"Jeremy" writes:

Despite our shortcomings, the United States wrote the book on how to be a
free society, and we are the model for many other cultures that are striving
to become more free. Part of being a "free society" is keeping our CHILDREN
FREE of being EXPLOITED.

I know I shouldn't, but I can't resist.
Too bad you didn't ratify the book (To be fair, it has been signed.):

From http://www.unicef.org/crc/faq.htm#009 :
# The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely and
# rapidly ratified human rights treaty in history. Only two countries,
# Somalia and the United States, have not ratified this celebrated
# agreement. Somalia is currently unable to proceed to ratification as
# it has no recognized government.

And from http://web.amnesty.org/pages/deathpenalty-children-eng :

# The use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people younger
# than 18 is prohibited under international human rights law, yet some
# countries still execute child offenders.
[snip]
# Since 1994 Amnesty International has documented 20 executions of
# child offenders in five countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo,
# Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan and the USA. At least one of these
# countries, Pakistan, has since changed its laws to exclude the
# practice. [snip] Thirteen of the 20 executions were in the USA.

Nice company you've got...
--
-asbjxrn