Sunday, February 12, 2017

Assault on Homeschooling and Parents

By Douglas V. Gibbs
AuthorSpeakerInstructorRadio Host

The Nazis, in 1938, banned homeschooling.  Hitler did not want parents “indoctrinating” their children with their own ideological and philosophical beliefs.  Nazi philosophies, it was believed, superseded those of the parents.

When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community." -- Adolf Hitler; Speech November 1933, quoted in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer

Leftists, ever since, have been working to suppress homeschooling, and parental rights, recognizing parents as being a serious threat to their indoctrination schemes in the state-run public school systems.

In Connecticut, a government committee recommended that Connecticut require home-schooling families to present their children to the local authorities periodically for inspection, to see to it that their psychological and social growth is proceeding in the desired direction based on definitions provided by the government.

At Georgetown University Professor Robin West has spoken out against homeschooling, upset that when they homeschool, parents “have virtually unfettered authority to decide what subjects to teach, what curriculum materials to use.”  Parents having authority over their children's education especially worries her because of what might happen when it comes to parents who teach “from nothing but the Bible.” She is particularly offended that in some States, home-schooling families are not even required to notify the authorities of their intent to home-school.  How dare parents not seek permission from the government regarding how they raise their children!

In California, S.B. 18 proposed by Senator Pan is the State's version of the U.N.'s "Rights of the Child" offering that essentially says that since a child has certain rights as defined by government, it is government's job to guarantee those rights. . . therefore, government can interfere with parental rights to ensure the child's rights are applied in the manner the government requires.  Non-compliance would then lead to loss of one's children, or at least that's the logical conclusion.  It opens up the opportunity to use children against their parents, to turn their parents in (in a Hitlerian style) because the child is dissatisfied for this reason or that reason.

In Buffalo, New York a parent's children was siezed by Child Protective Services for homeschooling-related offenses, even after she followed protocol as required by the State.

Betsy DeVos, the new head of the Department of Education is being attacked from all angles, and is even being blocked from entering public schools by protesters.  Why?  Aside from being a hated Trump pick, she supports the idea of school choice, and is known for criticizing the liberal left dominated public school system.

The Democrat liberal left apparatus in the United States is all about control.  The raising of children outside government supervision poses itself as a threat to their agenda.  Free markets, free thinking, and free speech are all threats to the leftist progressive narrative, therefore the opportunity for such freedoms must be squashed, and educating the younger generation that such freedoms are natural (God-given) rights possessed by them must be silenced.  

The First Amendment is under attack by the liberal left because the freedom to have, and spout, one's own political message without governmental permission is terrifying to these people.  "Political Correctness must be upheld and protected", is the clear message the liberal left is providing (confirmed by the creation of "free speech zones" and "safe zones" on college campuses).  According to the National Review, "The states of Ohio and Minnesota went so far as to create “truth” police, secular inquisitions that determined who is allowed to speak and under what circumstances. (Blessedly, these have been thrown out by the courts.) The idea that people could be teaching their children practically anything, without the input of credentialed education experts, is a nightmare. (Never mind that those credentialed experts are intellectual under-achievers, education majors typically having the lowest standardized test scores of any college cohort.) If people discover that they can live without overseers in the matter of education, who knows in which other of life’s endeavors they might be inclined to go their own way?"

Satirist James Schlarmann, writing for the Huffington Post, wrote in a column he says was not meant to be taken seriously, that upon confirmation, "Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued an order that all globes being used in any American school are to be “flattened like God made it just 6,000 years ago.”"

Homeschool and Private School educated Americans, and conservative-minded Americans who have kept their sanity despite their public school education will recognize the parody for what it is. . . a joke, and a bad one (and politically motivated one) at that.  Less informed Americans who celebrate the public school system will fall for the joke, believe the headline to be true, and propagate yet another leftist fake news story so as to fuel hysteria that the Trump administration is trying to take away their secular vision of education and science, and a utopian socialist system that was just around the corner (if Hillary had been elected).

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

No comments: