Promised is Promised

Anyone who has taken a proper class in English literature will have read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), and perhaps will have read the sequel as well, Through the Looking Glass (1871). Both books were authored by an English mathematician writing under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.

But you needn't be a scholar to have heard of the story or to be familiar with the plot line. Within four years of publication it was popular enough to have been translated into both French and German. At last count, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has now been published in 174 different languages. Walt Disney chose the story and shortened the title for a full length animated film that was released in 1951, which meant that even non-readers became familiar with this classic. And more recently, Tim Burton stretched artistic license for both titles in directing his CGI films (2010, 2016).

The story is now over 150 years old. I learned it from my dad who had memorized some of the poems in the book when he was a child. He read it to me as a bedtime story. He owned a 1946 special edition that reprinted John Tenniel's woodblock illustrations from the original publishing. Those pictures, one of which is used here, acted as cornerstones from which my imagination could fill in the details; I am glad that I never saw the movies first. 

As you probably know, the story begins with Alice falling down the rabbit-hole. That was me, in real-life, last summer. Except in a Looking Glass reversal, I wasn't falling; I was stuck in the doldrums. No air ever rushed by, just a lull in life. I was in my own Land of Wondering if I would ever reach my God-given destiny.

Since this is the Bootcamp Planet blog, my posts here are rooted in the idea that the purpose of life on Earth is largely training for the afterlife. You have to graduate bootcamp to make it to heaven. Graduation is based upon accepting Jesus Christ. But beyond that, once you accept Him and receive admittance into Heaven, your rank in Heaven depends on how well you've obeyed His will during your bootcamp days. (It can be proven from scripture that "hearing and obeying" God is more important than how many "good deeds" you've done. But that will have to wait for another post; trust me and accept that premise because I don't want to get sidetracked now. The alternative, rejection of Christ, leads to hell.)

So, back on topic, at the end of last summer I felt not only stagnated in purpose, but also pressured by time, as if it was running out for me to reach God's goals for my life and improve my heavenly rank. I felt like I had achieved only half of what God has for me, and like Alice, I could not see where my feet were headed.

Tenniel woodcut

Another way that I identified with Alice was that it seemed as though the help that people did offer to me wasn't really meeting the need. When Alice was to play croquet with the Queen, she was given live hedgehogs for balls and a flamingo for a mallet. Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game indeed; I understand her reasoning perfectly. Her tools did not fit the task, and I was questioning if mine did.

While I never cried an ocean of tears the way Alice did, there were moments when I felt that swirling, drowning hopelessness of not being able to see a way out. And that was when my very own Storybook Hero appeared on the page. He said only three words, "Versprochen ist versprochen," but something deep within my soul leapt up from the watery deep and clung on for dear life. "Promised is promised." It was a fresh breath. It changed everything. 

I remember sitting there looking at the words. Promised is promised. That was when the tears came, but unlike Alice's sorrow, these were tears of joy. It was as if God had said it Himself. But instead He used a person who didn't know me, who I will probably never meet this side of Heaven, and who didn't even say it in English!  You have to admit, that is as curious as anything you'd ever read in Alice in Wonderland.

Cares that mattered a moment before didn't matter anymore. God had reminded me that His promises are solid, and that there was a least one other person in this would who understood the value of a promise. I had begun doubting if anyone did.

Three words changed my entire perspective. They were a heaven-sent gift, and ten months later I can say that never reverted back. Not for a moment. Instead it has grown in its new direction. Some days I will walk through the woods and think, "Wow, I'm really happy. Deep down happy!"  When stuff happens that would try to steal my joy, I let go of it a lot faster now.  I am able to see the Big Picture concepts and not get so easily stuck in the minutiae of the details.  Faith comes more fully now: God's got this! His promises are promised. 

I re-read sections of Alice in Wonderland last night to be sure that I remembered the story correctly. (I did!) But what struck me for the first time was that Wonderland was Alice's own bootcamp.  Her experiences there prepared her for the life that lay ahead. The book ends with Alice's older sister, who was babysitting when Alice slept and dreamed her dream, realizing how—

… this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood: and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago: and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

The differences are that Alice's Wonderland was a dream of long ago. My wonderland is a vision of the future. In Alice's after-time, she will be ripe in years. In my after-time, those who sought the Lord will be vibrant and full of life. Although I can remember many happy summer days of childhood, I am convinced that my happiest summers are still ahead. The 'simple' sorrows will get left behind on our Bootcamp Planet, but as long as I am here, I will not forget the messenger who reminded me that Versprochen ist versprochen; Promised is promised.

God has promised this in Jeremiah 29:11—
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
And I can believe it now.


illustration credit: John Tenniel - public domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=629700

Kat Kerr talks about Heaven

Govern and rule at all levels


click for YouTube ↑

Okay, so Kat tends to come off as a bit of a flake, but you probably need your stuck-in-a-box mind expanded, and she can make that happen. She begins with a fun and lighthearted approach describing heaven.

Her teaching about ruling and reigning (governing) begins at the 30:00 minute mark. She explains that everyone has a natural gift that they share with others.    Your gifts will be used in heaven to bless others, and the degree to which you exercise your gift determines your level of authority. If you want more authority, then use the gift God has given you.

At the one-hour mark, she begins her testimony about declaring and decreeing. This is a practical application in which she expands on one way to use your gift to rule over darkness (by declaring - to vocalize). 

You will also decree a thing, and it will be established for you; 
And light will shine on your ways. 
Job 22:28

To "decree a thing" involves more than just saying it aloud. It includes making a quality decision.  

I watched another video where she gave a similar teaching message to an American audience first, but (1) the audio was fuzzy, and (2) she rambled off-topic. The audio was so distracting that I went in search of a better copy, which is when I found this.  Maybe it is because she has to work with an interpreter, but Kat does a much better job focusing on the message in this video and the production values are much better, so those are two reasons why I chose this version. 

Age Traps, Oopsies, and Memorial Observations

As I go trundling through life, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my age.  I am active. I am still learning lots of new stuff. I don't reminisce much or live in the past. The number of times I have orbited the sun while riding this Bootcamp Planet is not a restriction for me.

Until recently, I thought of my age as a 'middle adult' program that ran in the background and was never seen onscreen. I liked it like that. I had so successfully repressed my actual numerical age that if I was given a form to fill out that wanted that information, I would have to subtract my birth year to figure it out. True. Really.

Mentally, I would choose my age much like a fashion accessory. Some days I would feel 8, or 17, or 40, or 59 depending upon who I was with and what I was doing. The youngest person that I have a friendship with just completed kindergarten; from there, the ages of my friends run right on up to octogenarians. This broad-band approach has a lot of advantages. Believe me.  A lot of good stuff is even better when viewed through childhood awe, a lot of bad stuff is easier to dismiss when viewed through an elderly perspective, and many piddly faults are super-easy to forgive and toss to the wind when the immensity of eternity is considered.

But then...

Other people's expectations occasionally come up and slam me. For instance, apparently not knowing one's own age, as I described in Paragraph 2, is a very real sign of dementia in some paradigms.   I find it pretty scary that some people think I "need an evaluation" because I had to stop and think how old I was. I spent too much of my childhood living in emotional boxes, trying to please others, to now (as a middle adult) be left with any respect for control freaks who want to shove me into their new boxes.

But then at other times...

Regrettably, sometimes the age gap is much larger than I thought it was and I am completely taken by surprise. It happened this Memorial Day.

Time and geography have made Memorial Day a meaningful holiday for me. Every classmate in my elementary school had either a dad who had fought in WWII or a parent who had worked in the supply factories. Every adult in my life knew someone who "did not make it back."  I had teachers who had been widowed by that war. Every spring my Brownie troop would march in the local parade to the cemetery, carrying small American flags.
I do not dwell on those days much, but they framed me. The town nearest where I live now has an annual hometown-style parade for which I have built floats, walked the route passing out candy and prizes, and worn the t-shirts to support my candidate or cause.  Vintage Americana.  Red, White, and Blue. A memorial that reminds us of our sacrificial heritage, when we knew the honor of paying now for a better future.

Forward to 2017. In a space/time world of international gameplay on handheld devices, chat happens. Asians, of which there are quite a few, had questions about our holiday: Was it about Vietnam? Was it celebrating war?

The international audience was not getting accurate answers. The "Memorial" part— the remembrance of heart-rending personal sacrifice— was being obscured with the regular banter and gibberish. And on top of that, well-meaning Millennials started talking about Veteran's Day, which is a time for honoring the living.  (What have they been teaching in schools for the past 20 years???) 

Well, more than Oops, my response was a total travesty! My abhorrent social incorrectness was showing. How dare I? 

In this new time/space world's more liberal social policies, it is now an extreme offense to correct unintentional mistakes if people get touchy about it.  I am a complete idiot for not knowing this.

Facebook's Personality Tests

 Personality quizzes are a staple of my Facebook feed. I do not have to search for them. They come to me. Almost always, they come from a female friend. I guess men don't feel as much need to take a test to confirm the obvious.

And most of the test questions are pretty obvious. For example:
      What would you rather do on a Friday night?
a. Have a beer at the local karaoke pub.
b. Curl up with a good book.
c. Coach a ball team for troubled youth.

Now, can you predict which answer will get "You can be happy being alone" in the results?
Yes, I thought so. Most of the test questions are pretty obvious.

If I answer the questions honestly, it almost always results in "you are an independent, creative person" in one form or another.
The "independent" part may present as "you greatly value your freedom" or "you don't need others to make you happy." Six of one; half-dozen of the other.
"Creative" might show up as "you tend to think outside the box" or "you are a visionary who can.."   Same difference. 

The quizzes phrase the results in glowing terms,  but let's face it, "you are an independent, creative person" could also apply to a mad bomber, and "thinking outside the box" could mean "a difficult person" to any hard-core socialist regime.

So according to a Facebook Quiz, I could be almost anybody!  😕

Not quite as often, but still with some regularity, the personality quizzes find that I am "vibrant and friendly." The first few times I got that result, I actually went back and re-took the test, changing answers here and there to try to find out why they called me vibrant.
"Vibrant" is not a term anyone meeting me in person is likely to use.  I am not a physically-hyper, high-energy person; I am not the one everybody in the room notices right away! If "Vibrant" means pulsating with activity, then the quiz results were a couple rings outside the bullseye.

 Eventually, I decided that the quiz was calling me "vibrant" because of the answers that I did not choose! Even though I am not ordinarily throbbing with energy, I am not depressed either. I reckon that by not choosing the depression answers, I am by default, vivacious and spirited!  😵

I suppose that if you are going to draw conclusions about who I am based on a 10-question quiz, you have to economize somewhere. And "vibrant" isn't really a bad guess; it is just that I am far more vibrant in my daydreams than in real life.

So this week when another pop-psychology personality quiz showed up in my news feed, I decided that I would take the test by picking the last answer— the one that was the worst fit and least like me. Let's see if the quiz is reliable in reverse and describes someone who is pretty opposite from me...
Here are those results:
  You're a "just get it done" kind of person. You are driven, competitive, and you like to be in control. You are very action-oriented, and you appreciate efficiency.

🤔 Actually I do appreciate efficiency. But I am not action-oriented, driven, competitive, or a "just get it done" kind of person. As for liking to be in control, well, I need to define some terms here.
No, I do not like to control other people. I get a lot more enjoyment from watching where another person will go with a situation than I would from directing them to do it my way.

Let me digress a bit and go down a bunny trail here:  Surprisingly to me, this gets me in trouble with a certain kind of person: control freaks!  Control freaks flip out when I make a simple suggestion. They like to call me obnoxious and crazy and all sorts of unflattering expletives. They wrongly project their own paradigms and assume I am trying to control them.  Needless to say, I do not entertain control freaks as close friends; control freaks are about the only people that are major challenges to get along with.  (sigh)

So, back on the topic of Facebook quizzes.

Some of the personality quizzes on Facebook track you. I have stopped answering those that ask to see my email and friends list.

They generally rate five different traits:  five psychological traits of Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. This trait-tracking even has an acronym: OCEAN

One of the big companies that do this is called Cambridge Analytica. Click for Website 
They have both commercial and political divisions. They collect and use the data from the Facebook quizzes to change audience behavior. They are very upfront about that. Cambridge Analytica uses data to change audience behavior.

They have been hired to work on American political campaigns and they were consultants for Britain's Brexit. In fact, their website makes this claim: "We are the global leader in data-driven campaigning with over 25 years of experience, supporting more than 100 campaigns across five continents."

Okay, so they've gotten enough free advertising from me. But the point I want to make is that if you are in the US, when you click that you like popcorn and a movie more than going to the rodeo, you are adding to their 5,000 data points on over 230 million American voters! And if you vote someplace else, they probably have a data bank for that as well.

Cambridge Analytica and their competitors are corporate control freaks!  Their amalgam of predictive analytics, behavioral sciences, and data-driven ad tech are being used to control your way of thinking toward whomever is paying them.

The next time that I am told, "You tend to ponder big questions like the meaning of life and these questions are as important ' or more important to you ' than smaller matters like what you should have for dinner," (and yes, that was a real response I had to one of the personality quizzes) then I will at least be aware that the control freaks are out there, and it is not paranoid to think they want to control your mind!

To survive on this Bootcamp Planet, we must find, develop, and become confident in or relationship with our Creator. There are many snakes slithering around the swamp, and they will tell us most anything in an attempt to control our souls. They may even try to convince me that I am vibrant!  

When your Yogurt is your Shrink

My yogurt has gone all philosophical on me. The stay-fresh seal in the last tub of tart cherry urged me to "live life with the lid off."

In addition to the alliteration, that also sounds as if it would make for a great adventure, doesn't it? What I have discovered. however, is that it mostly makes a lot of people mad at me.

But other people often prefer it when I keep my life in the container. It is easier for them to deal with their own things when I stay quietly in my box and don't bring up issues that make them feel uncomfortable.

Working out this balance between when to go out and "live life with the lid off" and when to stay inside the boundaries is a universal challenge here on the Bootcamp Planet. One has to take the lid off to experience freedom. But when the lid is off, things spill easily and life gets messy.  And even though with practice one can learn to avoid many of life's spills, there is not much one can do about the metaphorical flies and the mold spores that either buzz or drift into life.

Since the premise of this blog is that Planet Earth is a bootcamp for the Age to Come, and since my Yogurt Psychiatrist is advising me about life in the here-and-now, the Berean mind (an inquiring mind) probably wants to know if the "live life with the lid off" advice is compatible with scripture.

Actually yes.

When the new heaven and the new earth is described in Revelation 21:7 and 8. it says this:
 …The one who is victorious will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be My son. But to the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and sexually immoral and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death.   

Notice how that list opens with "the cowardly"?  As a child that scared me the most. It unsettles me still. The cowardly don't like living life with the lid off. My vision of a perfect life includes having a man's shoulder to rest my head on and having his arm around my waist; I am not one to rush off looking for dragons to slay. So it was rather strange for me to find that a label on a tub of yogurt was suddenly evoking rueful thoughts.
As to the list in the verse above, thoughts of witchcraft, homosexuality, and murder are not going to get lodged in my soul where I entertain them until they become actions. I have loved truth and found liars abhorrent from my earliest memories. If someone or something from outside tried to give such ideas to me, they would not stick.  But the cowardly... 

Now look at the picture of the yogurt label again. Do you see the humor?

  The COW is telling us not to be COWards!         

My take-home lesson in this is that God has a sense of humor and He can encourage us in the most unlikely ways. Maybe that is not what it means to you, but I found it to be a delightful, albeit unexpected encouragement about making courageous choices.

🐄       🐄       🐄    

  
Matthew 7:21 Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven.  My near-daily prayer is that i and those I love will not miss their destiny in God.

"Why, God, why?"

There is nothing that puts Life into perspective quite as jarringly as an unexpected death. That happened to a neighboring family here recently. The impact of a death is only intensified when those involved are just at the threshold of adulthood.

When one reaches young adulthood, the blood, sweat, and tears investments in growth and development have been made, the bulk of schooling and training is complete, and it seems as though there "ought to be" a season for establishing one's place in the Divine Order of Things. Death does not belong on the schedule. But it happens.

That life-perspective slammed into my life at the age of 20. It was a consequence of a drunk driver, two lanes left of center, slamming into my brother's car.  One day I had a brother; the next day I did not, at least not in this earthly space-time dimension.

Much of the next week has since slipped into foggy, healed-over memories. But some things remain clear. For one, apparently I did not meet other's standards of grieving properly. I remember an aunt saying, "It just hasn't hit Emily yet." I suppose she wanted more public tears like my brother's school friends, but part of me was experiencing relief from the incessant teasing. Horrible to feel relief perhaps, but true nonetheless. The controlling effect of his teasing was one of those things that my parents were oblivious to, but while he was alive, I certainly was not going to whine about it and be told to toughen up! And after his death, it was easy to let it go.

Such absurdities, paradoxes, and oxymora as relief in the mix of emotion seem to be, if not normal, at least common when Death comes to claim a young adult. And in a struggle to make sense of the senseless comes the universal question, "Why, God, why?"

Questioning is a part of the grieving process. When my brother was killed, my mother's first words were, "The LORD giveth, and the LORD taketh away." Unsurprisingly, that Jobian response did not satisfy my dad. I don't think it would satisfy most people. And the way my mother said it was out of context with the way Job had pronounced it. Previously he had torn his robe, shaved his head, and fallen to the ground in worship. (Job 1:4,5) My mom had turned that verse into a platitude.

Over the years, I have learned a thing or two about platitudes. They should be accepted more with the idea that the speaker is at a loss for words than as advice. A lot of bromides suck at giving advice. Here is another one that is frequently heard at funerals:  "No one knows the ways of God," or its counterpart, "God works in mysterious ways."

Yes and No. 

Yes, scripture does say, "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, Isaiah 55:9." 
But since Isaiah's day, the Holy Spirit has been sent to Earth to enlighten us. Jesus predicted this:
Jesus replied, "You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand." John 13:7

How thin the veil

We are allowed to have answers! In fact, if the information is crucial to our salvation, I think God has obligated Himself to tell us. But more than obligation, God desires to make Himself known. He is willing to talk to a seeking heart. Of course, communication is a two-way street.

When my brother died, I asked God why. I wanted His perspective on it. Some of the answers, (yes, there was more than one reason,) were surprising to me, some were a deeper development of things I already knew, and some were none of my business!

• God "told" me, (and this "told" was an inner witness or knowing that came during a time of prayer,) that the main reason that my brother died at that time was between Him and my brother, it was a relationship thing that was none of my business, so He was not going to answer that part. Even though this was a non-answer in some regards, it made me love and respect God more because it showed that he can be trusted with personal information. I am grateful that He explained why He wasn't answering, and I learned a lot about why some prayers don't appear to get answered.

• There was a second "non-answer answer" too. The same inner witness showed me that the reason could be revealed someday; He wasn't hiding it on purpose but that he could not explain algebra problems when I was still working on the basics of addition.  That was over 40 years ago. I had a similar conversation with God recently and the answer was He could not explain calculus when I'm just now mastering long division… I guess that is progress! 

• One answer was reflective, but involved my mother, so I don't feel at liberty to discuss it in an Internet blog.

• The chief "teachable moment" answer for me at that point in time was profound. I had already had some teaching and read a book on the importance of our words. God really expects His kids to respect and weigh their words. Jesus will never be able to trust us to reign on the Earth if we keep spouting off every idle thought that floats through our heads. He also expects us to keep our word:   Promised is promised.

The night my brother was killed, my mother had said, "Be home early." He replied, "I will be home by 10, mom." Notice how he had set his own boundary; this was not a curfew under someone else's authority. Yet at 10 o'clock that night, instead of honoring his promise to his mother, he headed out of town to help a new friend. A noble goal, but a broken promise. In those days, he would have had to use a pay phone to call home, but he did not, even though he walked past one on the way to his car. The Holy Spirit explained to me that this broken promise had restricted his guardian angel's ability to help him.
If that does "not seem fair" to you, let me remind you that this was only one facet of a complex structure—one element in a perfect storm, so to speak. But this was the part of the greater picture that I needed to heed; the part that I could learn from so that my brother's life was not-quite-as-much in vain.

God then said that these reasons should be sufficient, and indeed they were. Since then, I have come to realize that I could have pressed in and asked for more, and he would have answered; but I also know God is more pleased by accepting some things on faith without my having to have details.

Writing this blog has been my "Algebra Moment." I'm being graduated from long division to a better understanding of the workings of God, but I'm humble enough to know that my astrophysics level is still very far away! Living is a process. Things have been brought into a perspective that I could have no way grasped four decades ago.  And again, I would not have been writing this today if it had not been for Lane DeCicco. I am sure that he had no clue that he would be used to give a neighbor, whom he may not even have remembered ever meeting, a deeper appreciation for the complexities of the workings of God.

The UN's Convention on the Rights of the Disabled — A Double Edge Sword

United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD)

Sounds nice, doesn't it? What heartless soul could be against the UN codifying rights for the disabled? Keep reading, and if I make my point effectively, that person will be YOU!

Of course, the under-informed will call you heartless; in reality, you will have gained the wisdom needed to identify a two-edged sword. And the CPRD is truly a double-edged sword that curses our nation, even as it attempts to bless the disabled.  It is a paradox, but with a stated goal of helping the needy, it puts us deeper into ungodly control and bondage.

First, a bit of boring history:
The CRPD was adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 13, 2006. It took a year and a half, until May 3, 2008, for 20 nations to ratify it, at which time it went into effect in those countries.  President Obama signed the CRPD on July 30, 2009, but because the Senate never ratified it, it has not gone into effect in the US. Technically, the U.S. Senate could vote to ratify this treaty at any time.

But before you jump in and squeal, "Those politicians just don't care about the disabled!" let's review some of the fine print. Because when you do, you will discover that it is not about caring at all. It is about power over others. The disabled are being used as pawns to manipulate Western society's human compassion into a peaceful surrender of human rights.

1.  The UN treaty requires that all American law that deals with disabilities be conformed to the standards of the UN. This means that a body of people, most of whom did not grow up in America and whose native cultures have different standards of what is normal will be the judges of our laws dealing with the disabled.  This may seem "fair" on the surface, but hang on…

2. Subversion of Authority. Article 4(1)(e) remands that “every person, organization, or private enterprise” must eliminate discrimination on the basis of disability.  This is a wild over-reach of power that not even God demands from His servants! It actually is in direct opposition to the Word of God on at least two levels. (a) Jesus taught that we should discriminate, in a good way, and show extra kindness to those in need, and (b) to ratify this this treaty would be saying that we agree with making the United Nations tyrants over us.

But Jesus called them over and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and their superiors act like tyrants over them.  But it shall not be so among you… Matthew 20:25, 26a

And did you catch that part of the quote above where the treaty says "every person?"  Let me explain how that works: You may think that a globalist body, even if they have access to all your cell phone conversations and data, isn't going to be micro-managing your personal life, but that phrase will be used to "make examples" of a few unfortunate souls in order to keep the masses in line. It will lead to propaganda and public brainwashing that will deceive many into making idols out of ungodly mandates. You will be surrounded by people who think that way.

3. Education. The satanic deception in this area is to use the "good idol" of education to achieve the surrender of God-ordained parental rights.  Article 7(2) of the CRPD gives the government—acting under UN directives—complete oversight in determining what is "best" for all children with disabilities. This means that a government panel in some city miles away that has never seen the disabled child will have more say-so over the path of that child's education than his parents do. This is so ungodly! The scriptures clearly state that responsibility lies with the parents. This means that parents will often be thrown into a conundrum where obeying the Lord will mean they must oppose the government.
Current American law is pretty good; our federal law requires public schools to offer special assistance to children with disabilities. But we also have the safeguard that no parent is required to accept such assistance! Parents have the legal option of choosing alternative therapies, private schools, or homeschooling, which can often better accommodate individual needs.  Under CRPD, it would be a matter of only a few years before parents would be ordered to accept the program offered by the government school, a situation which openly discriminates against parental rights!  In the early decades of the UN, any document such as this one would have included a statement recognizing parental rights. CRPD does not.

4. The Pocketbook.  You must realize that when the United Nations says "international cooperation," it really means that the wealthier countries must give the poor ones a free ride.  Under the dictates of Article 4(2), the United States will be obligated to fund programs for disabilities in foreign nations.

This is something that many Americans would probably want to do anyway, BUT Americans wouldn't be able to select which countries or have much oversight to ensure that fraud is minimized. It would be handing over our taxpayer's money to organizations with histories of abuse of funds. 

Not only would CRPD use American money overseas without American oversight, but we would also be told how we must spend our own money here at home.  Article 4(2) requires the United States to use its "maximum resources" for compliance with UN standards.  On record, in the past, the UN has looked at other countries budgets and told them that they are spending too much money on military programs and not enough on social programs.  If you haven't figured this out yet, then let me put it more plainly: This is a deceptive, long-term strategy to pressure nations to disarm and weaken their national security under the false pretext of helping the disabled.
________________________________________

United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is indeed a two-edged sword, both blessing and cursing.  However, the two blades are not equal in their acuity. The propaganda machines of the media make it easy to see the blessing side, but they hide the cursing side that will slowly rob us of our freedoms of self-determination.

One final point that I did not include in the list above is a "boiling frog" curse—one that can happen so slowly that it is hard to notice and therefore it is hard to show the evidence that this is happening. The structure of the CRPD is such that any lawsuits which arise because of it are likely to be "resolved" by taking power away from state legislatures and putting the authority at the federal level.  With the disabled, especially with disabled children, this is a disaster. Those decisions are almost always better made at the lower levels; the more local the better. But the CRPD takes it the other direction.

Currently, President Trump is being petitioned to toss the CRPD out along with other documents that Obama signed. It will be a blessing for disabled Americans if he does.