It IS the most fundemental issue facing us right now:
The American Left (aided and abetted by some conservatives) believes that the government, not parents, should determine the content of a child’s mind—their ideas, their principles, and their values. A few weeks after McAuliffe’s tone-deaf faux pas, two authors writing in The Washington Post summed up the Left’s position in the title of their op-ed: “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t.” Parents should have neither the right nor the authority, according to the Post’s writers, to determine the ideas taught to their children. This task should be left to the “experts”—to the experts of the Education Establishment. The authors go on to claim that “education should prepare young people to think for themselves, even if that runs counter to the wishes of their parents.”
And:
“When it comes to society’s interest in protecting children, the legal precedent is unambiguous: The rights of parents come second.” But the question is, if parents’ rights come second when it comes to protecting or educating their children, then whose rights come first? And the authors’ answer is obvious: society’s rights, the government’s rights, the rights of the public-policy experts trump those of parents.
I need to quit now, because bullshit like this makes one of my fingers twitch really badly. Let’s call it this one, just for the official record:
(but I could be lying)
And that’s even after having completed my own kids’ homeschooling many years ago. But despite that, this is a hill I’d be prepared to die on, if called to do so.
Quick reminder to the “experts” and the State-sponsored thugs they use for “enforcement” : if you want to see a serious piece of social upheaval, start fucking with people’s kids. Virginia parents’ reaction to the CRT curricula isn’t even an appetizer.
Our kids are ours. They are not the possession of the State. But go ahead and poke that nest of rattlesnakes with your short little sticks…
“The purpose of a university should be to make a son as unlike his father as possible. By the time a man has grown old enough to have a son in college he has specialized. The university should generalize the treatment of its undergraduates, should struggle to put them in touch with every force of life.”
~ Woodrow Wilson, who gets my vote as worst POTUS of the 20th century. He wrote that around the turn of the century. More than a century later his ideological progeny have made him a prophet (Propeller Beanie Upon Him). The enemy is much better at the long game than we are.
Many of these alleged experts are some of the most arrogant imbeciles I have ever met. I believe that most graduate degrees are awarded to people who agree with their advisors and has become little more than a rubber stamp of self selecting imbeciles.
JQ
Having the home-schooling argument with a member of the local school board, and really get upset when he hides behind the statement that parents are not qualified to teach their kids.
Home-schooled here.
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Leading into my eighth birthday, I hinted I really wanted a sling-shot… but I would [big sigh] settle for a BB gun.
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I grew-up on a farm in the mountains east of Sacramento, my four grandparents lived next door… every Saturday was a re-union, singing and dancing and story-telling.
Every adult in our extended family was an active mentor.
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One example:
My uncle Jesse (middle name ‘James’) was born in 1899; a self-taught civil engineer, he worked dams in South America and bridges in Afrika.
At home, he furnished each of us kids one book on Sunday morning, with the expectation of a verbal book-report the following Saturday afternoon.
Doing the report in front of the assembled crowd, we could expect a series of gentle questions intended to get us to defend our interpretation of the subject.
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Around the acreage, we were encouraged to invent new-better equipment and methods for operating the farm.
And we were expected to defend our inventiveness through at least five “Why?” cycles with the old-folks.
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As you can guess, I had my assigned chores, and my inquisitive inventive imagination prompted me to fuss with other stuff, too.
But, starting at 7am, Saturday mornings were mine for televisionprogramming.
Roy Rogers, Gene Autrey, Perry Mason, Lash LaRue, Sky King and his bubbly niece Penny, and the ilk.
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One favorite — private-investigator Boston Blackie.
Blackie’s cases were the dead-ends abandoned by LawEnforcementOfficials, those humiliating embarrassments TheMayor wanted solved but the government agents were helpless to close.
Enter Blackie, his no-nonsense style inevitably picking the culprit in less than twenty-two minutes.
His winning technique — ‘reverse psychology’.
He wound-around behind a potential crook’s thinking, and always snagged the confession using reverse psychology.
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Accordingly, I employed this sure-fire method during the weeks leading to my eighth birthday.
I had little use for a sling-shot, the ultimate prize would be a BB gun.
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Based on my understanding of Saturday morning televisionprogramming, the old-folks would be guillible-enough dupes to get me my BB plinker.
Obviously.
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My eighth birthday.
All day, no celebrations, no cake, no gifts.
I was dismally disillusioned.
After supper, my Aunt Jane asked for my help unloading the trunk of her Studebaker.
Turquoise, as they all seemed to be.
Dancing on air, I eagerly accompanied her to the car-port.
Popping the lid, I was astonished to witness multiple boxes.
We carried them into the family room as everybody crowded around to watch the dramatic revealing.
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The first box — part of an encyclopedia set.
Same for the second and subsequent boxes.
By the final box, the stacked encyclopedia set, including lexicon and addendums, was taller than me.
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No BB gun, not even a sling-shot.
Huh.
I politely thanked everybody, and got about to playing with the boxes.
The encyclopedia stack, ignored, remained in the family room, untouched, for the next couple weeks, everybody reverently walking around it.
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A few days later, I cracked open a random volume.
Whatever I read required cracking another volume to determine a definition or fix a location or peruse a biography.
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I slowly realized this gift was much more fun than any of my usual toys.
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An aside:
A couple-three months go by.
I often have three-four-five volumes open on the floor as I investigated subjects and the associated backgrounds of those subjects.
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Until I came across a statement I believed was in error.
Finger keeping my place, I went next door to ask granpa Jack (last name ‘Russell’).
I pointed to the clear — to me — problem.
Granpa Jack read it, flipped through the pages, and passed it to my uncle Early (born 1897) while pointing to my erroneous passage.
Early read it, then also flipped through the pages, just as granpa did.
Grins back-n-forth between them.
Early handed me my encyclopedia, and asked me to verify the publication date.
This was the first I heard of such, so I took a while to locate it… among the first pages of that volume.
I read it as ‘1932’… I looked up at the fellows, consternated because — up to that point — I was certain information was perpetual and infallible and dependable.
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All that changed a few weeks into my eighth year… in the late-spring of 1960.
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These days, all the old-folks are gone, leaving me to my own devices and utterly without adult supervision.
These days, my primary companions are a rascally gang of RedHeelers, our usual ‘bonding’ activities seem to center around the porch-rocker and a bucket of tennis-balls.
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By the time I reached nine-years old, I accumulated some cash from shelling walnuts to sell at a card-table on the corner.
Enough to purchase a BB gun.
Still have it.
It’s worth a moment to autopsy the fundamental switch and bait here.
In cases where there is neglect or abuse, parents effectively forfeit/abdicate their parental rights, which are actually the sum of the child’s individual rights that are held in suspension and trusteeship until they are properly formed and mature enough to take them upon themselves. The trust then devolves onto others, falling through a hierarchy of related people. In the event the matter is contested, it falls, in our current model, upon the State (as the avatar of the anthropomorphic fiction of “society”) to arbitrate. In this matter, the State also serves as an ultimate fallback for the child’s welfare in the event no other trustee can be found.
What the left seeks to do here is to illicitly substitute collective powers valid only under extreme circumstances, to deploy such powers generally under ALL circumstances, and thus press fraudulent claim against us.
If you pressed them in the matter, they have already tipped their hand that the deem failure to educate to their preferred “woke” values and priorities as a species of neglect or abuse.
Like all such collectivist claims based on frauds, they are the identified and vigorously rejected at every turn.
Same twitch, different finger.