We are not in Kansas anymore!

Often, we find that someone we expect to be an ally, has placed themselves in opposition to our method while maintaining the same goal as we hold dear. Much frustration arises as we struggle to understand why we must work at odds rather than working together towards a goal we both profess and seek wholeheartedly. This has become a common experience in working to protect parental rights in our nation from the threat of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is hard enough to fight against the treaty’s advocates, but to feel betrayed by fellow parents that argue blatantly against your plan of defense against the common foe. The need for a Parental Rights Amendment seems so clear that no one could possibly accuse it of being as dangerous as the United Nations’ plan for raising your children according to their values. However, a number of sincere and outspoken advocates for parental rights are doing just this. At first, this was both irritating and confusing. Then, the key to understanding our divergence was found and unlocked the mystery.
In reading their arguments, one finds good evidence and some good reasoning, but one must look for what is not there. There are several areas of evidence that weigh heavily in the debate which are left out. Suddenly, it is clear. They are operating under the past assumptions of law, society, and precedent. Their plans for defending against the government’s intrusion into family life might work under past laws and national settings. However, today, the vague laws of the past which allowed parents to slide through loopholes of ambiguity or hide in the shadows of vagueness are all but obsolete. The authors of the laws learned from their mistakes and are regrouping with sharper edges on the laws and harder to find loopholes. A simple request for proof of a legal statute in the past was met with authorities backing down as they had nothing to show. However, today, the authorities are coming with stronger laws that can be enforced. Hiding in the shadows will no longer work. Parents need a stronger law than the authorities and a constitutional amendment is just the needed tool to protect parents and their children from the government.
Let us not forget one other significant change that many of the anti-amendment types have overlooked. In the past, parents faced simple local and state laws. They were poorly worded as described earlier and being at a lower level of government, they were often easier to bypass or overturn. Today, parents face international law, forged in the meetings of international intellects and experts. The laws are crafted much sharper, extend further into the previously safe shadows, and leave no holes through which to slip. If that is not threatening enough, they are infiltrating our country through activist judges without any approval by American citizens or without any warning. New York state and Ohio have already witnessed such use of international law to judge against American parents even without any ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The hope of hiding should be clearly extinguished by now.
With these contemporary realities in mind, the need for the Parental Rights Amendment should be abundantly clear. The amendment protects against international law in our own courts by section 3 which says that no international treaty nor source of international law can supercede or modify this parental right. The amendment also protects parents in the international courts which follow the Vienna Convention of International Law where such language of section 3 affords similar protection. We are no longer living in Kansas and we must face the realities of what is before us as Dorothy did in the land of Oz. What worked in Kansas won’t work today as we face the United Nations and international law.

Seeing More Clearly Now

I have struggled to listen many times as well intentioned and bright individuals argue that a Parental Rights Amendment would just open the door to federal control of our families instead of closing it. Often, the evidence that seemed so clear to me, only led them further down their line of reasoning and further away from agreeing with my stance. Then over the course of two or three days, several clarifying points hit me, allowing me to understand how we could see the same evidence and yet come to such polar opposite conclusions. From that illuminating point onward, I looked backward and began to see clearly where the divergences occurred.
A most significant discovery was that to some, most if not all laws are “bad”. Their automatic presupposition was that a new law inherently by its nature either creates limits on liberty or forces actions undesired by the affected citizen. Liberty to them has a great value, and I agree with them on that point. However, while recognizing the great worth of liberty, I recognize the wisdom of our nation’s founders as they understood that liberty does not reside securely in chaos, but in order. The chaos of anarchy, or absence of some degree of governmentally imposed order, offers no guarantee of liberty except to the strongest and wealthiest. They would respond that liberty neither resides in the shadow of a tyrannical government. I agree quite wholeheartedly. Are we then at an impasse?
While liberty finds no security in anarchy nor tyranny, it finds its most secure home in an ordered society where a limited government safeguards the rights of minorities while granting freedom to the majorities. If this is so, then laws are not inherently evil as their perspective proclaims. Yes, laws can be bad, but they are not inherently evil by nature. Laws are only as good as the people that make up the government which creates them. If those of the “all law is bad” persuasion can move past their above revealed presuppositions, they might see some value in an amendment protecting parental rights. While they may still not agree with the exact wording, they could see some value, at least enough to provide constructive input into creating an even better amendment (if such exists) rather than simply dismissing its potential benefit. Then rather than struggling against those such as myself who also seek to protect our parental rights, we could combine our efforts, wisdom, insight, and creativity to fight our real foe, those who want to steal that parental right from us.