us constitution

I’ve got to admit, it took me a while to catch on to what was really going on.

This is a difficult confession for me to make, because I like to think of myself as someone who “gets it” and can usually see “The Big Picture.”

And yet, the truth is this:

From time to time, there were some things being reported in the news that I found very puzzling, and left me, as the saying goes, “scratching my head.”

For example, I remember hearing that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had expressed her opposition to Mothers’ Day as “sexist,” and had proposed a more androgynous “Parents’ Day.”

“Ok,” I thought, “she’s nutty as a fruitcake a Liberal. But why is she talking about this?”

And, during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, there were questions about whether or not she believed in using foreign law to interpret the U.S. Constitution.

I did not understand why such a question was being asked. “Shouldn’t they be more interested,” I thought at the time, “with her views on, for example, abortion and the death penalty?”

Then, last year, there was a fight in the Senate over the Law of the Sea (LOST).  I remember reading the following:

Ceding authority to the ISA /International Seabed Authority/ would mean that the sovereignty currently held by the U.S. over the natural resources located on large parts of the continental shelf would be lost.

So, why were some Democrats (including then-Senator John Kerry) eager to pass this treaty? (Btw, the Dems lost on LOST).

And during Obama’s push for gun control, there was talk of the United Nations taking control of guns in the U.S. “What in the world,” I thought, “does the U.N. have to do with our Second Amendment rights?”

Then, two weeks ago, I came across a Wall Street Journal interview with former Senator Jon Kyl, entitled “American Sovereignty and Its Enemies.”

And suddenly, “The Big Picture” became all too horrifyingly clear.

Because all of these news items were, in fact, very connected, by a  term called “transnationalism.”

via the WSJ article:

….Transnationalists want to rewrite the laws of war, do away with the death penalty, restrict gun rights and much more—all without having to win popular majorities or heed American constitutional limits. And these advocates are making major strides under an Obama administration that is itself a hotbed of transnational legal thinking….

To be clear, transnationalism isn’t a conspiratorial enterprise. In the legal academy, its advocates have openly stated their aims and means. “International law now seeks to influence political outcomes within sovereign States,” Anne-Marie Slaughter, then dean of Princeton’s public-affairs school, wrote in an influential 2007 essay. International law, she went on, must expand to include “domestic choices previously left to the determination of national political processes” and be able to “alter domestic politics.”

The preferred entry point for importing foreign norms into American law is the U.S. court system. The Yale Law School scholar Howard Koh, a transnationalist advocate, has written that “domestic courts must play a key role in coordinating U.S. domestic constitutional rules with rules of foreign and international law.” Over the past two decades, activist judges have increasingly cited “evolving” international standards to overturn state laws, and Mr. Koh has suggested that foreign norms can be “downloaded” into American law in this manner….

Ms. Slaughter and Mr. Koh held top posts at the State Department during Mr. Obama’s first term, and their tenures coincided with an aggressive push to ratify or recognize as customary law… a host of … progressive causes.

For proof that the transnationalist threat isn’t merely theoretical, look no further than the European Union…. Today over half of the regulations that affect Europeans’ lives are made by administrators in Brussels, not by national legislatures.

These regulations include the EU’s ban, announced in May, on restaurants serving olive oil in traditional glass jugs or terracotta bowls (to protect the “image” of olive oil); the prohibition against insurers charging women drivers lower premiums (sexism); and Commission Regulation 2257/94, otherwise known as the “bendy banana” law, which until recently required farmers to discard irregularly shaped bananas (don’t ask)….

A favorite transnationalist tactic is pushing the U.S. to ratify treaties like the three-decades-old U.N. Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women, or Cedaw….

Such treaties, Mr. Kyl says, “have a lot of loose language that in the hands of the wrong people can demand far more than was ever intended by the American people.”

Take Cedaw. If the Senate ever ratifies this … the U.S. would become subject to oversight by a Geneva-based committee that requires signatory states to, among other things, “achieve a balance between men and women holding publicly elected positions”; “ensure that media respect women and promote respect for women”; and “modify the social and cultural patterns of conduct of men and women, with a view to achieving the elimination of . . . stereotyped roles for men and women.”

Would cooking TV shows hosted by female chefs survive Cedaw? How about Philip Roth novels?

Wiping out undesirable patterns of thought may be an easy proposition for illiberal regimes, but not for a constitutional republic.

Wiping out undesirable patterns of thought? The New Thought Police Alert!

Here is more about Cedaw, from “Harold Koh’s Transnationalism” by Edward Whelan:

In July 1980, President Carter signed CEDAW on behalf of the United States. The Senate, however, has never given its consent to CEDAW. Pursuant to its terms, CEDAW became effective in September 1981 as an international treaty among those nations that had agreed to it….

Prostitution (China, Feb. 5, 1999)
“288. The Committee is concerned that prostitution, which is often a result of poverty and economic deprivation, is illegal in China.”

“289. The Committee recommends decriminalization of prostitution….

Mother’s Day (Belarus, Feb. 4, 2000)
“361. The Committee is concerned by the continuing prevalence of sex-role stereotypes and by the reintroduction of such symbols as a Mothers’ Day and a Mothers’ Award, which it sees as encouraging women’s traditional roles. It is also concerned whether the introduction of human rights and gender education aimed at countering such stereotyping is being effectively implemented.”

In light of these example, it is obvious that the Left’s push for transnationalism is really an attack on the sovereignty of the United States as a constitutional republic.

Over two hundred years ago, Samuel Adams, one of our Founding Fathers, wrote:

“The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.”

TAMS, 2014 is near.

And, as they say on the Food Network’s Iron Chef America:

“Let the battle begin!”

 

Related:

The Telegraph: EU bottled water ruling joins the ranks of bendy banana law

Investor’s Business Daily: Secretary Kerry Still Pushing Law Of  The Sea  Treaty

Washington Times: Gun control by the U.N.

American Laws for American Courts: The Threat of Transnationalism

CNS News: Groups Opposed to Chicago School Closures Seek U.N. Intervention, Claim Human Rights Violations

 

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20 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. Alain41 says:

    And this why the UN must go. When the UN was born, it was conceived of as sovereign nations speaking to one another. Everyone can get behind that. But now the illiberal Herr Doctors have taken the creation to turn against its creators by removing their sovereignty. There will still be ‘nations’ but without sovereignty they’ll be Stepford Nations.

  2. strider says:

    The fact that we have resources to be energy self sufficient and just closed our embassies in a region we choose to be dependent on shows a state of stupidity or something. Not a good stance for international bartering on our sovereignty.

  3. LucyLadley says:

    Shifra, thank you for your posting on Transnationalism! I learned quite a lot about how international messed up thinking & priorities are. I knew it & yet I never pondered it in this way. Strange how some of the international law makers are so proud of their twisted laws. Stranger yet, how law makers in the USA want to link our Sovereignty with Transnational twisted thinking.

  4. Maynard says:

    This point has been made by many thinkers, including Tammy: It’s the Utopians, rather than the “bad guys”, that push us most directly toward Hell on Earth. Because the bad guys are in it for themselves and have limits to their appetites, whereas the Utopians can never rest while there are people out there beyond reach of their enlightenment.

    When you point out that the Constitution defines a government of limited powers, out come the straw man arguments. So you want to allow people to decide for themselves whether to dump poison into the rivers and molest children? So you want states to be allowed to re-institute slavery? Such examples imply that anyone opposing Utopian enlightenment is an anarchist who doesn’t respect the Constitution (under which slavery is outlawed). (Shifra earlier noted the use of the Obama’s pet phrase, “There are those that say…”)

    By the way, the slavery case is worth noting: It *required* an Amendment to end slavery, because historically the Constitution was respected, and it was generally understood that this institution couldn’t be ended by a judge’s declaration or a new law. Likewise, for example, the initial income tax was struck down, and required an Amendment. As we moved into the 20th century, we forgot about the framework of government limitations. The Court initially struck down some of FDR’s overreach (Shifra has previously written about the “Sick Chicken” case), but later retreated as Roosevelt threatened to pack the Court. It’s been downhill ever since.

    We’re rapidly sliding toward a state in which our government is entirely unshackled. The subservience to globalism is merely another facet of our forfeiture of the Constitution. God help us.

  5. Pat_S says:

    Thank you for all your work putting this info together for us Shifra.

    One World government is the way the Left has been drifting for a long, long time. It baffles me that America’s egotistical narcissistic politicians would be willing to concede authority to international bodies.

    There is plenty of grumbling against the EU among its members. At the moment the UK is being sued by the European Commission over the UK’s “right to reside” test (where migrants have to prove they are employed or actively looking for work before receiving welfare payments).

    The EC contends the UK can’t treat EU citizens any differently than UK citizens. It is discriminatory and against European law.

    The problem is people will migrate from poorer countries to countries with generous welfare benefits. Britain is bracing for a wave of Eastern European migrants.

    Britain braces for fresh Eastern European immigration wave

    Britain is expecting a second wave of immigration from Eastern Europe next year — this time from Bulgaria and Romania, as the EU lifts restrictions on their 29 million citizens’ access to the bloc’s labour markets.

    There are few who view this prospect with more trepidation than the English residents of Boston, where one elementary school already has signs on its gates in five languages.

    “We’ll be foreigners in our own town soon,” said Joan, a retired office worker, as she sat on a park bench enjoying a rare patch of winter sun.

    “I’ve got neighbours from Eastern Europe and they couldn’t be nicer. But we just don’t want any more of them.”

    and this complaint…

    …they put a strain on public services to moans that they frequently drive on the wrong side of the road.

    Maybe the last straw for Brits to defend their sovereignty will be if the EU makes them drive on the right side of the road.

    • Maynard says:

      Pat, when you say: “It baffles me that America’s egotistical narcissistic politicians would be willing to concede authority to international bodies.”…I’d say the answer is that our politicians regard the heartland as the enemy that must be controlled (you know, those bitter, clingy people), whereas the foreign forces are an out-of-sight abstraction. So the mindset is “the enemy of my enemy”, which allows our leaders a handle to find common cause with the external against the internal. That, if they get their way, they will ultimately have to take their marching orders from some foreign poobah is an eventuality that they’re unable to imagine.

      Some of these alliances are so incongruous that you’d think the conflict would cause Leftist heads to explode. For example, the same crowd that calls you a bigot if you don’t believe the state should sanction a man marrying another man then condemns Israel and goes to bat for the adjacent Muslim cultures that hang homosexuals. The human capacity to see whatever we want to see and ignore reality is astounding.

  6. ConservativeSue says:

    yea…transnationalism is another name for globalization and Bilderberg Group’s NWO to erase borders of sovereign nations with help of UN. They started with Europe to create EU, and are working on combining Canada, U.S. and Mexico to form Americas eventually adding Central and South America. Fabian socialism and one-world bs. At this rate, there won’t be a need for archaeologists and anthropologists.

  7. mmeusa says:

    This is an outstanding piece, Shifra. Thank you!

    • Vintageport says:

      I agree mmeusa…A really excellent educational lesson, Shifra. Thanks. However, I’m hoping the exam will not be blue book but True-False instead, and that you will give us another week to prepare. With posters like Maynard, Alain, Pat_S, and C-Sue, i would also ask that you not grade on the curve. What an incredible group of TAMs we have. Learning daily from you guys.

      • Shifra says:

        Well, Vintageport, first of all, we cannot possibly have a True-False exam when it comes to O and the Left; you know how Bronco ‘Bama is always talking about “False Choices” ?? (Hmmm, maybe a post about that is in order…)

        Pat_S: Interesting point about our narcissistic pols and their willingness to concede authority so quickly…. maybe the Left has a false/idealized “transference” to the European elites, who are perceived as “all good,” while the heartland, as Maynard says, is “all bad.” Maybe that is their psychological limitation. Who knows? I get a headache thinking about them.

        • mmeusa says:

          Shifra, your piece on this was, again, really outstanding and valuable, for it addresses one of the most important things American citizens must understand if they are to understand ultimately what is going on at all in this country. It seems Americans are having an increasingly difficult, if not impossible, time grasping the dismantling of our Republic, I think largely due to such things as failing to understand Political Islam, globalization (which you address in your discussion of transnationalism), and even the most basic world history. The failure of our citizenry to have at least a minimal education and understanding of these facts really is problematic in our efforts to restore the Republic.

          When I was studying EU Law in Brussels in 1997, to this day, I get chills up my spine recalling our discussion with the then VP of the European Commission, Sir Leon Brittan, who, interestingly enough, served under Thatcher. I should revisit my seminar notes to recall my moments of validation and my feeling of dread of what was evolving and how our country was perceived, which was clearly with immense envy and an insatiable desire of the Europeans to “top” what they liked to refer to as our “experiment with democracy”. They were utterly convinced that, despite their articulated admiration for, and obvious dependency on, us, they were going to “show us”, they “knew better”, and they fully intended to take the best of what the United States of America had created, create it for themselves, and avoid all our dreadful pitfalls. They were quick to criticize our inequities, crime, world power, etc., all hogwash, but it was their modus operandi, it was how they justified the evolving EU, and explains their rather quick failure, as well.

          In that moment and other moments, like when my Public International Law professor taught us the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the progressive underpinning driving these laws for the purpose of globalization was extremely unnerving for a deeply patriotic American citizen. Fortunately, in law school, you also learn about state sovereignty, but while the tension is an obvious intellectual and sometimes practical exercise, the forces of Evil have been alive and well and mutating aggressively to further their agenda, despite their repeated failures that undermine their propaganda!

          This brings to mind: “…in a report prepared during the war by the United States Office of Strategic Services in describing Hitler’s psychological profile:

          His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie#Usage_in_Hitler.27s_psychological_profile

          You’re on a critical and right track here, Shifra! Thank you!!!

          • Shifra says:

            Ah, so you studied International Law ?

            I was thinking of beginning the post with the following explanation/excuse as to why I did not immediately grasp the nature of these events: “I am *not* a lawyer (although I *did* stay in a Holiday Inn once 🙂 )”

  8. john czaja says:

    Shifra,

    how many ways is our sovereignty under attack…let me count the ways

    excellent piece

    thanks Shifra

  9. mmeusa says:

    Ah, Shifra, I’ve really stepped in it, eh? Now, you’ve made me blush.

    I don’t think studying law would equip anyone to write as artfully (meant positively) complex and comprehensive an article as you did. 🙂 Law school can be like having a painful brain surgery for some people. I just continue to be amazed what a difference it makes when someone can ground these developments in something outside their own experience. Unlike some, that was my pursuit in the things I studied, and is why I picked Liberal Arts for undergraduate. It seems that conservatives and like-minded individuals in the obvious important areas of our “living” for the most part don’t seem to need the “context”, because they have a visceral reaction to such infringements. But, it seems like those who I think unwittingly support the destruction of our country are quite clueless, intentionally, because then they can continue to hold onto their liberal ideals without having to accept any responsibility for their consent by ommission to the consequences. These people are unwilling to look at much outside the mainstream media and seem to not have a basic awareness of world history, because of the sources they are getting it from. Or maybe it’s something else. If we as conservatives read the same book, are we going to see that information the same way? I should have put an “or” between “minimal understanding ‘and’ education”, because that’s really what I meant. I’m not sure the truly liberal mind would process that “minimal understanding” in the needed way, anyway. But, that was what I had in mind…

  10. RuBegonia says:

    Tri-lateralists. A word pounded into my head from a young age. Figured it would make sense some day. Yup.

  11. mmeusa says:

    OK, Shifra, I finally got it! Definitely had to look that up! Ha! 🙂

    http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070710214018AAXBtAS

  12. Kitten says:

    An excellent post, Shifra, and very well researched. I love how the TAMs (smarty-pants) provide even more proof of the liberal nefarious objective. It’s all a slow drip to their nirvana: One World Order. The wombat from CA, Diane Feinstein, provided yet another example of this with a map of “The Homeland” that Tammy mentioned on Monday’s show, which included all of North America. This was no oversight on her part, it was well intended. Come on, 2014!

  13. ReardenSteel says:

    Great work Shifra! I started learning about the aggressive push towards UN lead globalism while living in Austin, TX about ten years ago. Make no mistake, this has been the aim of the UN, destroying the sovereignty of the US, since its inception. Global governance has been the goal of the elites, like the Rockefellers and George Soros, since before there was a UN. John D. Rockefeller Jr. bought and donated the land the UN stands on in New York. People pushing this are, as others have said, the utopians. They see America as the last stumbling block to ushering in their global utopian society. The political elites will never stand up for American soverignty in the face of the globalists. It is up to We the People to preserve and protect our great country from the wannabe tyrants that seek to destroy and enslave it. LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!!

  14. mmeusa says:

    Bravo TAMs! “Long live the Republic”, alright! God bless Tammy and the Tammy Army!

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