Minor hijack, but curiosity calls: What are the RW posters views on the Convention on the Rights of the Child?
Which, incidentally, has been:
Do you feel the US is justified in remaining the only western country to not ratify this document?
Of course it’s justified. Every country is justified in not ratifying any treaty it doesn’t find to be in its best interests.
I see Wang-Ka is getting into the fun of straw men as well.
SentientMeat - I suspect the reason non-Americans are surprised by American conservative viewpoints is that much American conservative thinking is founded on a specific set of documents - the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers, and other documents of the Founding Fathers of the USA.
The UN Declaration of Human Rights came much later in the game. It is (in my view) largely a wish list that all countries would be like Western Europe and the USA ended up after WWII - rich enough to be able to guarantee things that 99% of the human race had to provide for themselves.
American conservatives such as myself find the US Constitution to be a more valuable document on which to base their thinking because it describes the system under which the desirable end-point of the UN Declaration can be achieved. The UN has described where it wants the world to end up; the Constitution describes how to get there.
Simply saying “everyone has the right to a free public school education” partially begs the question. Some liberals take it for granted that the federal governments of the world are the only option in deciding who should provide these freebies. Conservatives often propose that other options are available, and preferable.
I have also encountered surprised liberals, to whom it never occured that something other than Big Government might be able to do practically anything. See Melanie’s OP for an example.
Regards,
Shodan
As my previous post alludes to, there is no difference. What you point to as rights, I call entitlements. And I have to give up freedom to provide the funds for these entitlements.
I guess I could say that Americans are just as puzzled by the non-American view that government-provided services which taxes must support are “rights”. I honestly can’t see it just being a semantic difference. It appears more a fundamental disconnect in the understanding of what constitutes a ‘right’.
:rolleyes: [sup]–Ah, but wouldn’t the world be a happier place if he were?[/sup]
Absolutely.
I am opposed to the type of global government that such treaties seem to be paving the way for, and I don’t think it’s necessary for the United States to even be a part of the UN or sign any treaty in order to handle our own policies within our own borders.
Shodan:
While I address this post explicitely towards you, I do invite other self-declared right-wingers to share their views. From your specific point-of-view, if it is not the place for governments to intervene then what should take the place of unemployment, welfare, health-care, and regulations on the insurance industry?
Nahtanoj
Absolutely. The US’s interests are undermined when it subordinates itself to an outside legal authority. As events of the last year and a half demonstrate, non-American interests do not parallel, and often run counter to, American interests. (see also prior discussion of UN Article 25) Why should we subject ourselves to that authority?
It is regrettable that non-American political rhetoric will attempt to paint America as being un-sympathetic towards the systemic violations of the world’s children’s rights, but that must be the price to pay for maintaining our autonomy.
There is indeed. I for one don’t think that people have a “Right” to a health service or fair and decent unemployment. I just want the society I live in to have such benefits available and am willing to pay for it.
This issue of “Rights” really gets on my tits. People hijack it all the time to argue their own points. Guns
Most people I hear talking about how they don’t want socialised medicine have a job with built-in insurance. So so I but I still don’t have problems paying tax so that the society I live in is a fair and just and people are looked after by the State if they are in trouble.
I would never agree to the label right winger, but I think many people refer to a libertarian persepctive that way. I think it boils down to this:
What is the purpose of government?
Some of us believe the purpose of governement is to secure the rights of it’s citizens and to prevent others from violating those rights. It’s primary function is to prevent wrongdong and provde the means of redress when wrong is done.
Others believe that a gov’t additionally has the authority to force people to do “good acts”. That whenever there is a problem identified, it’s up to the government to fix that problem. In short, that the end justifies the means.
I’m surprised by those on the left who assume that people are not naturally generous and caring and the gov’t must force people to be that way. I do a lot of charity work and make a point to contribute money to causes that I think are worthwhile. But I don’t want the gov’t telling me what those causes are. In fact, I would absolutely do more on my own if the gov’t didn’t require me to do so much on its behalf.
How do you, personally, class what is in a countries best interest? Is it simply what is deemed best for the majority of the population? Or do the rights of minorities get considered? What about those, like children, who have neither a voice to oppose such policy or a vote to change it? Should the most vulnerable in society not be afforded protected by those in power? Are free markets for US companies (which seem to be a big part of RW thought) deemed more important than individual freedoms of people in other countries? i.e. are the limitations on child labour laws (providing cheap overseas labour for many US companies) a reason to not support this particular treaty?
I don’t mean to say that by not ratifying this particular document it means no one in the US cares about children or their rights, I am just trying to ascertain why it is suitable and acceptable to most of the rest of the world (in fact, all the countries of the world who have workable governments) yet is deemed unnecessary in the US?
Again, I am asking only for your opinions, not attempting or wishing to debate any of these points in any depth. It’s all part of coming to an understanding of the rational behind such stances and beliefs.
Catsix said:
I would agree, if the US policies were only in effect within their own borders. But I think once they choose to affect those policies outside their own country, then they should be subject to international laws. But that’s a whole different issue.
Another perspective that I think non-Americans often struggle with is the desire that many Americans have to keep gov’t action on as local a level as possible. Even most Americans forget that we are a collection of states that decided to form a union, not a country that decided to divide itself into states for purely administriative purposes.
An action that I might find highly objectionable for the Federal gov’t, I would probably find less objectionable at the state level. That allows for experimentation to find out what works and what doesn’t. There is no reason why states can’t administer things such as welfare or eduaction with absolutely no interference from the feds.
Yes. Aside from the leading nature of the question (and the implied statement that the US is somehow not providing these things), the US attempts to actually live up to it potential, unlike the bajillion countries out there who routinely sign any nice-looking treaty and then ignore it. The US signs things when it appears that:
- It is something we agree with
- Ot does not infringe on our principles, laws, and constitution
- It will actually do some good
There is no international law. There is only international agreements. ANything else is just icing: sweet and nutritionless. The only reason the US is bound by any law by any organization outside it own borders is because it chooses to be.
Generally, it is what the government says it is. Which is why we like democracy. Then, the government more or less following the will of the people, assuming it has a real democracy (witness the rigged elections common in communism.)
Ofte, it is what is best for the majority. Hopefully, minorities, whether ethnic or other, wil be duly considered. However, there is nothing any treaty can do to hep an internal situation of a country without the governement of that country allowing it to be.
In a perfect world, yes. As I pointed out, no external treaty is going to help children without the government doing its job. If the government is doing its job, then children will probably be well-off by the nation’s standards. I am all for children to be protected; I believe it is the business of the country in question to do it. It is not my business, and it is not the business of the UN.
If a given nation does not deem it important or right that children for children to be forbidden to work, that is there decision and we should respect that. Unless children are being abused, there is nothign wrong with putting them to work, so long as the family has a choice in the matter. Obviously, if the state dcides that children must work, you have slave labor.
We like American businesses because we feel that they are the key to the economy of the future. American conservatives aim to understand the business world and to try and grow our wealth consistantly. American corps often employ people for low wages (by our standards) in other parts of the world. This is no evil - the wages are usually very high for them. Everyone wins. They get high wages, regular work, a job at all, and we get cheaper goods. Individual freedom is not a question at all - the two concepts are seperate and not incompatible.
Because most of them are ignoring it. The document means nothing, and no country in the world changed its ways because of that. There are many big criticisms of the UN as it now stands in Conservative talk:
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It favors talk way too much over action, it does not do things or set things right. This is exactly what doomed the League of Nations. The UN is supposed to be a meeting ground for states to figure out their differences and its also supposed to help group states together to face agressors and evil states. We feel it has failed in this.
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It panders to petty dictators and brutal tyrants. 8Ahem* Saddam Ahem.
Other do not apply directly to this disussion
A pie-in-the-sky dream of mine is a tax-free account for each individual whose funds are to be allocated only for these eventualities.
But that would give individuals too much power over their own finances, something liberals believe they are not competent enough to handle responsibly.
Yet more hyperbole. Or is this what Shodan would call a strawman? I’ve never been sure enough of the definition to be able to recognize one when I see one…
sigh There’s that regrettable anti-American rhetoric resulting from our commitment to maintaining our sovereignty. Told you so…
Look, it is up to individual countries to determine if child labor is illegal. It’s not just American companies that utilize cheap overseas labor. If it was illegal, they wouldn’t utilize it.
Child labor is already illegal in America. We don’t need to subject ourselves to foreign laws to help enforce that. If these other countries ratifying this document truly accept it, they will immediately pass their own legislation outlawing it. Then there will be no more child labor for our evil corporations to take advantage of, right? Oh, so sad… Must we continue with this only-peripherally-relevant hijack?
If I followed it correctly, SentientMeat (for the liberal side), Shodan and Tygr (for the conservative side) spelled out the difference properly. I’ll try to summarize.
Generally speaking, a common strand in the conservative opinion in America is that
- there is no enforcable right of citizens to state aid
- it would be an infringment on citizen’s freedom to have to pay tax to pay for state aid.
On the other hand, most Europeans (including most right-wing parties) hold
- citizens have a right (possibly not completely enforceable *) to state aid
- citizens do not have a right to be free from paying taxes that have been democratically established.
I hope I haven’t made a straw man of the conservative opinion, I really tried not to.
The OP and my fellow Europeans expressed wonder at the tenacity with which a lot of Americans hold to those two propositions I mentioned above. The reference to the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence doesn’t offer any justification for non-Americans, so we still find it odd.
Furthermore you shouldn’t forget that most European countries (and Australia may have as well) have accepted a more or less ‘social welfare’ regime, which is put in the Rome Treaty on Human Rights. This treaty does offer general ‘rights’, in the sense of obligations on the government to promote the well-being of citizens in specific ways. All that is antithetical to a lot of (conservative) Americans, if I have understood the debates around here correctly.
To get back to the OP: it seems that the difference is in part caused by the deep-seated adherence to those two propositions I mentioned, which is reenforced by the constant reference to the Constitution and other foundationalist documents, as well as a fear for a too-powerful (federal) government. Since most non-Americans do not share those positions, we cannot help but look in wonder at the resulting social arrangements or lack thereof.
Again I hope I have not made a straw man out of any position. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
- tygr astutely pointed out that the usage of ‘right’ by Europeans (more in the sense of a general moral claim that is not completely enforceable) is not the same as the use in America (as a strictly enforceable claim or right to be left alone).
I think, Tusculan, that you are not far from an accurate statement of conservative thinking.
The factor I would stress, which you did not, is the conservative commitment to limited government.
We refer to the Constitution under a belief that it enumerates a limited number of functions of legitimate government. A government which goes beyond those functions is one that has usurped the legitimate role of the other organizations that make up a civil society.
The history of the United States over the last seventy years or so is one of gradual or not-so-gradual expansion of the role of government, and of the federal government in particular. Beginning with the New Deal under Roosevelt, and receiving a major boost with the Great Society programs under Johnson, more and more of the problems of America have been assigned responsibility to the government.
Some of the programs put together to address those problems are effective, God knows, and many of them are very popular, especially with those who receive their benefits. But there is no escaping the bare fact that any increase in my tax burden is a decrease in my freedom to do what I want with my money. Sometimes that enfringement is a legitimate one. But not always. And it is not automatically true that any resistance to yet another increase in my taxes is based on selfishness or greed.
It is almost axiomatic that on average, tax payers have to pay in more than they receive in benefits. This leaves a surplus for distribution to those who do not pay taxes. This is inescapable. If everyone got out more than they put in, the system goes bankrupt. Some - in fact, most - have to suffer a net loss so that others can receive a net gain.
Some of the uses that government makes of my tax dollars are legitimate. The common defense, regulation of interstate commerce, etc., are all clearly itemized in the Constitution, and are considered part of the bargain that American citizens make with their government as they become adult citizens. Other uses, however, clearly are not mentioned in the Constitution.
As I said, some of the programs are very popular, and I am neither a strict libertarian nor one of those ZOG-resisting militia types who thinks he doesn’t have to pay income tax. But if you consider the steady increase in the role of government, coupled with the almost inevitable tendency of government officials to expand their power, and the completely inevitable increase in the growth of other programs beyond the point of diminishing returns (when was the last time the government cancelled a social welfare program because it cost too much and wasn’t achieving anything?), and you get a trend in society that goes against (to say the least) any idea of limitations on government at all.
As the number of problems for which government is held responsible grows more and more, the temptation for government to attempt control over big chunks of my life grows more and more. And that control tends to be exerted by bureaucrats at a great remove from anywhere that I can influence their decisions.
This UN treaty on the rights of children is actually a pretty good example. I expect most people would agree that the situation of children in the US is better than it is, for example, in Somalia. However, suppose the US signed this treaty. Where then would it be assumed that responsibility for carrying out its provisions be located? With the families of the children in question, where American conservatives usually place it? No, because the heads of American families did not sign the treaty. Responsibility for ensuring that all children have a happy life gets transferred to the US federal government, and the ones responsible for deciding what the US government does is good enough or not are some faceless committee in the UN. The locus of responsibility has been moved almost as far away from its traditional place as can be imagined.
Add to that the one-sidedness of the enforcement that I and smiling bandit expect (do you seriously expect some tinpot dictator in the Third World to stop forcing thirteen-year-olds into his army because he signed a piece of paper?), and you have a process that is less than worthless. All that is going to happen is that the military dictatorships of the world are going to scream that the UN is not giving them enough money, and then waste or steal much of what they do receive.
And all this is based on the unquestioned assumption that all the problems of children can and should be fixed by the government.
I suspect some of the differences between conservatives and liberals in the US lies in what they automatically assume. Liberals default to saying, “Let Uncle Sam do it.” Conservatives think there might be someone else better suited.
Regards,
Shodan
The thing is, every tinpot dictatorship and thugocracy in the world signs these meaningless treaties guaranteeing that they will respect such and such rights. Every one has a beautiful constitution that guarantee the freedoms we take for granted in North America and Europe.
And the words printed on the paper mean nothing. The US signing these meaningless treaties would not help one child. Instead they would be used as weapons against the US by malicious governments or individuals, much like the Belgian human rights laws were used. Why would we sign a treaty that won’t do any good and will instead cause harm?
Quite well put, Tusculan. I surely wish many liberals in this country would be inclined to devote such consideration to the conservative opinion. An informed mind is easier to debate with than a jerked-knee.
Also, this is serving to inform me, as well, as to how deep the differences are between the US and, well, “everybody else”. There is a significant sentiment here that places an extremely high value on individualism and self-reliance. Indeed, most of us credit our success as a nation to these very values, and wonder as to the sense of those insisting we turn away from those values in order to satisfy a feeling of taking care of our peers, now that we’re wealthy, when such changes would surely impact the sustainability of that condition.
It seems as though other cultures might value the collective higher. I don’t mean this to sound like a negative, by “collective” I mean, feeling a higher responsibility for the welfare of ones fellow citizens.
This is a not-insignificant difference in cultures. I believe that many of the people here insisting that the US needs to be more like Sweden, or Canada, or Britain, or whoever, don’t really comprehend the depth of the cultural variance.
I don’t understand “no justification”. These documents delineate our originators’ concept of what this country was to be, and the opinions you outlined spring from the values which are the source of this concept.
Yes, you are right that a great many Americans view (any) central government as a necessary evil, rather than a morally upright benefactor. This view goes all the way back to the beginning and beyond. As for referencing the founding documents, we do that to remember where we came from, the values that brought this country to the position it currently enjoys. I’m learning here that those values are not shared by citizens of other countries, and I think all would do well to recognize and remember that.
Thanks, Shodan, tygr. I’m glad that I got it reasonably correct.
With regard to the ‘no justification’: I meant that non-Americans are not used to justify rights or social arrangements with reference to the Constitution, since they are not part of our tradition. They do not have much justificatory force in a European debate on policy or rights. I didn’t mean to say that they provide no justification for American politics. I should have chosen my words more carefully to avoid this misunderstanding. Hope this clears it up. The suggestion that they may be of value for other countries is interesting, to say the least. I’ll have to think it over.
Even though I (being European) am partial to the ‘liberal’ viewpoint, I do find the American debates very interesting. I believe Europeans may learn something from these debates. There are signs that Europe and America are growing closer in politics, in particular with the implementation of a more liberal (in the sense of free) market economy combined with supervisory authorities to prohibit unfair competition. Furthermore the growing importance of the European Union makes European citizens wary for too much uncontrolled centralizes power, in a way that may be similar to distrust of federal government in the U.S.
Anyway, it may be Europe is going to be a bit more Americanized, but if it is, I think that at the very least we should be aware what it is we are going to accept and why we are going to accept it.
Melanie, what exactly do you mean by “right wing perspective”? Could you be more specific?
I’m looking at it from a leftist’s perspective, of course, but I have tried to think seriously about the question; and in my view, the words “right” or “conservative” in American political discourse can refer to any of the following distinct groupings:
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Religious-social traditionalist convervatism – “family values,” the Christian Coalition, and all that.
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Racist, anti-semitic, white-supremacist conservatism – a declining force but still very real, being rooted as it is in the native political traditions of the American South, and having achieved national expression in certain (actually, most) branches of the “citizens’ militia” and “common-law courts” movements. Despite superficial resemblance, NOT a form of fascism, or militarist-authoritarian-nationalist conservatism, like they have in Europe. The American Nazis do belong in this grouping but they’re a small minority of a minority. Most American white supremacists are also very supportive of “states’ rights” or local-communal autonomy, and very hostile to any kind of national dictatorship or even a strong federal government – presenting a real problem to any would-be American Hitler. In some ways this grouping shades over into libertarianism or anarchism, the law no longer being on their side as it once was.
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Nativist, isolationist, anti-immigrant, populist conservatism – a more moderate form of the above. Best represented, at present, by Pat Buchanan and his America First Party. These people hate Wall Street as much as they hate the New World Order. Unlike the overt racists, they probably will not admit to hating Wall Street because there’s all those Jews in it. (Which doesn’t mean that isn’t on their minds.)
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Foreign-policy neo-conservatism – an updated name for imperialism. Dedicated to the proposition that the United States should expand its military power and global influence by any means necessary. This is an important faction as it’s pretty much running the country right now, in tandem with the pro-business conservatives, below.
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Pro-business conservatism – what’s good for General Motors is good for the country, etc. Corporate welfare, union-busting, all good. Military intervention abroad also good, so long as it helps business.
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Libertarianism, or classical liberalism – pro-market, which is not the same thing as pro-business. Opposed to welfare for poor people; opposed, for the same ideological reasons, to government bailouts of troubled businesses; opposed to American military intervention abroad.
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Respectable elitist conservatism – best exemplified by aristocratic intellectuals such as William Buckley. Combines elements of several of the above, as the occasion requires, while honoring the Old World Tory tradition of Edmund Burke. In fact, I’m going out on a limb classifying this group separately from the business conservatives – but, in principle, their tradition is much older.
Obviously there’s a lot of overlap between these groupings and a given “conservative” might identify with several of them. But no rational person could identify with all of them. And for any given “conservative,” there’s probably one of the above groupings that represents his or her politics better than any of the others.
What conservatives prefer is the concept of “bottom-up” power instead of “top-down” power. For conservatives, the ability to rule their own life and protect their own interests is, well basically, more important than other peoples interests. Government control, or any kind of central authority, would interfere with the conservatives desire of controlling their own lifes and protecting their interests as they see fit.
Liberals on the other hand, are willing to give up moreof their individual powers for the sake of the “greater good” and “protective rights”.
The key point in this is that when every citizen has a broad ability to protect their own interests as they see fit and some people are born with less powers than others, “strong” people will be able to enhance their interests at the expense of “weak” people, because undoubtedly opposing interests are constantly in conflict in any society. This is what liberals finds unfair, while to conservatives this is nothing but the product of exercising individual freedom.
Basically, conservatives feel that everybody have to work with what they got, liberals feel that everybody deserves both to start off at the same point, and get a second chance if they screw it up.
On the international scene, conservatives will give the same government which they “mistrust” on domestic issues, broad control to act on their own behalf. The problem is that the international scene is not regulated by law the same way A Nation is regulated by its Constitution.
Once example is Belgium, which is the only country in the world which has given its courts the power to process cases against foreign citizens accused of violating international human rights treaties, - including American citizens. Of course, conservative America find this totally unacceptable.
However, when the US Congress not so long ago authorized a military invasion of The Netherlands (a neighbour of Belgium) at the US Presidents’ own discretion in the case an American would ever be put before the international court in Haag, – or when America detains foreigners at GuaBay, – conservative America see this as perfectly alright. For conservative America both opposing the actions of other nations, while conducting the very same actions themself, is simply conservative America exercising its right to protect its own interests, including its own citizens.
By first look, one surprising aspect of conservatism, is the choice of opposing or bypassing international treaties which conservatives actually agree to. “Surprising” because signing a treaty would legitimize an issue and thereby give citizens the opportunity to have such issues addressed in court. But the conservatives doesn’t like laws or regulations, because they feel these laws could be used against them and limit their individual freedom.
What the conservatives fail to see, is that both laws and international treaties works both ways. If a nation fails to sign an international treaty which would offer protection to foreign citiziens inside their borders, their own citiziens would not enjoy such protection in foreign countries either. And this is the consept that the conservatives fail to grasp: When nobody cares about other people besides their neighbour and their family, nobody cares about you either and noone will stand up for you. They might need it someday, and that day they will depend upon a liberal to save them. 
I would like to add one important thing: Though America is far more conservative than the rest of the western world, that doesn’t mean that the vast range of conservative values are held by Americans alone. In fact, there are issues where Europeans are indeed more conservative than Americans.