The fight for the right to homeschool might be headed to the Supreme Court. The Romeike family fled Germany because they prohibit homeschooling — a policy imposed by the Nazis and still enforced today. Parents who don’t hand their children over to the government propaganda facilities face fines, jail time and even loss of custody. They sought asylum here in the States and were granted it a few years ago. But the Obama Administration, which behaves more and more every day like the villain in a James Bond movie, has been working diligently to have them deported back to their home country, where they face stiff penalties and possible prison sentences. The same administration fighting tooth and nail for the right of Hispanics to come here illegally and enjoy our generous welfare and food stamps programs, is now attempting to exile a family of law abiding, self sustaining, freedom loving German Christians. The Department of Justice argues that human beings don’t have a fundamental right to educate their own children and therefore shouldn’t be given asylum on those grounds. Homeschooling, in the eyes of our leader, is a conditional privilege facilitated by the government.
The plight of the Romeikie family has been largely met with silence. I think this is due to several factors, not the least of which being the unfounded mainstream bias against homeschooling. I’ve never understood this phenomenon. I understand why the government hates homeschooling — as it represents a clear and distinct threat to their powers of propaganda and thought-manipulation — and I understand why people would individually choose not to utilize this particular educational strategy. I just can’t comprehend why any private citizen would harbor deep animosity towards the very concept of homeschooling. Yet, many do.
OK, I’m being intentionally obtuse. I get it. We have become a class of subservient peasants and we therefore take great offense at anyone who defies the wishes of our Masters in Washington. How DARE someone think themselves capable of teaching their own kids?! The arrogance! Only a behemoth State run bureaucracy can be entrusted with the task of educating our children about the basic realities of human existence! I know the “brainwashed” label has become a rather tired trope, but I can think of no other explanation for the millions who actually think the government education system is ideal and preferable to parents reclaiming these responsibilities.
I wasn’t homeschooled. I went to public school for 12 years. I’ve seen the Propaganda Factory from the inside. I’ve been on the Statist Assembly Line. I’ve been in the classrooms with 30 kids, half of them playing on their phones, the rest either sleeping or carrying on among themselves with irrelevant conversations that are so vapid and gossipy that it causes severe physical pain to anyone forced to be within earshot of it. I’ve sat in the auditorium preparing to graduate with a bunch of teenagers who, despite being mostly college bound, likely couldn’t name the Allied and Axis Powers in WWII or list three Civil War generals. To someone who has also been to public school and yet would still try to paint it as ideal, I’ll say the same thing I would to someone who has been to a dialysis clinic and would attempt to describe the atmosphere as “fun” and “lighthearted”: You’re either drunk or lying. Or, again, brainwashed. Maybe all three, to some degree or another.
That’s not to say that homeschooling is some sort of magical paradise. It has its pitfalls, I suppose. Yet, the numbers and the results don’t lie: Homeschooled kids consistently outperform their peers by every measurable academic standard. Of course that fact will lead the government school apologist right to the old “but homeschool children aren’t socialized” canard. This predictable line is as tedious as it is absurd. It’s sort of like if someone tells you they’ve never been to McDonald’s and you respond indignantly, “THEN HOW DO YOU EAT?!” You can eat without the assistance of fast food corporations and you can socialize outside of the confines of government buildings. Homeschool students learn their social skills from their parents — i.e. other adults — rather than learning how to behave by by aping their peers. This generally equips them for life more effectively, even if it won’t lead to a bunch of “friends” on Facebook and followers on Twitter. Sure, you can tell me about the homeschooled loser you know who is really super awkward and anti-social. And for every one of those, I’ll give you 50 public school kids who are repressed, overly medicated, confused, psychologically stunted and emotionally desperate. If I really wanted to play hard ball, you could show me weirdo home schooled Steve down the street, and I could present you with Adam Lanza up in Connecticut. This is to say nothing of the millions of public school alumni who, ten or twenty or thirty years removed, are still dealing with the mental and emotional scars accrued over 12 or 13 years of alienation and abuse, which they dealt with during their most most vulnerable and formative stage.
Regardless of your feelings about homeschooling, we should all agree that it is truly abhorrent for the government to claim dominion over our children. Send them to public school if you like, but no parent should be compelled through force to surrender their young to the State. No matter your ideological bent, you ought to be an advocate for homeschool rights. No self respecting libertarian could ever breathe a word of defense for compulsory government education, neither could an honest small government conservative. Even liberals, as Socialistic as they might be, should be quite adamant about the right of a parent to educate their child. I say that because they are certainly passionate about the right of a parent to kill their child, and it would seem rather odd to claim parents ought to posses that power but then have no jurisdiction over their child’s academic curriculum.
Anyway, here’s the important point: if you disagree with me about this, I can legitimately say you are taking Hitler’s side on this one.
So there’s that, too.
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