On August 20, for the first time in its history, the United States submitted an official report of its record on human rights to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. This survey of our Republic’s human-rights situation is known as the Uniform Periodic Review (UPR).
The submission of the report is the second step in the UPR process. Next, a representative of our government will deliver a formal presentation of the report’s findings to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva in November. The completion of the first two stages of the UPR process demonstrates the willingness of the Obama administration to subject the laws of the United States and those of the several sovereign states of which it is composed to the judgment of the world.
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The State Department’s official announcement of the inaugural submission of the United States to this review proudly proclaims, “The review … has featured an unprecedented level of consultation and engagement with civil society across the country.” The roster of the “Civil Society Consultants” that participated in the collection of relevant human-rights data reveals the report’s bias and the underlying purpose of the procedure.
Nearly a dozen conferences were held throughout the country from January to April. The attendees (and thus the chief contributors to the descriptions and suggestions forming the core of the UPR report) included many of this nation’s top-shelf globalists. Among them were Stephen Rickard and Wendy Patten of George Soros’ Open Society Institute, a worldwide foundation devoted to spreading “democracy”; Devon Chaffee from Human Rights First, a New York-based group that for over 30 years has pressed the U.S. government to acquiesce to the UPR process; Andrea Prasow from Human Rights Watch; Imad Hamad, a man who in 2003 was selected by the FBI to receive its Exceptional Public Service Award (the FBI caved to pressure from Israel and did not give Hamad the award) once praised a Palestinian Authority TV Sesame Street-style program that encourages Palestinian children to kill Jews and Christians and recommends they serve Allah by becoming suicide bombers. In the disturbing production, a young Palestinian boy sings, “When I wander into Jerusalem, I will become a suicide bomber.” Another song: “How pleasant is the smell of martyrs … the land enriched by the blood, the blood pouring out of a fresh body.” Hamad, Lebanese-born Palestinian, called the program “patriotic”; Dawud Walid of the Council American Islamic Relations (CAIR), whose Los Angeles branch leader blogged about his “admiration” for suspect al-Qaeda associate Anwar al-Awlaki; Ron Scott, from the Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality; Osama Siblani, from Arab American News; Shannon Minter, of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a group that has published guidelines for radical sex-ed classes in elementary and secondary schools in order to “prevent harassment on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation and gender identity;” and Cynthia Soohoo from the Center for Reproductive Rights.
With buskers like these in the band, is it any question what tune they sang in their showcase performance for the United Nations?
In the digest of the human-rights condition of the United States, these authors wrote that they wanted to provide a “snapshot of the current human rights situation in the United States, including some of the areas where problems persist in our society.” It should come as no surprise that one of the “problem areas” pointed to in the report is the “plight” of immigrants, particularly in Arizona since the passage of S.B. 1070, the law aimed at eliminating the flow of crime and criminals across the southern border. Given the bent of the contributors to the UPR report, one would assume they would gleefully welcome the oversight of the United Nations into the laws of Arizona or any other sovereign state with the audacity to protect its borders.
President Obama ratified the coalition’s assessment of S.B. 1070’s effect on human rights. The UPR report declares, “President Obama remains firmly committed to fixing our broken immigration system” and to work “with fellow members of the Human Rights Council.” In light of the President’s commitment to cooperate with the Human Rights Council, it should be noted that the final step on the path to UPR fulfillment is the “voluntary compliance” with the recommendations of that body.
The State Department brags about the UPR report recently submitted by the United States. In fact, the 29-page report expresses the hope that the United States “will serve as an example for other countries on how to conduct a thorough, transparent, and credible UPR presentation. Undoubtedly other countries will follow suit, but the United States was beaten to the head of the UN human rights parade by such legendary palladiums of human-rights as China, Iran, and North Korea, all of whom have already handed in their reviews.
From the first page of the report, the preparers make mention of our nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution that put flesh on that skeleton of the first principles of liberty.
Paragraph 1 of Section 1.1 of the report reads:
The story of the United States of America is one guided by universal values shared the world over — that all are created equal and endowed with inalienable rights. In the United States, these values have grounded our institutions and motivated the determination of our citizens to come ever closer to realizing these ideals. Our Founders, who proclaimed their ambition “to form a more perfect Union,” bequeathed to us not a static condition but a perpetual aspiration and mission.
The universality of the equal creation of and endowment of inalienable rights to all men is indisputable. The notion that somehow that premise logically gives rise to the conclusion that the United States is justified in imposing our interpretation of those beliefs at the point of a gun is ridiculous.
And, as for the “mission” bequeathed to us by our Founders, if such exists, the goal of it must be the perpetuation of the limited government chained by the enumerated powers expressed in the Constitution as written by our Founders and not the building of an American empire with outposts in all the provinces of the world.
Later in the year, the UN Human Rights Council will conduct a final audit of the current state of the promotion of human rights in the United States. Then, it will recommend a slate of necessary reforms to the laws of the United States. Between now and then, Americans have the opportunity through the periodic elections to be held in November to remove from office any legislator who favors the subjugation of our national and state sovereignty to the unelected, unaccountable, unconstitutional authority of the United Nations.
Photo: AP Images
