yay US! (not)

[winterbadger]

I was looking at the website for Scotland's Commissioner for Children and young people and found this wonderfully cheering piece of information:

The rights of children and young people are set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). These rights apply to all children under the age of 18. Every country in the World apart from the USA and Somalia has agreed to enforce these rights. To find out more about these rights.

Gosh, I'm glad I live in such a modern and forward-thinking country.

Comments

[wolfette]

there are a number of international treaties that the US isn't a signatory to - doesn't necessarily mean that they don't have their own equivalent legislation.

Somalia, OTOH....

[winterbadger]

But it *is* a signal that you can get places like Russia, China, Sudan, Iran, even effing Saudi Arabia at least *nominally* on board but the US won't commit to it.

There are any number of ways in which the US is an *amazingly* backwards country in terms of acknowledging and supporting basic human rights. Even when we don't have a president who thinks torture is acceptable...

Healthcare, paid leave, paid parental leave, the list is long.

[wolfette]

it could be part of the "America is BETTER" mindset. There is a strong belief among US citizens - I've met it myself - that the USA is some sort of paradise that everyone else in every country in the world wants to emigrate to (or hates because they're jealous of it). the US doesn't need to sign those treaties because they're "better than those other countries - they DO need them, because they're *not America*".

[winterbadger]

Yes, that's sort of what it is. A deep-seated belief that we exemplify what is good and best, but that no one else can do so or challenge us, and that ideas that originate elsewhere are inherently dangerous, threatening, and probably evil. Most of all, that we should be protected in our ability to do just as we like, no matter what the consequences for others.

I'm reminded of the Northern soldier who captured some Confederates in the Civil War. He was puzzled, he wrote to his family, because these poor farmers had not enlisted to keep their slaves (since they were too poor to own any) but to defend their 'rats'. Even when he finally go through their accent and realised they were talking about freedoms, not rodents, he couldn't understand. Because what they were saying was that thay might not own slaves now, but they might some day, and they didn't want people from some other state telling them that they couldn't. Essentially, they were fighting to preserve their rights to enslave, mistreat, and kill other human beings. Without a trace of irony, they believed that they were entitled to such rights, and that no one could take these rights away from them.

This country has many great ideas woven into its fabric, but it also has some really sick beliefs about how far "we" should be privileged over "others" simply because of their otherness, that I can;'t stomach.

[winterbadger]

There's actually an interesting Wikipedia article on the issue.

It seems the main objections are that

1. this is another attempt of the One World Government to take away our national (and even state!) sovereignty (*eyeroll*)

2. the UNCRC would prevent states from putting children to death for capital crimes or sentencing them to life in prison without parole (which of course we all want them to be able to do...)

3. the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child might annually criticise the United States for failing to fully carry out the requirements of the UNCRC.

The conservative religious whacknuts seem to use this third point as a way to pretend that the typical American family maintains an almost Roman pater familias regimen, and that the UN could "force" the US (apparently by telling us we were bad) to give children a reasonable say in decisions that affect them, based on their age and maturity. Of course, the world would end if children were allowed to express opinions, but what I love about this is that the UN would have no actual power, that I can see, to force compliance. But somehow the fact that it could call out the US for not carrying out its obligations would somehow spell the downfall of US national independence.

Because, of course, US conservatives pay *so* much attention to what the UN thinks now...

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Thank God for Somalia.

(Said in the same ironic way that people in Alabama say, "Thank God for Mississippi.")

[winterbadger]

Indeed. I mean, we're out there in the cold with *SOMALIA*? Let's be honest, the only reason they're not on there is that they don't have a government that can ratify it.

[schizokitty.livejournal.com]

Time to move to Canada. Or NZ. Seriously...

[winterbadger]

Or force *our* government to do things right. Obama has said he intends to get this ratified (we *have* signed it already).