self-inspection, it appears that they’re back to their wacky ways.
rejection on Tuesday by GOP senators of a UN treaty to protect the rights of the disabled
worldwide demonstrated a sharp right turn away from all the talk in November of
a more moderate Republican Party.
Convention on the Rights of Disabled People, which has already gained support
in 138 countries. This is the sudden return of occasional Republican “nuttiness,” as
RedState’s Erick Erickson has called it, with claims of secret UN motivations to
harm disabled children.
comments by former senator Rick Santorum (who publicly urged a “no” vote) and
decided the U.S.
had dodged a bullet – this guy could actually have become president. Santorum
put forward a conspiracy theory about secret UN intentions and claimed that
under the treaty his disabled daughter would have been put to death, cast aside
as a useless human.
fact, an attempt to bring the rest of the world up to American standards.
vote was Bob Dole, former senate majority leader and a partially disabled war
veteran. Dole visited the Senate floor in a wheelchair, having been recently
hospitalized, and reminded his former colleagues that the CRDP pact was one of
his top priorities.
remained pragmatic and practical on issues of this magnitude.
eye around the world, as this report from Quartz, a website that covers
international news, clearly shows:
“Here’s a lesson in America’s
weird political institutions: How Christian conservatives lead the Republican Party
to reject a treaty that endorsed existing American law.
“The US Senate voted (Tuesday) on ratifying the UN Convention on the
Rights of Disabled People 61-38, but the majority fell short of the 66
votes needed for ratification. The 38 votes against came from Republican
senators, most of whom signed a letter promising not to support the bill. The
letter was organized by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah,
who said
the treaty threatened U.S.
sovereignty and could force the parents of disabled children to send them to
public schools. It drew the support of home-schoolers who also fretted that the
treaty was, among other things, a sly way to force America to
adopt laws enshrining “abortion rights, homosexual rights, and demands (for) the
complete disarmament of all people.”
“The last reference, obviously, is designed to scare American conservatives
into believing that ratifying the treaty will empower the US government
to take away their right to bear arms, enshrined in the American constitution.
But the interpretation relies on the assumption that vague, utopian boilerplate
about disarmament in an entirely different UN convention
will somehow be applied if the U.S.
ratifies the convention on disability. Nevertheless, this sort of stuff,
promoted by evangelical politicians like former senator Rick Santorum, has a
galvanizing effect on Republican politicians who live in fear of losing
intra-party challenges from the right. It is the preserve of an isolationist
wing of a party already deeply skeptical of international institutions
generally.
“But aside from how overblown such fears are, the stranger fact is that the
UN treaty is based on the Americans with Disabilities Act, enacted 22 years ago
(under President George H.W. Bush), and if it were ratified, no US laws would
have to change. It was … supported by prominent conservatives like Sen. John
McCain and former Senate majority leader Bob Dole (both of whom, thanks to war
wounds, are Americans with disabilities). The U.S. Chamber of Commerce supported
the treaty, since it would help level the international playing field for
American companies who already comply with the act, and potentially open
foreign markets to U.S.
disabilities technology.
“’It’s a treaty to change the world to be more like America,’” protested
John Kerry, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.”
There’s no word yet whether any black helicopters were seen circling the skies
above the Capitol as the senators departed.
