not just about their bodies in the abstract, but rather about their human rights relating to personhood, dignity, and privacy more broadly. Continuing barriers to such decisions…interfere with women's enjoyment of their rights.[40]
Human Rights Watch has argued that "international human rights legal instruments and interpretations of those instruments by authoritative U.N. expert bodies compel the conclusion that access to safe and legal abortion services is integral to the ful fillment of women's human rights generally."[41] The NGO's claim is based on the conclusions and recommendations that U.N. treaty-monitoring bodies have issued to member states.
This regulatory practice is prevalent. As of early 2005, U.N. treaty bodies had issued recommendations in at least 122 instances urging 93 countries to modify their abortion laws.[42] Like many other countries, the United States has sought repeatedly to keep these sensitive matters within its sphere of sovereignty.[43]
The movement to create sexual rights has included an effort to define sexual orientation as a human right. To this end, the Human Rights Committee has been critical of many member states, including the U.S., for their laws respecting sexual orientation. For example, in recent concluding observations about the U.S., the Human Rights Committee "notes with concern the failure to out law employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in many [U.S.] states."[44] A 2004 press release from Amnesty International is partic ularly illuminating:
That is the end of the section. No joke. The argument just ends right there. It's as if the very fact that another organization is CRITICIZING the U.S.A. for BREAKING INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW is reason enough to not get involved in human rights legislation.Sexual rights are human rights…. There is a long legacy of advocacy on sexuality and human rights within the U.N. arena that will continue until all people are free to exercise all their human rights without discrimination of any kind.[45]"
Sorry, world. The United State of America will only promote Liberty, Freedom, and Justice to the people who's human rights we are not currently violating. Cheers!
And finally, why is the Heritage Foundation against the Convention on the Rights of the Child?
"The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child includes numerous provisions that would distance children from their parents' oversight, infringing on parental rights and authority in their child's edu cation and upbringing. For example:
Good lord. The U.N. wants to make sure that children have FREE WILL. UNACCEPTABLE!!!!The child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child's choice.[48]"
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