Up From Comments: Fish in the Barrel

Fish:

Barbara Boxer's push for the "UN Rights of the Child" treaty probably has something to do with this.

As much as I like you, I find your blindness to stupid democratic legislation as disturbing as I find your contempt for stupid republican legislation refreshig!

The UN Treaty is mentioned in one of the articles to which I linked. I did not feel the need to explain it because it's a long-winded-but-innocuous document whose contents I don't think are really disagreeable to much of anyone.

The difference between those who want to ratify the treaty and those who don't is national sovereignty. Republicans, in general, don't think US domestic law should be subject to international law. Democrats, in general, are more tolerant of subjecting the United States to international law.

The parent/child relationship is sacrosanct, within certain civilized boundaries. (I think we can all agree, for example, that rape of one's children is not within a parent's rights and the state should step in to stop it.) As noted by Rep. Hoekstra, American courts have upheld parental rights consistently over the last 200 years.

No reasonable person wants to take away a parent's rights, and while I will concede that most of those who do want to make spanking a capital crime are likely Democrats who spent way to long as graduate students, the rights of responsible parents to raise their children as they see fit are not under threat. Republicans who claim parental rights are under threat are either searching for a scary wedge issue with which to distract the rubes (my personal bet) or are paranoids who believe that the mainstream liberals theyr'e sitting next to in PTA meetings will support legislation that makes every parental decision the equivalent of a trip to the DMV.

Parental rights are, occasionally, threatened in this country. Those threats come both from left and right. You give me intrusive county-level bureaucrats; I'll give you Elian Gonzales. Those flare-ups are more a function of the processes of a free nation than they are the inevitable march of statism, and that the leading proponent of this particular Constitutional amendment acknowledges that those threats are routinely beaten back by the courts tells me that he's advocating changing the Constitution to protect us from a threat that doesn't exist.

Which was, of course, the whole point of the posting.

As for my "blindness" to stupid Democratic legislation, there are probably two things at work. One, I'm a Democrat so some of that legislation you think stupid isn't, in my opinion. And two, at this moment Democrats aren't really doing all that much that is notably stupid, at least beyond the standard bounds of Congressional behavior. They've been on their best behavior for a while in order to get elected, which they now have.

Given the Democrats' current powerful standing, this prudence will surely change. To paraphrase whoever: power makes stupid, and absolute power makes absolutely stupid. I'm thinking, personally, that President Obama's vow to eliminate nuclear weapons may be the jump-the-shark moment.

Finally, I'm impressed particularly by my conservative readers' ability to miss it when I mock Dems for their sometimes breathtaking stupidity. For some reason, it seems not to register when I make fun of animal rights protesters, hairy exhibitionists against war, slavery reparations, John Kerry or windfall profits taxes. But when I take a swipe at, say, conservatives who imagine that elected representatives enacting a 3% increase in marginal income tax rates on 5% of the population makes this country exactly like Russia under Stalin, those who comment on this blog latch on and won't let go.

A glimpse into human psychology, perhaps, and I'm sorry that my point of view disturbs you. But not real sorry.

Comments

[fish]

Your point of view disturbs me not one whit because I find you to be, on balance, a pretty reasonable guy.

Unfortunately, these,"long-winded-but-innocuous documents" as you put it, frequently have the tendency to develop real teeth when the Feds decide to compel us to satisfy said language. Apparently Mme. Boxer feels that there is some deficiency in US law that is screaming for intervention by the UN. One would think that with the pages and pages of Health, Welfare and Education legislation already existing in US law that simply looking to the existing regulation would provide language for legal remedy.

Apparently not!

And as far as the "sacrosanct parental rights" you mention, I have seriously considered rearranging my life to homeschool my children. At present I can't but I still lean in that direction. One of those fluff lines that your refer to is the "right" of the child to, and I am paraphrasing, a free and comprehensive education! Now, if taken to its illogical extreme (as happened in California recently via the California Supreme Court. So here at least is an example of the courts reducing the rights of parents. That this decision was later reversed, there was never any guarantee that this would be the outcome), this parental decision can be stripped from me if a bureaucrat in the local school district deems that I am not meeting these requirements. Never mind that in a large percentage of the cases they don't meet them either, in that case they generally blame the parents or "lack of resources" and move on.

Additionally, I have elected based on personal research and bad reactions in his older brother resulting from these (we think) to defer innoculations for my 4 year old until he is older. There are states where parents are accused of child abuse for this decision. Again so much for the sacrosanct rights of parents.

I made my initial claim because she is indeed promoting this treaty/legislation and if you feel the absolute power leads to absolute stupid perhaps now is the time for a granstander like Hoekstra to counter stupid with stupid! After all it seems that it is what we both expect out of government.

You still haven't stated why additional international law will improve matters.

[Lee]

"But when I take a swipe at, say, conservatives who imagine that elected representatives enacting a 3% increase in marginal income tax rates on 5% of the population makes this country exactly like Russia under Stalin"

All such hyperbole aside (kind of like all that talk from the left about the upcoming fascism these past eight years... how'd that pan out?) if you really believe Obama when he says he will increase taxes on only the top five percent, here's an Obama supporter saying both that Obama's lying, and that you're being terribly naive.

But then again, it's not like Obama hasn't lied before, about campaign funding, wire tapping, troops out of Iraq in eighteen months, etc., etc.

[Lee]

Dangit, link.

[pursuit]

Hey Lee, you forgot O'Bama's biggest lie!

He lied to his daughters! About puppies! And Tom still supports the dad who lies to innocent little girls about puppies!

[Wally]

Rats. I agree with Pursuit. The guy says he can do more than one thing at a time. With the entire Executive Branch at his beck and call he should be able to swat down some Somali pirates and buy a dog.

[Tom]

Just a few things.

Fish, if you're finest example of government infringement on parental rights is the establishment of scope-of-learning standards...well, I'll just have to be content as a supporter of dictatorship. I'm in favor of that, in part because I live in a state where a significant number of parents would remove their kids from public school, claim they were being home schooled, and send them off to work in the tobacco fields secure in their belief that theres' no value to book learnin'.

And Lee, as to the Left's fixation with the fascism of the Bush Administration, where we came out was with an executive branch that felt itself answerable to no laws -- dependent, in other words, on the goodness of those in power. That would be a government of men, not laws, the exact opposite of what the founders intended. That President Bush and his team chose only to imprison without charges and torture a small number of people doesn't matter as much as it matters that they tried to establish what was, essentially, a dictatorship of the majority. That they did this behind closed doors and in secret is also notable. I find it more disturbing than a slight tax increase enacted in public legislation by duly elected representatives. But I guess it's basically the same thing, isn't it? I'm the one being unreasonable in not seeing them as equivalents.

Finally, but that Republicans had been as sensitive to the lies of President Bush as they are to those of President Obama. Maybe they wouldn't look so clownishly hypocritical every time they open their mouths.

[pursuit]

Wally,

Power to the people baby! Our little display of bipartisan pressure on O'Bama seems to have worked. Sasha and Melia have a dog! Plus, the world has been ridded of a couple Somali pirates to boot! Well done my man, well done.

Tom,

To bad you couldn't leave your little partisan hell for a moment to join our bipartisan cause. Live and learn my friend, live and learn.

[Wally]

Pursuit,
FDIC put two more little banks into receivership on Friday. Will you join me in asking Geithner to do the same with the big boys? We'll still have to fund them but at least we wouldn't just be giving money to the people who did this and the stockholders who let them.

[fish]

I'll just have to be content as a supporter of dictatorship. I'm in favor of that, in part because I live in a state where a significant number of parents would remove their kids from public school, claim they were being home schooled, and send them off to work in the tobacco fields secure in their belief that theres' no value to book learnin'.

Wow!

Dictatorship is okey dokey because a couple of your fellow Kentuckians see no value in book learnin....? You sure you weren't a Bush supporter? Because there's a similarity in thought processes. I suspect that you could keep your tobacco road folks locked up in government schools 24/7 and still have no significant impact.

[Tom]

The use of "dictatorship" was ironic. Clearly, in that context, what we're talking about is not dictatorship. My acceptance of the term was a means of dismissing it as meaningless.

[fish]

So in other words while you would prefer the availability of government education/services you (and hopefully those who represent your position) have no plans to make them compulsory?

Interesting.

I think that this is where this post got started.

[Tom]

Um, what?

[pursuit]

Wally,

I'm with you my man. My position on this has been clear for a while. Stop these damn bailouts and let the chips fall where they may. We cannot inflate ourselves to prosperity.

[Lee]

And Lee, as to the Left's Right's fixation with the fascism socialism of the Bush Obama Administration....

FIFY

You are the opposite side of the same coin.