A few thoughts.
1. I don't think Mitt Romney gives a fig one way or the other on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. He just knows what will get him conservative base votes. And nobody ever lost votes among the GOP base by wrapping himself up in the flag and giving a razzberry to the UN.
2. Conservative paranoia over the UN never fails to boggle my mind. As if, should the US ratify the CRC (which every other UN member except Somalia has done), we will instantly see military patrols in blue helmets arresting parents who give their kids a swat on the butt. Because I'm sure that's just what's going to also happen in China, Russia, India, Iran, the UK, Brazil, etc., right?
Has the US ever signed a UN treaty/convention that actually affected substantive, anti-constitutional changes on people's everyday life?
These things are guidelines, people. They are a statement of principles. They are a tool for moral suasion and diplomatic discussions. The US looks like a bunch of barbarous dolts and bullies in refusing to sign this.
3. Corporal punishment and children is certainly a contentious subject (along a broad spectrum of what such punishment entails). I am amazed both by people who say "Anyone who does more than waggle their finger at a kid is guilty of emotional abuse and should have their kids removed immediately," but more so by the apparently much larger number who say "Jesus gave me the constitutional right to take a baseball bat to my kid and anyone who says differently will get a whack with it, too."
That said, there's nothing in the CRC (http://www.un.org/cyberschoolbus/humanrights/resources/child.asp ) that specifically does away with corporal punishment in principle, nor is there anything I see any more stringent than the principles already embodied in child welfare laws across the US.
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Mitt Romney, Defender of Spanking?
In a little-noticed signal to a Virginia evangelical power broker, the GOP candidate promised to block a hot-button UN treaty.
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The answer is in #2. Somalia is the dream country of monied Teapublicans.