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Another First Amendment issue

Now we have the politically correct U.N. flexing its muscles again:

A Heritage Foundation expert warns that the U.S. will need to maintain active opposition to plans for "religious anti-defamation" laws both within its borders and on an international scale, or face consequences.

In a report published on the foundation's website, Steven Groves said the U.S. "must remain wary of continuing efforts by U.N. member states to gain wider acceptance of the 'defamation of religions' concept."

Proponents "will continue to push the 'defamation of religions' agenda at the U.N. Human Rights Council, the U.N. General Assembly, and at other international forums such as the April 2009 Durban Review Conference," he warned.

Groves is the Heritage Foundation's Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies.

He also said within its own borders, the U.S. should refuse to recognize "a new legal cause of action that bans insults or criticism of religion," because it would provide no benefit whatsoever.

States already have laws to condemn religious discrimination and prosecute acts of incitement to violence, he argued. The federal government "should tread extremely lightly where disputes over religious doctrine are concerned. The U.S. does not need a national speech code that would restrict the First Amendment rights of Americans, no matter how offensive that speech may be to any particular religious denomination."

He cited the 2005 attempt by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., who wanted to require that the Islamic holy book, the Quran, be treated with "dignity and respect."

"Any attempt to establish a criminal or civil 'defamation of religions' law in the United States … must be strongly opposed," Groves said. "Attempts to introduce such legislation may be incremental – notably, in May 2005, when a group of U.S. congressmen sponsored a resolution," he said. "Such piecemeal legislation must be closely guarded against."

WND reported earlier on the U.N. plan that could turn ordinary Christians in America into international criminals.

The proposal has been presented repeatedly since 1999 from the 57 member nations of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which adopted the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam. The declaration states "all rights are subject to Shariah law, and makes Shariah law the only source of reference for human rights.

The American Center for Law & Justice, announcing a petition drive to oppose the plan, said, "Around the world, Christians are being increasingly targeted, and even persecuted, for their religious beliefs. Now, one of the largest organizations in the United Nations is pushing to make a bad situation even worse by promoting anti-Christian bigotry."

The discrimination is "wrapped in the guise of a U.N. resolution called 'Combating Defamation of Religions,'" the ACLJ said. "We must put an immediate end to this most recent, dangerous attack on faith that attempts to criminalize Christianity."

United Nations goes anti-free speech

From Joel Richardson:

The United States is about to be tried. At stake are the very freedoms that we all hold so dear. On March 27, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted to adopt resolution 7/19 on "Combating defamation of religions." In one of the most Orwellian resolutions ever passed, this so-called "Human Rights Council" condemns "Islamophobia," which includes any, "attempts to identify Islam with terrorism, violence and human rights violations."

Think about this for a moment. Suppose that I tell you that according to sacred Islamic tradition, Muhammad himself stated that those who leave Islam should be punished by execution. And suppose that I also point out that all four of the Orthodox Sunni schools of Islamic jurisprudence as well as the Shiites interpret Muhammad's statements to mean that death is the appropriate punishment for leaving Islam. According to this resolution, I should be arrested and tried for a "criminal" act. Free speech anyone?

In other words, according to the U.N. Human Rights Council, criticism of Islam should be globally forbidden under penalty of law. Should we be surprised to discover that the resolution was introduced by the Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC, an umbrella organization of 57 Islamic nations? The 58-page document calls for "the international community to come up with a binding legal instrument to fight the menace of Islamophobia" so that "the right to freedom of expression" not be used as a license for "insulting the sacred religious symbols of Islam." The "freedom of expression … may be subject to certain restrictions … necessary for the respect of the rights or reputations of others." In other words, expressing a negative opinion about Islam in public, and maybe even in private, could land you in jail.

The resolution is part of the OIC's "10-year plan of action" "to have the United Nations adopt an international resolution to counter Islamophobia and call upon all states to enact laws to counter it, including deterrent punishments." Am I the only one deeply alarmed by this?

Homeschooling illegal?

Part I of an In-depth Look at Article 13 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

This week, we continue our series on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child by considering Article 13, which states that "the child shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of the child’s choice."

The crux of this article is the child’s "right to information." Children access information through what they are taught and what they discover on their own. This week, we will consider the Convention’s implications on what children are taught.

Homeschooling

Article 13 is far more sweeping than any right articulated by our Constitution or Supreme Court, guaranteeing all children the right to seek information of all kinds. International author and commentator Marian Koren explains that although the state should generally refrain from interfering in the family, "the State also has a positive obligation in supporting the possibilities for children to seek information or to express their views." Ultimately, "it is the duty of the State to respect the rights of the child and his freedom to thought, conscience, belief, expression and opinion." (emphasis in original)

Although the United States has not yet ratified the CRC, there is a growing sentiment that the state should bear the responsibility for ensuring that children are "properly educated," instead of parents. A striking example occurred this past February, when a California court declared in In Re Rachel L. that "parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children," unless they are certified by the state to teach. In so ruling, the court declined to follow the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in Wisconsin v. Yoder and its 2000 ruling in Troxel v. Granville, which guarantee parents the fundamental right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

Whose Responsibility?

Rachel L., like Article 13, presumes that it is ultimately the state’s duty to ensure that the child’s right to information is respected. The California court quoted repeatedly from an earlier California decision in 1952, which concluded that children must be educated in traditional public or private schools, subject to state standards and regulations: anything less would "take from the state all-efficient authority to regulate the education of the prospective voting population." (emphasis added)

The language of "all-efficient authority" is not the language of liberty. According to Dr. Martin Guggenheim, Professor of Law at New York University, "our future as a democracy depends on nurturing diversity of minds. The legal system’s insistence on private ordering of familial life ultimately guards against state control of its citizens." There may be questions over the "best way" to educate children, but according to Guggenheim, the American answer is that "unless the answers are so clear that there is no room to disagree, parents are free to decide for themselves what they believe will best serve their children."

Thankfully, the public outcry to this decision led California courts to decide to rehear the Rachel L. decision this summer, allowing parents - at least for the moment - to continue teaching their children at home. But only time will tell whether the California courts will have a change of heart, or whether the damaging decision will simply be repeated. The strong words of the first Rachel L. decision suggest that this is a real possibility.

America’s legal heritage has consistently held that parents, not the state, have the right to decide whether their children would best benefit from public schooling, a private school, or even learning at home, but this recent decision from California highlights just how tenuous this freedom can be. If we wish to secure these freedoms, we must act now to place parental rights beyond the reach of judges by protecting them within the Constitution.

Additional Sources:

Marian Koren, "The Right to Information: Too Vague to Be True?" in Monitoring Children’s Rights, Eugeen Verhellen, ed. (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1996): 675.

In Re Rachel L., 73 Cal.Rptr.3d 77 (Ca.App. 2008)(VACATED)

Martin Guggenheim, What’s Wrong with Children’s Rights (2005): 24-27, 43.

UN takover of the US

Phyllis Schlaly has more on the Senate Bill that goes after America's sovereignity:

Republicans allowed a bill that carries his name, among nine others, to pass the Senate Foreign Relations Committee by voice vote last week – without any hearings. That means there was no roll-call vote so no member can be held accountable. The same bill passed the House by voice vote last year.

The Obama bill passed out of committee with the cooperation of the co-sponsor, Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind. A Rhodes scholar like former President Bill Clinton, Lugar has never seen a United Nations enhancement he didn't like.

Obama's costly, dangerous and altogether bad bill (S. 2433), which could come up in the Senate any day, is called the Global Poverty Act. It would commit U.S. taxpayers to spend 0.7 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on foreign handouts, which is at least $30 billion over and above the exorbitant and wasted sums we already give away overseas.

The bipartisan bill would require the president "to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day."

...

There is much more to the Millennium Goals than merely extorting more money from U.S. taxpayers. The goals set forth a comprehensive plan to put the United States under U.N. global governance.

These goals include a "standing peace force" (i.e., a U.N. standing army), a "U.N. Arms Register" of all small arms and light weapons, "peace education" covering "all levels from preschool through university," and "political control of the global economy." The goals call for implementing all U.N. treaties that the United States has never ratified, all of which set up U.N. monitoring committees to compromise U.S. sovereignty.

To achieve this level of control over U.S. domestic law, the plan calls for "strengthening the United Nations for the 21st century" by "eliminating" the veto and permanent membership in the Security Council. The goal is to reduce U.S. influence to one out of 192 nations, so we would have merely the same vote as Cuba.

The Global Poverty Act would be a giant step toward the Millennium Goals of global governance and international taxes on Americans. Tell your senators to kill this un-American bill.

Big Brother, the UN, and cows

Here is the introduction the Henry Lamb’s latest column:

Staffers from the USDA will travel to Surfers' Paradise in Queensland, Australia, to participate in a meeting of the Codex Alimentarius, Nov. 26 – 30. Why? To continue developing international rules and regulations that govern what you eat.

USDA says "The Codex Alimentarius Commission was established in 1963 by two United Nations organizations, the Food and Agriculture Organization, or FAO, and the World Health Organization, or WHO. Through adoption of food standards, codes of practice and other guidelines developed by its committees, and by promoting their adoption and implementation by governments, Codex seeks to protect the health of consumers and ensure that fair practices are used in trade."

Among the several interesting agenda items is this: "Discussion Paper on the Need for Further Guidance on Traceability/Product Tracing."

This is U.N.-speak for "let's tighten the regulations on animal identification and trace-back." This item has been on the Codex agenda for several years now. Whether the USDA took the idea of animal identification to the Codex, or brought the idea home from a Codex meeting, cannot be determined for certain. What is certain is this: The idea was cultivated by the members of the National Institute for Animal Agriculture, consisting of organizations that stand to profit from the program. It was the NIAA that asked the USDA to develop a National Animal Identification Program, as far back as 2002.

And this sounds like maybe the Country of origin labeling legislation (COOL) is not such a great idea:

The animal identification program is mandatory in England. U.S. animal owners should see the form required of goat and sheep owners. Cattle owners must have a 66-page "Cattle Owners Handbook", seven-page license, and each cow must have a passport. Non-compliance results in confiscation and slaughter – without compensation. Unconfirmed reports put the cost of this program at $69 per head sold.

And the "New World Order" in regard to cattle is not kind to America’s freedoms:

Both the United Kingdom and Australia are participants in the Codex Alimentarius Commission and are working to make the animal identification scheme mandatory worldwide. The USDA is doing its best to comply with the ever-expanding international regulations, but American producers are not cooperating as well as the subjects of the European Union.

American producers, however, need the help of other non-farm Americans who value individual freedom. If government can mandate the identification and reporting of movements of livestock animals, the same government can mandate the identification and reporting of pets, and of virtually any other private property.

The purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to guarantee that every American is secure in his person, house, papers and property – unless probable cause for search and seizure is demonstrated to a judge. This animal identification system completely ignores this fundamental principle.

The USDA and Codex Alimentarius hide behind the claim that the program is necessary to promote food safety. Nothing is further from the truth. This program is about control by the government, and profits for the manufacturers of the equipment, profits for the meat packers and exporters, payrolls for expanded bureaucracies, and pain for the producers and the people who ultimately must pay higher prices for the food they eat.

All Americans would do well to join forces with the people who are opposing this program in the United States. It will take a groundswell of outrage from across the nation to gain the attention of election-year politicians. All politicians, both state and federal, need to hear from American citizens who refuse to allow their government to impose upon them the incredible burden the European Union is imposing upon its citizens.

I would think that this issue is just one of many that would motivate individuals to become more involved and informed on what is going on. And the South Dakota Conservative Action Council is just the vehicle to accomplish that.

Kyoto a rip off

Here is the introduction from a report that is no kind to the Kyoto, the United Nation’s effort to reduce CO2 emissions (read the whole thing):

In autumn 2005, three journalists working for the environmental group the Centre for Science and Environment decided to investigate some of the Indian projects which were trying to break into the lucrative new business of carbon trading.

They started looking at four schemes in Andhra Pradesh which were trying to convert biomass - dead plants, animal dung - into fuel. They studied the formal reports which the schemes had commissioned from a UK company, Ernst and Young, to satisfy the demanding requirements of the UN's Clean Development Mechanism. And they noticed a very odd thing.

Each of the four Ernst and Young reports had had to consult people near the proposed schemes to ensure that there was no risk to the local economy or environment. One report quoted three different community leaders, each expressing enthusiastic approval for the project and concluded: "Poor farmers are getting reasonable monitory gains for harvesting the available biomass and supplying it to project activity."

What was odd that with two of the other schemes, each many miles from the other, Ernst and Young quoted three sources who had the same job descriptions, the same opinions, summarised in precisely the same words which even included the same spelling mistakes (Secretry, monitory). In the fourth case, the wording was slightly different, but the opinions were the same, and it too concluded that "poor farmers are getting reasonable monitory gains etc."

The three journalists wrote up their conclusions in the group's magazine, Down to Earth, and made it clear that they were accusing Ernst and Young of simply cutting and pasting the same material into four supposedly separate and independent reports. Ernst and Young said there was nothing wrong: the local people in all four places happened to have said very similar things in response to a standard set of questions. But the environmental journalists were concerned enough to write to the executive board of the Clean Development Mechanism, offering further information. The CDM board never even acknowledged their letter.

The CDM is one of two global markets which have been set up in the wake of the Kyoto climate summit in 1997. Both finally started work in January 2005. Although both were launched with the claim that they would reduce greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, evidence collected by the Guardian suggests that thus far, both markets have earned fortunes for speculators and for some of the companies which produce most greenhouse gases and yet, through a combination of teething troubles and multiple forms of malpractice and possibly fraud, they have delivered little or no benefit for the environment.

The do-nothing United Nations

From Joseph Farah:

What makes today special?

It's the last business day in September.

Which means it's been a month since the expiration of the United Nations Security Council deadline for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment. Needless to say, Iran did not stop preparing its nuclear weapons production.

So how do we handle such important matters in the world of international diplomacy?

Why, we set a new deadline, of course.

That's what we did last week when the five permanent members of the Security Council – Britain, China, France, Russia and the U.S. – plus Italy and Germany agreed to give European negotiators more time to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program.

No sanctions. No threats. No action. Just set a new deadline.

United Nation against homeschooling

From WorldNetDaily:

A couple in Brussels has been threatened with criminal neglect for schooling their children at home, and a U.S. expert on the issue told WorldNetDaily the case actually could pose a threat to the sovereignty of the U.S. Constitution.

That's because if the basis for the legal arguments being made by Belgian prosecutors ever were accepted in – or imposed upon -- the United States, that fact would make the U.N. protocol equal to the Constitution.

In the case at hand, Alexandra Cohen has published a piece on the Brussels Journal website that her husband, Paul Belien, the website editor, was called to police headquarters, questioned, and threatened with criminal negligence counts because their children are homeschooled.

"He was told that the Belgian authorities are of the opinion that, as a homeschooler, he has not adequately educated his children and, hence, is neglecting his duty as a parent, which is a criminal offense," she wrote.

What terrifies U.S. homeschool education experts is the authorities' decision to cite the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a legal argument.

That 1990s-era document was ratified quickly by 192 nations worldwide, but not the United States or Somalia. In Somalia, there was then no recognized government to do the formal recognition, and in the United States there's been opposition to its power.

"(The treaty) would become the supreme law of the land," Chris Klicka, the senior counsel for the Home School Legal Defense Association, told WND. In conflicts with the Constitution, the treaty easily could prevail, he said.

"Our worst fears are being realized as we see these other European countries feeling the pressure because they did sign on and enter into this treaty," he said. "Britain, for instance, had a report done by the (U.N.) Committee of 10 and they got chastised because they were allowing corporal punishment."

Although signed under the Clinton Administration, the U.S. Senate never has ratified the treaty, largely because of conservatives' efforts to point out it would create that list of rights which primarily would be enforced against parents.

UN gun ban stalled

WorldNetDaily reports on the United Nation’s two-week conference on banning guns worldwide:

During those backroom conferences closed to public view, technocrats spend countless hours arguing over drafts of conference resolutions whose true intent often belies the official U.N.-style language in which the resolutions themselves are drafted. Working papers typically are submitted by the gun-control-advocating NGOs (non-governmental organizations) who appoint themselves to participate as "expert advisers" – even though their true purpose remains the advancing of their anti-gun political agenda.

Largely due to U.S. unwillingness to compromise on Second Amendment issues, the conference ended without agreement on a final document. The final press release from the conference noted that Finland's speaker, on behalf of the European Union, expressed extreme disappointment, deploring "the lack of progress on the priority areas."

Even though the 2006 meeting ended in a technical failure to get a final document, the U.N. resolved to hold more meetings to advance the agenda of international gun control. Undeterred, Canada called for "an informal intercessional meeting of States to discuss concrete measures to accelerate implementation" to be held in Geneva in the spring or autumn of 2007.

Success in blocking any one United Nations small arms conference from abrogating the Second Amendment can at best be looked at as a U.S. holding action. The 2006 event was itself a follow-on conference to the previous conference on small arms held by the U.N. in 2001, and more attempts at global gun control will follow.

U.N. vs U.S.

From Henry Lamb (read the whole thing):

The U.N.'s second in command, Mark Malloch Brown, is unhappy about the lack of respect U.S. citizens afford the United Nations. He is particularly unhappy that U.S. officials allow "too much unchecked U.N. bashing and stereotyping" to reach the heartland through Fox News and Rush Limbaugh. Ambassador John Bolton called on Kofi Annan to repudiate Brown's remarks; Annan refused and stood by his deputy director.

These comments come from the United Nations at a time when the U.N. is asking the United States to facilitate a $1.2 billion renovation project, and only a few weeks before the global body runs out of money if the U.S. does not approve the U.N. budget. Budget approval has been withheld pending agreement on reforms that, so far, the U.N. has been unwilling to adopt.

When will the United States realize that the U.N. is beyond repair, reform, renovation, renewal or any reason to exist?

…

Many people across the country who have watched their property rights evaporate through so-called "smart growth" plans are completely unaware that these schemes originated in the United Nations and became "internationally accepted policy" when Agenda 21 was adopted by the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in 1992. Even when Bill Clinton's President's Council on Sustainable Development began to implement Agenda 21 through federal agencies, few people made the connection to the U.N. This is just another way that sovereignty is being eroded while the U.N. weaves another web around this nation.

The National Animal Identification System now being developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture also originated in the international community. Most environmental laws and regulations are the result of treaty compliance or international obligations. The influence of the U.N. on domestic policy goes far beyond the headlines. This insidious force is sucking the sovereignty from our nation with the support of Congress and most Americans – who fail to see the danger.