leukemia. In his judgment, the treatment was making herrnmore miserable than the disease itself.rnThough the Amish may be among the few toda’ who understandrnthat there is more to life tlian being healthy, their odd beliefs,rnand those of other heretics and pagans, are easy targets forrnour own scorn. Orthodox Christians ma^ learn to sympathizernwith them when the state determines that our own bizarrernpractices are “prejudicial to the health of children.” Forcingrnchildren to admit their faults in a small room to an intentionallyrncelibate man in black at least endangers self-esteem, whilernserving alcohol to minors from one cup corrupts youth andrnspreads disease.rn”Abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health ofrnchildren”—tribal rites of passage requiring feats of daring? arndav of hard work in the field?—will lead to the Convention’srnthird objective: eliminating unique cultures. The Conventionrnwarns nations always to “respect the right of the child to preservernhis… nationality” and never to “illegally deprive” him “ofrnsome or all of the elements of his identity.” (Requiring an immigrantrnchild to speak and write English in school?) Any childrnso violated must be provided “appropriate assistance and protection,rnwith a view to speedily re-establishing [the child’s]rnidentit.” But by requiring nations to respect—and pay for—rnall cultures but their own, the U.N. ensures that no one culturernwill outshine another. The bizarre, prinriti’e, and foreign arernnow equal to the traditions and customs of families and smallerrncommunities, setting in motion the Convention’s fourth objective:rnreplacing the autonomous family with the omnipotentrnstate.rnThe state will ensure that “every child” will enjoy “a standardrnof living adequate for a child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moralrnand social development” and will have “the right to benefitrnfrom social security, including social insurance.” In otherrnwords, tlic state will assume the once sacred duties of families.rnThe poor, as always, are especially targeted: families whose “financialrncapacities” fall short of U.N.-determined living standardsrnwill benefit from state “assistance and support programs.”rnEven Mrs. Clinton acknowledges that authorities intervene “inrnthose families that arc most vulnerable to state control such asrnthe poor or unconventional principally because of the family’srnpovverlcssness rather than because of their needs.”rnEimilies, never completely dispensed with, will be enlisted asrnfunctionaries of the state: “The family . . . should be affordedrnthe necessary assistance so that it can fullv assume its responsibilitiesrnwithin the community.” James Grant’s enthusiasm forrn”an all out assault to slow population growth” in countries suchrnas Angola, China, Niger, Tanzania, and the Philippines, wherernUNICEF dollars are tied to contraception use, suggests thatrnsuch responsibilities include limiting family size to reduce thernstrain on “social insurance programmes.” In America, ofrncourse, state assistance to families already includes providingrncontraception, to say nothing of abortions, to minor daughtersrnwithout parental consent.rnNor need parents worry about schooling their children. Thernstate “shall ensure to the maximum extent possible . . . the developmentrnof the child.” “Primary education” will be “compulsoryrnand available free to all,” and the state will “take measuresrnto encourage regular attendance at schools and thernreduction of dropout rates.” Each graduating child will possessrna “fullv developed personality,” as well as “a respect for humanrnrights. . . and for the principles enshrined in the Charter of thernUnited Nations.” He will champion “understanding, peace.rntolerance, equality of the sexes and friendship among all peoples.”rnParents unwilling to cooperate with the new curriculumrnmay be found guilty of creating a “family environment” inrnwhich a child for “his own best interests, cannot be allowed tornremain.”rnPerhaps my reading of the document represents a paranoidrnoverreaction. But the misery that the state has recently visitedrnupon countless parents wrongly accused of child abusernshould make us all very skeptical of any children’s rights programrnproposed by any level of government. An internationalrnchild-saver might wonder aloud: “Can no one be trusted torninterpret these aspirations honestly? Has government anyrnresponsibility to see that its citizens treat their children—andrnindeed one another—decently?”rnThe answer presents a peculiar problem for citizens of thernpost-Christian age. Ideally, there is a legitimate role for thernstate—though certainly not for the international state, if such arnthing can exist—to play in advancing the common good; andrnthe restrictions which our own federal government has imposedrnon the states since Reconstruction in pursuit of the commonrngood might be tolerable, save for one problem: a governmentrnthat is demonstrably corrupt—one that pays to kill its own unborn,rnfor example—is exactly the wrong instrument for dispensingrncharity.rnSome find defense for state action in the social-justice teachingrnof the Roman Catholic Church. But for Pope Leo XIII,rnwriting in Rerum Novarwn, in order for a government to play arnpart in relieving poverty, that government must be “conformablernin its institutions to right reason and natural law” asrnwell as to specific “dictates of the Divine wisdom,” which hernhad set forth in an earlier encyclical. If today the appointmentrnof a Supreme Court Justice can be seriously questioned on therngrounds that he confesses belief in the natural law, it cannot bernargued that our current ruling class meets Leo’s—or any Christian’srn—standards. Necessary to his prescriptions, and to thosernof his successors, is the assumption that government will comprisernstatesmen whose interest is to serve the citizenry and notrnthemselves.rnMany Americans, nevertheless, still regard government as arnsource not only of order, but also of solutions to the tragedies ofrnlife. If government can help advance the common good, it canrndo so only as far as the vices of its representatives will allow. Notrnall men are evil wretches, but bureaucrats are no more virtuousrnthan the rest of us. Even if the U.N. does recruit ten experts “ofrnhigh moral standing and recognized competence in the fieldrncovered by the Convention,” they will remain men nevertheless,rnas will all the social workers who will do their bidding. ThernConvention docs require that only “competent authorities”rnserve as representatives of the state: “Children should not bernseparated from their parents, unless by competent authoritiesrnfor their well-being,” reads the introduction, but competent authoritiesrnseem in short supply. The U.N.’s own child-saversrnhave fallen into scandal: Jozef Verbeek, head of the BelgianrnUNICEF committee, and his assistant, Michel Felu, werernamong 18 people ultimately convicted for running a child prostitutionrnand pornography ring out of the Brussels UNICEFrnoffice. Introduced as evidence at the trial were 19,000 pornographicrnphotographs and a mailing list compiled on the officerncomputer.rnIf Verbeek and Felu seem to have ignored the Convention’srncondemnation of “the inducement or coercion of a child to en-rnOCTOBER 1995/27rnrnrn