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Biggest Brother Wants Your Children

Of all the dark clouds forming on America’s horizon, few are more worrisome than the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This treaty, if passed by our Senate, would be used to replace constitutional protections to families and impair your right to govern your children. The family is the basic unit of government, and communities keep government close to the family to protect freedoms. Cities form counties which form states to shield families from an overreaching federal government. This threat goes beyond federal encroachment to worldwide control.

There are two problems in the matter of the Convention of the Rights of the Child: world government’s plan to barge into the parenting arena and the widespread but mistaken belief that this, or any, treaty replaces the Constitution.

First, the belief that a treaty can change the Constitution: there are only two lawful ways to do so. The Constitution’s Article V describes both; both involve the Senate, House of Representatives and the states. The president is a non-player. A treaty follows a different path: the president originates it and the Senate ratifies it, skipping the House—the legislative body that represents the common people. If a treaty changed the Constitution, the people would have had no say in the change to their government. Because they are the power source behind our constitutional republic, their input is mandatory.

Nonetheless, sixty years ago President Dwight D. Eisenhower bullied this political chicanery into practice. Anyone who declares that the U.N.’s Convention on the Rights of the Child would supersede the Constitution is either deceptive or ignorant. The latter is a real possibility, since most members of Congress either don’t understand the Constitution or deliberately ignore it, according to washingtontimes.com, which says, “Goofs, shortcuts and misreadings (of the Constitution) abound”. Lawmakers who mistakenly believe a treaty predominates would act as such, making it happen.

The second problem is the treaty, itself. The United Nation’s Children’s Fund, (UNICEF) says this treaty is a “universally agreed set of non-negotiable standards and obligations” that our legal system would be required to enforce. Its purpose: “No child should be treated unfairly on any basis.” Governments should “take all available measures to make sure children’s rights are respected, protected, and fulfilled”. Governments are to ”ensure that the minimum standards set by the Convention in these areas are being met.” (Do you hear Big Brother knocking?)

The problem: who sets the standards and who defines “unfairly”? An international committee would set the standards for all children worldwide—a right previously given to parents, based on their religious and moral values. This committee would also define “treated fairly” and you would comply with their definition. The treaty declares that children would choose their religion, with parents as advisors, only. Forget unified family worship, parents teaching tiny ones to pray, or the teaching of a common moral standard. What moral standards would prevail? Katie Hatziavramidis, in “Parental Involvement Laws for Abortion in the United States” gives us a glimpse: “Ratification of the (CRC treaty) by the United States holds a strong possibility of assisting minors who seek abortions without parental interference…(to) offer the best hope for securing adolescent reproductive freedoms.” You would likely have to forget about teaching your moral standards to your children.

A child’s right to leisure, as defined by the committee, would be legally enforceable, inviting clashes with the parents’ need to teach work skills and personal responsibility. Some disciplinary practices would be outlawed, further hobbling parents. The treaty also requires that no country could spend more on programs such as defense than on children’s well-being. This would dictate national policies and inevitably expand our welfare state.

Nations who sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child will be required to interpret and enforce its policies on their citizens. Scotland has already complied with the treaty, assigning a government agent to each child in the nation to act as an advocate—a task that has been the role of parents throughout history. In Scotland, under this massive enlargement of the welfare state, parental authority is now secondary to that of the government advocate for the child.

This treaty has arisen under the banner of human rights—a badly misused term. Its incubator is the humanism that denies God and inalienable rights, making individuals pawns to political expediency. It is a massive step toward world government and the sham that says government is God: government giveth, and government taketh away.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is a classic example of something whose title sounds good but which is remarkably bad, proving that nomenclature and reality are often at odds. This 20 year old treaty is real and very much alive. The Obama administration strongly favors it along with many liberal senators. Only the US and Somalia have withheld acceptance, a matter President Obama says is “embarrassing”.

Many well-meaning organizations, such as Kiwanis and Girl Scouts, support the treaty. They surely do not understand its ramifications. Those who oppose the treaty are profiled as lacking understanding of how human rights treaties work. It is, rather, the opposite—we understand exactly how they work: they take away individual choices. Talk to Utah’s senators and those of other states, and keep your eyes on this treaty. It is bad news.