Skeptics of the United Nations have long warned that subsidizing an outfit that holds any Third World potentate preening on an upturned bucket stands as a moral equal to the president of the United States could lead to trouble.<\/p>\n
Supporters scoffed at the notion that — humored long enough — dashiki-clad kleptrocrats from nations where opponents routinely \u201cdisappear\u201d could eventually sit in judgment of jurisprudence and \u201ccivil rights\u201d in the United States.<\/p>\n
In fact, all it took was election of a president whose Marxist college professors and America-hating pastor and CPUSA childhood mentors predispose him to view the world through the same prism, and … bingo.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe acknowledge imperfection,\u201d Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, said as he grovelled before the \u201cUnited Nations Human Rights Council\u201d in Geneva Friday. \u201cThough we are proud of our achievements, we are not satisfied with the status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n
I happen to agree. Somehow, though, I doubt Mr. Posner means the Obama administration now vows to work hard to honor the Second, Ninth, Tenth and 14th Amendments by halting prosecutions of citizens for buying and selling firearms or painkillers — or engaging in any other form of non-coercive commerce — without a government \u201clicense\u201d … or to eliminate whole classes of taxes (starting with the insidious \u201cproperty\u201d and \u201cincome\u201d taxes) in order to stop \u201cseizing the bread from the mouth of labor.\u201d<\/p>\n
(After I\u2019ve paid off my house, I still owe the government \u201crent\u201d? Why? Roads are funded with tire and gasoline excises, and could otherwise be tolled. Literacy has been plunging ever since government took over funding and management of \u201cschooling\u201d from parents — which is where most \u201cproperty taxes\u201d go, even from those who fund their own kids\u2019 education. Fire protection should be by subscription. And as for \u201cpolice protection\u201d — where do I opt for \u201ca whole lot less, thank you\u201d?)<\/p>\n
Now, getting rid of THOSE would be real progress on \u201chuman rights\u201d!<\/p>\n
Posner made his remarks at the start of a three-hour public humiliation (billed as a \u201cdebate\u201d) on America\u2019s human-rights record, the first time the government has subjected itself to the Council\u2019s scrutiny.<\/p>\n
(The Bush administration routinely spurned the 47-member cabal because of the participation of what it deemed oppressive governments and the group\u2019s constant one-sided denunciations of Israel.)<\/p>\n
Friday, countries including Iran, Russia, China and Egypt made public relations hay by pressing the U.S. to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison and to ratify international \u201chuman-rights\u201d conventions which include government censorship of \u201chate speech\u201d in the press — though they don\u2019t seem to prevent Egyptian newspapers from routinely reporting the shopworn libel that Jews grind up Arab babies to make their bread.<\/p>\n
State Department legal adviser Harold Koh whined that the U.S. is working hard to close Guantanamo. Through \u201cdiligent efforts,\u201d the number of detainees has dropped to 174 from 242 when Obama took office, he simpered.<\/p>\n
Oh, please.<\/p>\n
The administration could easily have replied, \u201cYou wanted the prison camp at Guantanamo closed? We just closed it. Those whose guilt could not be proven were sent home. Those that were caught out of their nations\u2019 uniforms, making war on the United States or plotting sabotage and civilian murders, were lined up against a wall and shot yesterday, as called for by the Geneva and Hague international conventions on war. Thank you. Thank you very much. No, really, you shouldn\u2019t have. Flowers? You\u2019re too kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meantime, delegates from European nations, as well as Turkey, famed for its Armenian Christian genocide, pressed the U.S. to abolish the death penalty.<\/p>\n
The Swiss and Belgian ambassadors were among those calling for the U.S. to scrap life sentences without the possibility of parole for criminals who were minors when they bludgeoned innocent children or storekeepers to death.<\/p>\n
(Are the Swiss and Belgians offering to take them?)<\/p>\n
What on earth is this sovereign nation — the one to which oppressed people have looked for centuries as a shining beacon of freedom — doing down on bended knee asking for approval of its policies by such dungeon-ridden hellholes as Venezuela, Uganda, Cuba, Red China, Libya, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan?<\/p>\n
Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based U.N. Watch, pointed out non-democracies were allowed to \u201chijack the session for political propaganda and to drum up anti-American sentiment worldwide\u201d by \u201cstacking\u201d the speakers list with \u201crogue regimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group reported Cuba circulated an advance sign-up sheet so critics of Washington would dominate the three hours.<\/p>\n
Cuba … which still lets people rot in prison for decades for writing anti-Communist POETRY.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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