Brain Damage

The United States Senate failed to ratify a United Nations-sponsored treaty that would have committed this nation to helping to secure the rights of disabled persons all over the world when the vote fell short of the two-thirds majority needed for ratification by five votes.  A total of 38 Republicans voted against it, with many of its opponents expressing the fear that the United Nations would have control over American law and make decisions over how people with disabilities are accommodated, trumping American sovereignty.  Which is a peculiar argument, as the treaty was based on this country's own Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and aims to make the American standard global.  That wasn't good enough for Senator Mike Lee of Utah, who was afraid that the treaty would violate the rights of parents who educate their disabled children at home and give the United Nations the power to impose a global standard for  how they're treated.  How could Mike Lee say such a stupid thing? Perhaps you weren't paying attention - Mike Lee represents Utah!

Although the United Nations Disabilities Treaty had the support of former President George Bush (the elder one; I call the younger one George Walker Bush) and former Senator Robert Dole, who's 89 years old and confined to a wheelchair in addition to having a damaged right hand, far rightists such as former Senator Rick Santorum - who, as I recall, lost his Senate seat in a landslide in 2006 and couldn't defeat Mitt Romney for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination - spoke out against its ratification.  Somehow, Santorum had more sway on the issue than Bob Dole.

The treaty would not impose anyone's authority over the United States at all; rather, it would assure a standard for fair treatment of disabled persons globally and allow disabled Americans traveling and living abroad to be treated the same way they would be at home.  Senator John McCain, a treaty supporter, has lamented that the United States won't be able to help implement such global standards if it is not ratified, but that's hardly going to matter to conservatives who refuse to let any international body tell Americans what to do.  Given our continuing inability to do anything that's simple common sense, maybe it's about time we did.  I'll come out and say it; the real disabled Americans are conservative Senate Republicans.

Incidentally, this isn't the only treaty approved by the vast majority of nations that the United States has refused to ratify out of fear of infringement on national sovereignty. The 1982 Law of The Sea treaty,  which sets rules and responsibilities for use of the world's oceanic areas (70 percent of the earth's surface), remains unratified by the U.S. because of of fears that national security could be adversely affected and that American businesses would be subject to fees and taxation by the International Seabed Authority, among other things.  And then there was President Ronald Reagan's explanation of his opposition to the Law of the Sea: "I always thought that when you're on the high seas, you could do whatever you want." 

Advocates of such treaties say the United States should ratify them and join the rest of the world.  I don't think we should join the rest of the world, and not because I agree with conservative arguments against interdependence with other countries;  I don't.  I don't think we should join the rest of the world because I don't think we deserve to and besides, I suspect that the rest of the world doesn't want us anyway.