Home SchoolingFollow

After you've not only defined your ideal society as one in which children are educated (not indoctrinated) as well as allowed for anyone to do that, you honestly don't recognize teaching children religion as a form of indoctrination? Are you a complete chump who doesn't see both possibilities of indoctrination, or just a hypocrite? Are you also unable to imagine someone with personal opinions which are not expressed in policy? Is smash saying that religious expression should be suppressed as a matter of ethics (and not policy) not identical to any Christian politician who can adequately separate his/her personal judgments from his/her policy prescriptions? They are so.

It's not oppression of religion to idealize a society in which children are treated as even somewhat rational beings who deserve to be protected from indoctrination of any form whatsoever. You're so blinded to some imagined persecution of Christianity in the schools that you can't realize just how damn sticky those two clauses are. There is simply no fucking way that a government can be entirely apathetic to every conceivable religious activity. For example, a devotee of the (hypothetical) Church of Sedition, no matter how spiritually inclined and how sincere, cannot be allowed to practice his/her religion, due to the nature of the religious prescriptions. If we want to look at less hypothetical situations then pick your poison; you have a great deal of topics ranging from creationism to sex-ed. When you have a clash of ideologies such as one which results from the mere fact that religion exists at all it's not an irrational position to wish children free from the entire damn thing.

I'm positive that I could provide plenty of examples where you'd disagree with parents teaching their children certain "religious" practices. An atheist wanting to put a stop to that entire principle is no worse than the Falwells who sincerely believe in Sodom and Gemorrah, and that the sins of the few can impact the many.

Edited, Mar 14th 2008 11:27pm by Pensive

This isn't you advocating something politically?

Obviously not. What are you, functionally retarded suddenly?

Do you advocate politically for lowering the age of consent or repealing date rape laws that you find objectionable? Do you call up Duncan Hunter or Barbra Boxer and say "hey, you know, this age of consent thing, it's screwed up. I should be able to bang 15 year olds. Can you work on a federal law for that."


Or are you making some kind of distinction between what you believe is right and will argue and attempt to convince people is right (on this forum, and presumably in person when possible), and what you'd actively pursue in some sort of "official" political capacity?


Yes, fucknut, I'm making a distinction between what I believe is right and what I advocate for politically. I believe it's right for me to be able to slay anyone who irritates me. Acting on this impulse, however, would be impractical. Everyone on the planet believes things they don't advocate for in order to maintain a social contract with other people. If not we'd all misanthropically **** and kill everything we saw. The difference between you and I, if you're implying that you advocate for everything you believe is that I don't lie to myself.


That's a pretty fine distinction, since as far as I know, you have no actual influence on politics beyond swaying people to your own views. How should I avoid confusing your "personal beliefs" with what you "advocate for politically", when at least in the context of this forum, they are one and the same?


I'm not advocating politically for anything on this forum, idiot. I occasionally post about things I do advocate politically for, by the mechanism of effecting political change I choose doesn't include the swaying of the minds of 8 or 9 video game players. Christ, you're slow. Is this your political outlet? Because, here's a tip, junior, you're not making the best use of your energy if it is.

You know what I believe in. Anarcho-syndicalism. The workers own the factory by right of working there. Property is theft, labor is the only measure of value and the only fair means of currency or exchange. People are generally stupid and easily manipulated and because of this need to be protected from manipulation by some outside force.

None of that is what I advocate for. I advocate for full equality for all sexual orientations, I advocate for drug policy change, I advocate for prison reform, I advocate for women's rights, I advocate for health care as a human right, I advocate for feeding the hungry, I advocate for redistribution of wealth, I advocate for a right to privacy, I advocate for corporate responsibility and an end to limited liability for corporate officers, I advocate for a strong torte system, I advocate for clean air and water as human right, I advocate for housing as a human right.

There's plenty of things that I advocate for that you can take issue with if you choose, making this absurd argument that because I'm honest about the controversial things I believe ethically that my positions on things I actually advocate for are tainted is idiotic and doesn't wash at all.

You, for example, hate and fear black men. I don't bring that up to argue with you about women's rights now do I? I could just make every argument about your homicidal racism or closeted gay desires, but I only bring them up when they're salient.

See how I maintain civility to hold up my part of the social contract? Why can't you even reach that minimal level of politeness?

The bigger point is that this very thread shows the degree to which this subject is dominated by anti-religious sentiment. How many posts talked about how homeschooling was somehow "wrong" because of some sort of religious association? I recall several on the first page. Why leap to that argument? There's nothing inherently about religion in home schooling,

Of course there is. That's where the argument comes from. It's inherently wrong.

Northing's ever going to change the rights of parents to be ******** in our lifetime, so relax. This isn't a policy debate, no one's ever going to "ban" homeschooling anyone.

Smash, do you think there can be world peace as long as there is/are religion/s?

Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

I don't think there's any relation between war and religion. War will happen with whichever pretext happens to be most convenient at the time because people love killing other people to display their power. Religion is just an unrelated means of manipulating people into doing something against their self interest. It can and would be replaced by 100 other things, nationalism, racism, anything that stratifies and allows the demonizing of another class so people can engage in killing them will work.

Your argument was that the schools didn't want to allow homeschooling because it reduces their funding, but individual schools don't make decisions on homeschooling or legislate it in any way. Even if it is somehow to their benefit financially to have kids attending the school, from the budgeter's perspective-- the one's that will actually make the decision, it saves money if they're homeschooled.

A parent absolutely does have more right then the government in this area. That you don't know this is both scary, and perhaps an indication of just how well indoctrinated you are yourself.

Government's don't have rights. People do. They are things that the government promises not to take away from them. Things like the "right" to raise their own children. That's a pretty big deal.



No. It comes from the philosophical belief that individuals should always make decisions for themselves in preference to a state making it for them. Always.

If there is no government, who gets to decide what a child is taught? The parent, right? Add a government and give it the power, and you've taken something away from the parent that he/she had before the government appeared on the scene.

Congratulations! I've just explained to you how "natural rights" work. They are fundamentally the most important rights and the ones we should be the most cautious about violating. Yet you seem to have never been taught this. Public education?




Children don't start out knowing how to do anything more then **** and drool. Someone has to teach them everything else. Are you proposing that the government should do this instead of a parent? I think not.



It's up to the parent, but the parent doesn't have the right to decide how to go about teaching his/her own child? That's a bit crazy, don't you think?

Should we take children away from their parents and raise them in creches instead? That's a Brave New World you're endorsing there...



Do you see the problems that occur when we decide that the government should be responsible for more then just governing? The entirety of social engineering is a slippery slope that leads us to a world in which freedom is habitually infringed by a state that has decided it knows better how we should live our lives then we do.

I'm sorry. I don't want to live in that world. And I'm betting you don't either. Of course, your children and your grandchildren will likely think it's a great idea because they'll have been indoctrinated even more then you already have been. Gotta love "progressive" government!

What world do you live in gbaji? Do schools in the US teach the kids that God doesn't exist? Do they implant microchips inside kids brain to force them to become socialists drones? Do kids not come back to their parents after school is over, so they can be taught whatever the fUck it is that parents want to teach?

Reading your posts, the US public education system sounds like one giant totalitarian state where kids are locked up in cages 24 hours a day while being force-fed soma with music from the Levellers blasting in the background.

I just don't understand what is so scary about a system where kids are taught the basics of a well-rounded education by professional educators in school, while still having plenty of time to be taught other stuff at home by their parents.

And you know, you keep talking about social engineering. But in your system, where kids are home-schooled and force-fed their parent's religion, society will have no cohesion. It will have no meaning. It will be a free-for-all where the only values that matter are the individual's ego-driven desires. Don't be surprised then when people have absolutely no regard or respect for other human beings. If you teach people to be afraid of others and to think only of themselves, they will.

Oh wait, I forgot. You still have one institution that takes teenagers away from their home, and sticks together to teach them a few things. Like, how to kill other teenagers. Phew!

Well in fairness, it's hard to get an accurate impression considering how coy he is about his political views.

My first time in the OOT, but this topic caught my eye.

The absolute cRAzIeST girl I ever dated was home schooled. Complete whack job. I spent the rest of high school and most of college making sure any girl I was interested in was not a "homie".

If I hadn't met a nice girl before graduating I would probably still be using the, "Do you smoke, are/were you home schooled?" filter.

Was that off topic enough for these forums?

Though I might not go so far as to include private schools, I wouldn't equivocate mandatory participation in public school to a police state.

The involvement of the guvment in schools is primarily in funding, definition of state standards (under professional guidance), and recently standardized testing. The faculty of the school is still for the most part the primary indicator of student performance within the school itself, which are going to be people from an accredited college in any case. It'd be more alarming if the government played some kind of totalitarian role in collegiate settings, since those are far more responsible for the kind of information that students are taught than the government is. Less so NCLB's standardized testing. You want to harp on federal involvement in education you should do it there.

Yet it would be on the list. For a guy who supposedly espouses liberty and freedom from the heavy hand of government (ie the Patriot Act) you sure are quick to force people to conform to your ideas of what is acceptable or not, Smash.

Totem