In days past it was said that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. This was a truism based on the understanding that mothers had more influence over their children than anyone else. Therefore, as the child matured and ventured out into the world, their mother’s influence also influenced the world they lived within. Unfortunately that is changing and in some cases, without notice.

Uncle Sam’s hand that rocks the cradle?

Many recognize and complain about the encroaching role government-run schools exercise over our children. It would be easy to pin all of our moral and governmental problems on a liberally-biased school system that calls good “evil” and evil “good” but the truth is a great deal worse. In the “good ole days”, parents taught morals, schools concentrated on academics, preachers spoke the truth regardless of any politically correct intimidation, and Uncle Sam was an amiable character that encouraged our patriotism.

In the increasing number of single-parent households, deadbeat dads have been replaced with welfare checks and other means of government assistance. But worse – our kindly old Uncle Sam has been more than happy to insert himself into the family structure and to replace charity with a government check or food stamps. Uncle Sam has not only replaced Daddy, he has become our Nanny as well. Whether it be your earthly father or your Heavenly Father, Uncle Sam has made every effort to usurp his role and become the supreme arbiter of how we live our lives. Recently he has even told us what foods your local restaurateur may and may not serve. As disturbing as these instances may be, nowhere is his tyrannical coup more obvious than in the classroom. While lowering academic standards to near catastrophic levels, Uncle Sam has used public school classrooms to diminish our wealth and paganize our children right under our noses.

All the while, we nod our heads as we are told that cradle to the grave mentality is deemed to be a good thing and villages should assume the role of raising our children. In today’s culture, the hand that rocks the cradle can be a government employee of one kind or another, and it should be no surprise that this will result in government ruling the world – including our families. While we are embroiled in conversations about our national finances, the most sacred of all our relationships is being usurped right under our very noses.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

The flag of the United Nations. (Public domain as per UN policy.)

Believe it or not – it would be good to end here. Government-run schools, churches that have lost their salt, apathetic parenting, and pagan schools bear much responsibility for our declining culture. However…a monster is looming behind the corner that has the potential for permanently eradicating the parent/child relationship.

Focus on the Family’s Parental Rights Statement posted by Candi Cushman on June 10, 2010, states:

…Because the created order and the Bible teach that children are entrusted to parents by God to provide them with a safe and secure environment to learn about God and his creation, what is true and what is false, and what is right and what is wrong, we steadfastly oppose any and all domestic and international efforts of social parenting movements that would define children as wards of the state.

In the words of the U.S. Supreme Court, “The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the State to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state.”[1] Likewise, we strongly oppose radical civil libertarians who would undermine parental rights and authority in the name of the “children’s rights movement.” Since the parents are trustees of their children, and not the state, they have the right to decision-making in their children’s education.

What is happening in the classroom may not have gone unnoticed by some, but what is happening in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is under most people’s radar screens. Not only are our sovereign rights as parents being usurped by an out-of-control government but our sovereign rights as a nation (including our rights as parents) are also being usurped by the United Nations, and not without the knowledge and consent of many in leadership positions who have taken an oath to preserve and protect our Constitution.

Michael Ferris, of the Homeschooling Legal Defense Fund and President of ParentalRights.org has launched a website to both educate parents about the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and to initiate a Parental Rights Amendment that would protect the parent/child relationship. The website (www.ParentalRights.org) lists two categories totaling 20 things you need to know about the Convention. They are as follows:

TEN THINGS to know about the STRUCTURE of the CRC:

1. It is a treaty which creates binding rules of law. It is not a mere statement of altruism.
2. Its effect would be binding on American families, courts, and policy-makers.
3. Children of other nations would not be impacted or helped in any direct way by our ratification.
4. The CRC would automatically override almost all American laws on children and families because of the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause in Article VI.
5. The CRC has some elements that are self-executing, others would require implementing legislation. Federal courts would have the power to determine which provisions were self-executing.
6. The courts would have the power to directly enforce the provisions that are self-executing.
7. Congress would have the power to directly legislate on all subjects necessary to comply with the treaty. This would be the most massive shift of power from the states to the federal government in American history.
8. A committee of 18 experts from other nations sitting in Geneva has the authority to issue official interpretations of the treaty which are entitled to binding weight in American courts and legislatures. This effectively transfers ultimate policy authority for all policies in this area to this foreign committee.
9. Under international law, the treaty overrides even our Constitution.
10. Reservations, declarations, or understandings intended to modify our duty to comply with this treaty will be void if they are determined to be inconsistent with the object and purpose of the treaty.

TEN THINGS to know about the SUBSTANCE of the CRC:

1. Children would have the ability to choose their own religion while parents would only have the authority to give their children advice about religion.
2. The best interest of the child principle would give the government the ability to override every decision made by every parent if a government worker disagreed with the parent’s decision.
3. A child’s “right to be heard” would allow them to seek government review of every parental decision with which the child disagreed.
4. This treaty has been interpreted to make it illegal for a nation to spend more on national defense than it does on children’s welfare.
5. Children would acquire a legally enforceable right to leisure.
6. Christian schools that refuse to teach “alternative worldviews” and teach that Christianity is the only true religion “fly in the face of article 29” of the treaty.
7. Allowing parents to opt their children out of sex education has been held to be out of compliance with the CRC.
8. Children would have the right to reproductive health information and services without parental knowledge or consent.
9. A murderer aged 17 years and 11 months and 29 days at the time of his crime could no longer be sentenced to life in prison.
10. Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children.

ParentalRights.org is proposing a Parental Rights Amendment, which is listed on their website: www.parentalrights.org.

“It could never happen here?” Think again

In the past many thought things of this nature could never happen in this country, but to our dismay, many of those “unthinkable” things have happened as our check and balance government has turned into a rubber stamp government where cronyism and special interests trump our Constitution. The baby-boomer generation has seen many atrocities come to pass – all in the name of the “better good.” So before you shake your head and say “this will never happen,” take a moment to think about the family/life curriculum being taught in public schools where teachers are mandated to teach things that they would have been brought up on charges for alluding to a few decades ago. If you believe that government has the right to make these kind of decisions for you, then perhaps you better ask yourself – who’s your daddy or who’s your nanny? If the answer is Uncle Sam, we may not be able to avoid the monster looming behind the corner.

Reprinted from Mychal Massie’s The Daily Rant

[1]
Lauro F. Cavazos in “Choice of Schools in Six Nations” by Charles L. Glenn (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989) pp.iii-iv.

[subscribe2]