"Considering that the child should be fully prepared to live an individual life in society, and brought up in the spirit of the ideals proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations…"
and writes
"There’s only one set of ideals that I even consider when it comes to bringing up our children: mine and Ernie’s."
Well, now, I disagree.
And nah, doesn't scare me at all. I know that people get their hackles up about Article 28 (a) "Make primary education compulsory and available free to all;" but really, this isn't about US (I have no time to really delve into the Belgian case but it seemed a tempest in a teapot because they refused to sign a form. For pity's sake.) This is about countries where there is NO free primary education, where children are impoverished physically and intellectually, and sentenced to a life of hopeless misery because there is no school, no hope, no teachers, no pencils, and heck, no food either, and no skills or knowledge to make things better. Homeschoolers do provide an education. If they don't, there should be repercussions, because to fail to do so is child neglect and I don't believe it's right to stand by and watch someone be hurt, neglected, or mistreated.
For years I worked for the Canadian government in SUPPORT of the UN Convention for Refugees. We dealt with trying to assist people who should have been protected by the various UN instruments (like the UN Conventions against Torture, discrimination against women etc etc) There is nothing frightening there. Go read them. There is nothing for homeschoolers to be scared of. Have you read the document on the rights of the child? Those documents in fact, still have the power to move me at a very deep level, because they so clearly expose humanity's ugly side, and reassert our will to do, and be, better. Isn't it awful that we need to spell out that children shouldn't be killed because they're girls? That they shouldn't be mistreated because they're handicapped? That they have a right to a nationality and an identity? To "grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding"?
People have fundamental human rights. Women have them. Children have them. Visible and religious minorities have them. These instruments are there to protect them from torture, slavery, mandatory relocation and other horrors we can only begin to imagine. These conventions are humanity's way of saying publicly - we believe it this & we will try to prevent evils happening. It is about bearing witness in the most fundamental way.
It doesn't always work. It has failed time and time again. But I personally met people who were helped because countries and agencies and individuals said 'yes, this is wrong. I will help you escape this.'
I am a strong supporter of the UN. It grew from the ashes of WWI and WW2, when people seeing the horrors of excess nationalist prides, dared to dream of a better way.
It's an organization in trouble - it needs massive restructuring, but I still think it's the best hope for peace and freedom for ALL the residents of this planet.
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3 comments:
"I don't believe it's right to stand by and watch someone be hurt, neglected, or mistreated."
Neither do I. We have laws against these things already that don't put the rights of the American people in the hands of other countries, and don't suddenly give our federal government permission to meddle in things that are the province of the individual states.
The idea that we should rear our children according to the ideals of others is preposterous to me. What makes their ideals the super-duper correct ones-- just the fact that the UN ratified them? And it was those ideals that the Belgian couple refused to acknowledge by signing the form.
If the US accepts this "treaty," it won't fix anything in any part of the world. But it could make things worse here. This opens the possibility to infringe on too many freedoms if someone decides that someone's ideals aren't UN approved.
Only Somalia and the US have not ratified this treaty.
I'm in Canada, a country which ratified it, homeschooling with way more freedom than many of you in the US.
These ideals aren't the ideals of 'others' - they're OURS, the citizens' of this planet, ideals. What about them don't you like?
In friendship - even over this divisive issue :-)
Heh. No worries about being kicked off my blogroll over this. ;)
FTR, it's not (necessarily) the UN that I don't trust. It's what the US government might use this treaty to accomplish that really scares me. Too many important matters have already been decided not by the people or the elected representatives but by the courts. Any judge trying a specific case could set a legal precedent based on his interpretation of the ideals in the Charter of Nations.
And it's not a matter of disagreeing with any specific "ideal" that the UN promotes. It's about being told that I have to comply with someone else's ideals regardless of whether or not I agree. If these are truly the ideals of the American people, then they should already be contained in our Constitution or our laws. If they're NOT the ideals of the American people, then we shouldn't be forced to rear our children according to them, whatever the rest of the world thinks.
It's the question of freedom and the government deciding what children need to know instead of the parents, the government deciding what parental responsibilities that parents can keep.
And in the US, the federal government is (supposed to be) limited in the types of laws that they can create. Acceptance of this treaty would make them required to legislate in areas in which they have no Constitutional right to legislate.
I believe you're correct, that all people have rights. I also believe strongly that we as parents have rights as well as responsibilities. When we're NOT neglecting, mistreating, or abusing our children, I think the government needs to step back and leave us be.
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