Yes, I am spoiling everyone’s breakfast by yammering on about this disgraceful failed vote over a UN-supportive nothingburger treaty, which calls for people with disabilities to be treated with a degree of respect that was written into American law more than twenty years ago, by that treacherous RINO George H.W. Bush. No, I don’t believe that signing it would have immediately improved the global standards of care for persons with life-altering medical conditions. But the GOP rejected the resolution — in a chaff-cloud of paranoid rumors about UN black helicopters stealing home-schooled children away from their loving parents and forcing doctors to condemn ‘imperfect’ babies to death — because the convention is about the “Rights of Persons with Disabilities”, foremost among them the right to the greatest possible level of autonomy. The Republican Dung Beetles believe that “rights” are for white men with money, and that any attempt by the rest of us to assert our autonomy is a plot to steal control from those whom God and the Second Amendment intended to be in charge.
Lawrence Downes, in the NYTImes, on “A Parting Slap Against Bob Dole & Disabled Americans“:
Former Senator Bob Dole, 89 years old and in a wheelchair, went onto to the floor of the Senate today to urge his former colleagues to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities. Mr. Dole, a disabled veteran, has been one of the leading voices urging ratification of the treaty, which seeks to bring the world closer to the high standard set by the Americans with Disabilities Act, the landmark civil-rights law enacted under President George H.W. Bush.
One by one, according to Roll Call, the senators approached Mr. Dole to pat his shoulder or clasp his hand, making gestures of respect for the man who was for many years the Republican majority leader.
Then he was wheeled away, and all but a handful of the Republicans bailed out on him. The treaty failed. It needed a two-thirds vote to pass, or 67 votes, and fell six short…
In other words, these cowards didn’t have the guts to disagree with a crippled octegenarian to his face.
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