The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has been defeated in the U.S. Senate, thanks to the work of Glenn Beck, Rick Santorum, and other ignorant conservatives like Michelle Malkin. The Senate just voted to defeat the U.S. signing of the treaty, 61 to 38. Just six more votes were needed to pass the bill that would have allowed the President to sign the treaty, which works to protect people around the world with disabilities, ensuring them the same civil rights Americans with disabilities currently are afforded.
READ: Glenn Beck And Rick Santorum: ‘Fascistic’ UN Disabilities Treaty Is From ‘Nazi Days’
Conservatives falsely claimed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities would interfere with U.S. sovereignty and would “promote abortion,” a ludicrous claim on its face.
UPDATE from Maddow at bottom.
Some responses from Twitter tell the story:
Update Via Maddow Blog:
The U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities, for those who’ve forgotten, is a human rights treaty negotiated by the George H.W. Bush administration, which has been ratified by 126 nations, including China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, Syria, and Saudi Arabia.
But most Senate Republicans saw it as a threat to American “sovereignty,” even though the treaty wouldn’t have required the United States to change its laws. When the Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved the treaty with bipartisan support in July, Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) explained the proposal simply “raises the [international] standard to our level without requiring us to go further.”
In other words, we wouldn’t actually have to do anything except say we like the treaty — and then wait for other signatories around the world to catch up to the United States’ Americans with Disabilities Act.
The treaty was endorsed by Dole, John McCain, and Dick Lugar, among other prominent Republican figures, but it didn’t matter. The GOP’s right-wing base, led in part by Rick Santorum, raised hysterical fears about the treaty, and most Senate Republicans took their cues from the party’s activists, not the party’s elder statesmen.
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what does one expect from the USA, a bunch of wimps when it comes to human rights for all. I dont think any of these people know what human rights are because firstly you have to be human to be able to have human rights and non humans cannot have human rights
David Badash, this article's author, unfortunately refers to "ignorant conservatives" which would "[ensure disabled people around the world] the same civil rights Americans with disabilities currently are afforded."
As a treaty signed by the President of the United States becomes law in the United States only, with no bearing in the outside world, Mr. Badash's argument that ignorant conservatives have somehow hurt the world's disabled peoples has no supporting premise. Thus, the argument fails. And, as the basis of the article itself, the article is of no efficacy.
Perhaps the sole purpose the article now serves is to reveal the author's predisposed bias and unacknowledged ignorance to which we are all now witnesses.
The problem with most of the treaties proposed by the U.N. is that they're immensely difficult for the layperson to research, given that information on the specifics is rarely made available. The U.N.'s own website rarely offers specific wording, which is incredibly important in all litigation. Stack that with politicians habit of wording things vaguely for their own ends, and you've got a bill that could absolutely be intrusive to the idea of national sovereignty on multiple grounds.
There's no reason to pass something through on ideological terms alone, especially when the actual effects have not been properly explained. The attempt to do something good is no excuse for doing it badly.
I happen to be disabled and you know what? I'd like to knee-cap Rick Santorum with a Louisville Slugger. On national television.
We've had the Republicans scream about Obama's not taking charge in the world – especially from moral high ground. Yet here we have a treaty modeled on our own legislation, signed by a Republican president (Bush I) – and the Republicans vote against it. So much for our country showing the courage of its commitments.
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