It’s in the news again.

Created in 1989, the Convention (often abbreviated as the “CRC”) has a number of laudable goals and features. It has been ratified by 193 countries around the world. The only two UN member states which have NOT ratified it are Somalia and the United States (which proponents of the treaty often cite as something that should be embarrassing to the United States).

There is much in this treaty which is admirable and non-controversial. There are some parts of it which are simply innocuous. And there are some parts of it which pro-family and pro-homeschooling advocates in the United States find objectionable.

But why all the hubbub over a UN Convention? Isn’t this simply a non-binding statement of principles?

For many countries, that might be the case (and probably explains why many of the 193 have ratified – for them, ratification has no practical effect on their own laws and practices).

But the effect of ratifying a treaty in the United States is different, because of Article VI of the US Constitution and the 14^th Amendment.

Article VI (often called the “Supremacy Clause”) states, in part:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

The Supremacy Clause makes all treaties ratified by the US Senate binding in all Federal AND in all State courts. Which means that the United States Senate should be very careful when it votes to ratify a treaty. It also helps explain why the ratification of a treaty requires a 2/3 vote of the Senate – Treaty ratification is akin to amending the Constitution, and comes close to it in its wide-reaching consequences and significance.

Non-Controversial Sections of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child include the prohibitions on kidnapping, child labor, child prostitution, and using children as soldiers. Ironically, the United States HAS signed and ratified both of the optional protocols which have been appended to the CRC: one on the use of children in military conflicts and one which prohibits child pornography.

Children’s “Rights” are the issue, and whether those rights may be asserted against parents

The problematic parts of the CRC are in articles 13-17 which enumerate children’s rights which all parties to the CRC agree to recognize. These rights are described in legal language which is at times ambiguous, perhaps deliberately so. They include the right to freedom of expression, the right to receive information, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of association and peaceful assembly, a right to personal privacy and a right to access mass media. And here is where the issues arise. It would be one thing to assert that a child has these enumerated rights and that children must be protected from any attempt by the state to interfere with them. But the CRC leaves open and unresolved whether a child has these rights and can appeal to the state to prevent any of these rights from being abridged by parents. Given the Constitutional status afforded treaties and the social activism of parts of the legal community, it is quite probable that these rights would be raised in legal proceedings against parents by advocates acting in the name of children. If the CRC intended to protect children from any abridging of these rights by the State (but not by parents), then it should have said so. Because it does not limit its applicability to actions against the states, in the US Courts, it would inevitably be invoked in cases of conflicts between parents and children, with the result that parental authority would be eviscerated and children would be free to make dangerous and/or inappropriate choices, with parents forbidden from interfering. To take but one example, if parents decided to enroll a child in a religious school, the child could object and bring action citing the CRC and veto the parents’ decision.

Ratification of the treaty would provide the basis for the state to intervene in parenting decisions regarding education, media, and friends. It would radically undermine the rights of parents to direct the care, upbringing and education of their children.

Outlawing corporal punishment

The CRC has been repeatedly interpreted by the UN, by its committees, and in other judicial settings as requiring ratifying governments to “prohibit all forms of violence, including corporal punishment, in the upbringing of children.”

For some, this is simply one more reason to support ratification. But the overwhelming majority of parents in the US believe that corporal punishment by parents is a legitimate form of discipline. In any event, the definition of child abuse and neglect is currently made by state law, interpreted by state courts. Ratification of the CRC would, in effect, be the enactment of a federal ban on corporal punishment. No matter how you feel about the issue, federalizing it will have terrible consequences for families.

The CRC also establishes a UN committee and requires ratifying states to submit a report on implementation of the CRC within two years and every five years thereafter. The Committee may request additional information, review, and comment on States’ reports, but it does not appear to have any enforcement authority. I view the Committee as, at worst, an annoyance. Various states have already received chiding comments from the Committee, but they have little practical effect, other than in the court of public opinion (which is to say hardly at all). Of far greater concern is potential enforcement actions of the US federal courts, acting with the authorization of the US Constitution’s attribution of legal authority to all ratified treaties.

Read the Convention for yourself

Here’s a link to the full text of the Convention (at the UN web site): http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm

I would encourage everyone interested to read the text for themselves, paying particular attention to articles 13-17.

There is also an interesting article in the Emory International Law Review by Prof. David M. Smolin of the Cumberland Law School, which identifies the issues pretty clearly. Prof. Smolin believes the objections to Articles 13-17 could be overcome by the adoption of “reservations” by the US Senate, and argues that the treaty is not self-executing and therefore should not cause concern. The treaty is NOT self-executing, but the US Constitution spells out the mechanism by which treaties become supreme law which must be followed by all federal and state judges. I think Prof. Smolin has missed this point.

Further Reading:

U.N. Fairy Tales About Children, Kay S. Hymowitz,
City Journal

Abandoning Children to Their Rights, Bruce C. Hafen and Jonathan O. Hafen, First Things

HSLDA has a series of articles, all linked from this page: http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/Issues/U/United_Nations.asp

ParentalRights.org also has a well documented and footnoted article, 20 Things you Need to Know about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Our family has been richly blessed over the past years by being part of a worshiping community at Abundant Life Church in Mt. Juliet, TN led by a very gifted worship team. Most of the players (guys and gals) on the worship team are music professionals in Nashville. They do not need another gig on Sundays. They don’t come to perform, they come to worship with us and lead us into God’s presence with music.

The worship leader, Don Poythress, is the most gifted worship leader I have ever met. He’s an accomplished songwriter and musician, but best of all, he’s a thoughtful worshiper. It’s important to him that the lyrics be theologically correct in both tone and content. I don’t wish to be provocative, but I dislike that certain strain of contemporary worship songs which (consciously or unconsciously) takes a “Jesus is my boyfriend” approach.

You won’t find any of that on Don’s new CD, Wash Away. Officially released yesterday, it includes twelve new worship songs, written by Don and several of his songwriting partners. I highly recommend it to you.

Here’s a 3 minute video interview of Don, with excerpts from the CD:

The final song on the CD, Joseph, took my breath away the first time I heard it. It still does.

Joseph I hope to sit with you one day
Hear you tell me about the choices you were called to make
‘Cause Joseph it was you and no one else
That God trusted to take care of Mary and Himself.

On The Faithful Love of Jesus, Don is joined by the incomparable Ricky Skaggs on mandolin & vocals. The lyrics and the quiet, reflective melody are moving:

There are arms that we can lean into
That always will receive us
A living well of endless truth
The faithful love of Jesus

I pray you’ll know the love of God
The love that never leaves us
The height the depth the width the breadth
The faithful love of Jesus

Cyndy and I had the great pleasure of being in the audience at Christ Church, Nashville when this was recorded. It was a very special evening.

You can order the CD, or an .mp3, or individual songs direct from Amazon.com

Buy one for yourself, and give one to the worship leader at your church, or your pastor, or both.

*Don is way too modest about his accomplishments. He has had songs recorded by Willie Nelson (”You Remain”), Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow, Tim McGraw (”Comfort Me”), Darryl Worley (”Shiloh”), Brian Littrell, the Marie Sisters, the Wikinsons, Leslie Satcher, Andrea Zonn, the Nashville Bluegrass Band, Niall Toner and Kieran Goss (both from Ireland), as well as the European artist Sir Cliff Richard. He co-wrote “The Promise” which was recorded by The Martins and won a Dove award in 2004.

Congressman Offers Preemptive Apology For Extramarital Affair

“Later this afternoon, I will be engaging in an extramarital affair”

“Of course, I will wish I had never made the horrible mistake I am about to spend several hours making . . .”

Sometimes, it’s hard to parody life.

Today is the 56th anniversary of the 17th-of-June-Uprising in East Germany. The textbook version says that the workers were reacting to reductions in wages and increases in work quotas. Economic factors were at play, and the political leadership of East Germany had, indeed, proposed oppressive changes in the workplace. But the textbook version leaves out another conflict which was at the center of popular unrest - the attack of the East German authorities on the Lutheran churches, and specifically on the “Youth Assembly” movement (”Junge Gemeinde”). In early 1953, the JG was denounced as an illegal organization, and those students who publicly identified with it were often subject to expulsion from high schools and universities. Many were bureaucratically denied their high school diplomas. The retreat centers operated by the JG were seized by the government and turned over to the Free German Youth movement (Freie Deutsche Jugend). the FDJ were militantly atheistic and made it their business to seek out and torment young people with the temerity to identify themselves as Christians.

On the 17th of june, 1953 over 400,000 East Germans gathered in Berlin to protest the actions of the government. The East Germans eventually called in soviet troops for backup. The soviets and the East German Vopos eventually opened fire on the demonstrators. Exact numbers of those killed are still in dispute. The low estimate is about 150. The high estimate is over a thousand.

Government police firing on unarmed demonstrators was too much for Bertolt Brecht, who, up until that point had been a supporter of the East German Government. He later wrote the following poem:

Die Lösung

Bertolt Brecht

Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
Zurückerobern könne.  Wäre es da
Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung
Löste das Volk auf und
Wählte ein anderes?

The Solution

Bertolt Brecht

After the Uprising of the 17^th of June
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had leaflets distributed in Stalin Street
On them one could read that the People
Had lost the trust of the Government
And only through doubled efforts
Could they win it back. Wouldn’t it
Be simpler for the Government
To dissolve the People
And elect another?

(English translation by RGS)

Note: in German as in English, the title “Solution” makes a veiled allusion to the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question,” (Endlösung des Judenfrage).

. . . is good for the gander?

BlueCollarMuse is reporting that a DEMOCRATIC staffer at the Tennessee State Legislature sent out an email with the subject line: Smiles for Monday that is, if anything, much more offensive than the email forwarded by the administrative assistant to Diane Black.

Head on over to his web site for the full details. He’s waiting to see if there will be the same firestorm of media coverage, calls for termination, denunciations, & disciplinary action against this DEMOCRATIC staffer as there was for Ms. Goforth.

This will be interesting to watch.

Very cool global collaboration on an old classic from the 1960s.

Great idea, great execution. Kudos to the recording engineers and to the software gurus who edited and blended both the video & audio tracks which were recorded months and thousands of miles apart.

Great example of how communication & collaboration tools are changing the world.

Crank up the volume, sit back, and enjoy.

Playing For Change | Song Around The World “Stand By Me” from Concord Music Group on Vimeo.

Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain holds that office by succession to the head of his party when Tony Blair retired from politics. He has never led his party through an election and has no mandate of his own as Prime Minister. And it looks as though he never will have.

He’s also, increasingly had to juggle things to keep his cabinet under control.

Today, Tory MP William Hague (who will become the new Foreign Secretary when the Tories win the next election) mocked Prime Minister Brown’s actions in keeping one, LordMandelson in his cabinet:

“The unelected Prime Minister has managed to produce the most powerful unelected deputy since Henry VIII appointed Cardinal Wolsey, except Cardinal Wolsey was more sensitive in handling his colleagues that the noble Lord Mandelson…

“The Prime Minister, who lectures us all on democratic renewal, is appointing peers to positions of power on a scale unknown for decades. There are now more peers attending the Cabinet than at any time since the days of Harold Macmillan…

“And the Lord Mandelson, denied the opportunity to become the Foreign Secretary… has gone around instead collecting titles and even whole government departments to add to his name, now adding up to

The Right Honourable the Baron Mandelson of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the County of Durham, First Secretary of State and Lord President of the Privy Council and Secretary of State for Business and Secretary of State for Innovation and Skills.

It would be no surprise to wake up in the morning and finding he had become an archbishop…”

hat tip to the blog of Archbishop Cranmer, who blogs pseudonymously on British political and religious topics.

The video below is worth watching. The clever soundbite comes at about 1:50 into the clip. But stay for the end, and watch how a brilliant MP deftly deals with the questions from two Labor MPs.

It’s been a busy year! And it’s only June!

It occurred to me that I should take a minute and update friends & gentle readers on what’s been going on at Greenleaf Press. A lot, actually. I forget, in the day-to-day press of the urgent some of the significant things that we have accomplished. Here’s a quick review:

Last summer saw the re-launch of Valerie Bendt’s Reading Made Easy and the publication of Cyndy Shearer’s Greenleaf Guide to Medieval Literature.

This year, Greenleaf has released three new titles and we have several more exciting projects under development.

Projects under development:
Famous Men of the 16^th & 17^th Century – I am happy to report that there are now twelve chapters written, out of a projected 28. Here’s the current, working version of the Table of Contents:

Introduction

1. Catherine de’ Medici (1519-1589)
   
2. Henry of Navarre (1553-1610)
   
3. Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
   
4. Sir Francis Drake (1540-1595)
   
5. Sir Walter Raleigh (1552-1618)
   
6. James I (1566-1625)
   
7. Matteo Ricci (1552-1610)
   
8. William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
   
9. John Smith (1580-1631)
   
10. Wallenstein (1583-1634)
    
11. Gustavus Adolphus (1594-1632)
    
12. Samuel de Champlain (1570-1635)
    

Galileo (1564-1642)

Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642)

Charles I (1600-1649)

William Bradford (1590-1657)

John Winthrop (1588-1649) combine with Bradford?

Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) may be too much overlap with Charles I?

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

Rembrandt (1606-1669)

John Milton (1608-1674)

Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675)

Charles II (1630-1685)

Jan Sobieski (1629-1696)

William of Orange (1650-1702)

John Locke (1632-1704)

Johan Pachelbel (1653-1706)

Louis XIV (1638-1715)

When this project is finished, I plan to continue the series with the next volumes, Famous Men of the 18^th Century, Famous Men of the 19^th Century, and Famous Men of the 20^th Century. I’m already looking forward to doing the chapters on Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II!

Handwriting by George, volumes 3 & 4 should be ready to go to the printer shortly. When all four volumes are out, we will have covered all 100 of George Washington’s maxims. Volumes 1 & 2 included the first 55.

Cyndy is working on editing the text of Alfred Church’s The Odyssey for Boys and Girls, which will join her wonderful edition of Church’s The Iliad for Boys and Girls (Greenleaf title: The Story of the Iliad) which we published in 2004. She is also working on the next volume in her high school inductive literature guides, The Greenleaf Guide to Early Modern Literature. We don’t have firm dates yet, but Cyndy’s high school guides are based on ten years teaching in local tutorial and co-op programs. The Ancient Lit and Medieval Lit guides are what she uses for her 9^th grade and 10^th grade classes. The Early Modern Guide and 20^th Century Guide already exist and she’s been teaching these classes at the Schaeffer Study Center for the past six years. But she won’t let me publish them until she’s revised them to her satisfaction!

As always, we continue to scour the publisher’s catalogs to find the best children’s books published each year. The outstanding selection this year, so far, would have to be Pharaoh’s Boat. I can’t say enough good things about this book. Full review is still on the blog.

To get the latest reviews of new books and news about projects, got to the Greenleaf Press website and sign up for the Greenleaf newsletter by clicking on “Store” and logging yourself in (if you don’t have an account, you can create one). In the right-hand column, there is a green box titled “My Account.” It’s the third one from the top. Click on the My Account link in the box and you can subscribe (or unsubscribe) to the newsletter.

- Rob Shearer
(Publisher, Editor, sometime writer, husband & dad – not necessarily in that order!)

What would the analysts at “Lie to Me” (tagline: “The truth is written all over our faces”) say about this photo:

The woman on the left is France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. The woman on the right is First Lady Michelle Obama.

The picture was taken at the ceremony to mark the 65th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy at Colleville-sur-Mer cemetery, June 6, 2009

This:

or this: