... we must seem like sometimes--often? always?--to the rest of the world. From the depths of their great wisdom, our Senators yesterday declined the opportunity to ratify a United Nations treaty that would have done nothing worse than use our own US standards on disabled people as a laudable model for other countries. Apparently this was because the treaty included a section saying that "The best interests of the children shall be a primary consideration." "A direct assault on us and our family," roared once-Presidential candidate (!) Rick Santorum, who led the charge, at a press conference, asserting his belief that this harmless phrase would lead to the end of home-schooling in the US.
That such nonsense can garner enough votes in the United States Senate to defeat American support for a patently humanitarian initiative is appalling. I understand that right-wingers entertain an unshakable belief that the United Nations is hell bent on converting our country into a socialist state in the thrall of world dominance, but this is absurd. And this is supposed to be our sober, deliberative body? Idiots, sorry, seems too polite a word.
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I found it impossible to believe that the home schooling argument was what they used to vote against it. If this were the case, and if there were any way to construe home schooling as being against the best interest of children (disabled or otherwise), then we would be going after home schooling in this country already, since this treaty was directly modeled after US law. Crazy...
I truly wonder what the standards are for being a senator. Most are attorneys and are well schooled in avoiding conflict and protecting their clients from adversity. We are their clients. My attorney is my friend. The person/senators who cast their vote, my vote, against are not concerned about rational choices.
I'm beginning to think that Mark Twain was more than correct when he said, "In religion and politics people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing."
We have our own share of idiocy on this side of the Atlantic.
I find it absurd that this excuse can be used to stop a beneficial treaty. How can the best interests of the children be an assault on the family? Surely if the evidence is in favour of home schooling, then there's nothing to fear?
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