They're Coming for you Rick

I have made a unpleasant, but generally entertaining, habit of following my former Senator, Rick Santorum. Recently it has come to my attention that the good Senator is now writing  for the conspiracy website World Net Daily and has written his debut article. Lets see what so inspired Rick shall we.

A 2006 UN treaty intended to help protect disabled people. This should be fun. In the next sentence he trots his own disabled child out as a political tool,

"Certainly not my wife, Karen, and I, who are the parents of a very special child. Let me be clear: If I thought the U.S. Senate’s approval of this treaty would help our Bella or any disabled child here or in any other country, I would be vocally supporting it. " 

Classy. He then without evidence states that the US is the best country in the world for disabled people. This is actually unknowable since no one really ranks nations on disability aid. He then goes into some pretty standard pablum about how this means the US has no need to adopt this treaty. Fairly standard conservative opposition to international treaties. Then it takes a right turn.

But digging a bit deeper, the treaty has much darker and more troubling implications.The most offensive provision is found in Section 7 of the treaty dealing specifically with children with disabilities. That section reads: “In all actions concerning children with disabilities, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”

Okay that seems pretty inoffensive language, I wonder where hes going with this.

In the case of our 4-year-old daughter, Bella, who has Trisomy 18, a condition that the medical literature says is “incompatible with life,” would her “best interest” be that she be allowed to die? Some would undoubtedly say so. 

Holy Shit! Did he just allege that Harry Reid and the United Nations want to murder his child!? I mean wow, that's just nuts, even for Rick Santorum. That's pretty much his only substantive argument against the treaty. That the UN will take away the parents right to decide what is best for the child and that would mean death panels  Never mind that it isn't true and there is no way anyone could argue that murder is in the best interest of a child.  As crazy as this is, it puts Santorum right in the main currents of right wing thought. How do I know this? Because the Republicans enshrined conspiracy theories about the UN in their national platform.

This is one of the two main political parties in the United States, and the man who was the biggest threat to Mitt Romney in the 2012 primary. I'm calling it now Santorum 2016.