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oraxx's avatar

Fundamentalist parents are inclined to believe they have all the rights when it comes to their children's education. They don't. At some point children have rights too, and one of those rights is to receive an education that prepares them to be productive citizens. The only objective of some of these home school folk is to turn out fundamentalist Christians who never question what they've been taught. As a society, it is overwhelmingly in our self-interest to make sure children are educated, regardless of religion and politics.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

I suspect this is what happens when people take parenthood as ownership, rather than a custodial and responsible obligation. It gets worse when their holy book and/or their local bible-thumper endorses such behavior.

What may be worst of all is that they can't see how their kids wind up losing and possibly losing BIG.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

And yet, the 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 a parent wants to exercise their "parental rights" by supporting their LGBTQ kid, conservatives want the law to stick its long arm 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘺 up that family's ass.

If they were consistent in their view of parenthood-as-ownership, they wouldn't be fighting tooth and nail to stop trans kids from obtaining healthcare, or to remove any and all LGBTQ content from libraries, or to prohibit parents from taking their kids to drag shows... after all, don't parents have the 𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 to make those decisions? Especially if their rights over their children are, as conservatives so often assert, absolute? But no, it's only okay as long as it's a parent who wants to deny their kid a life-saving blood transfusion, or pray away their leukemia instead of going to a fucking doctor, or force them to go to a Christian hellcamp where they'll be beaten, starved, molested, and brainwashed. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵 shit's all just dandy.

If they didn't have double standards, they'd have no standards at all.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

And what they utterly fail to see is the kid, him or herself, who is struggling with understanding who they are and trying to come to some kind of resolution. I've been through something like that, though for the longest time, I wasn't much aware that I WAS struggling with it, and maybe that's why I GET it.

Would that some of these parents could have both the open-mindedness and open-heartedness to at least have SOME clue as to what kids endure sometimes. Honestly, you wonder if they ever WERE kids.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

They'd have to remember how to be 𝘩𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 first, before they could remember the travails of childhood.

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cdbunch's avatar

If no one talks about LGBT kids, there won't *be* any LGBT kids. If they actually studied history (excuse me while I roll on the floor laughing) they'd realize that's been tried. So has making it illegal. So has burning us at the stake. We're still here. We've always been here. We are always *going* to be here (well, at least as long as there are humans, which ma;y not be much longer).

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Sean's avatar

It was never about "parental rights." It has only ever been about control and subjugation. Christians can't control other parents directly, so they have the state act by proxy.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

One of father's cousin knew he was depriving his daughters from any opportunity by tsking them out of school at twelve. It was his goal all along. My grandmother had a very nasty surprise when she demanded the same thing from my parents. For once my dumbass father backed up DM when she said "ça va la tête ?" ( a way to ask if the person asked to is crazy).

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Sean's avatar

Custodial responsibility has always been my stance. I actually do want my daughter to ask questions and challenge me (obviously not regarding safety). That way she owns what she thinks. My job is to provide her with the tools necessary to navigate life. Even without pushing my philosophy, I can see just how much influence my thinking has on her. Her life is her own, I'm a caretaker and guide until I transition into the role of advisor.

Side note: I know I'm not supposed to live vicariously through my child, but I can't help buying her all the things I would have liked growing up.

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oraxx's avatar

Exactly.

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RegularJoe's avatar

"We don't co-parent with the gub'mint." ~ Klanned Karenhood

"Now send us our gub'mint voucher checks!" ~ also Klanned Karenhood

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Joan the Dork's avatar

AP dropped another article on the failings of these private "schools" just this morning: https://apnews.com/article/private-school-scandal-homeschool-louisiana-8166fa0376c32c297bbff4910fc49d1c

It seems only logical that a total lack of accountability and oversight would create fertile ground for abuse and grifting, but the powers that be down in Louisiana either don't care, or else consider that a feature rather than a bug.

What an absolute shitshow...

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Sko Hayes's avatar

Wow, that's a horrible story.

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Old Man Shadow's avatar

[The point is: This is what can happen when homeschooling goes unregulated.]

Not just homeschooling.

I went through K-12 of Christian schools.

My history textbooks were Lost Cause lies. My science textbooks were lies about anything related to Evolution or a universe older than 6,000 years-old. My social studies were not based on anything remotely science based, but based on an American Fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible.

I scored well in college on Math and English, but science and history were struggles.

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Guerillasurgeon's avatar

NZ allows homeschooling but they are supposed to teach the national curriculum and they are supposed to be regularly inspected. I somehow doubt that they are regularly inspected though. I somehow doubt that many of them teach the national curriculum either. But they make a lot of noise so politicians take notice of them.

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Old Man Shadow's avatar

In 'Murika, trying to regulate anything white Christian fundies do is slavery and the Holocaust all in one and demands they go buy more guns in response.

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Tinker's avatar

This is more proof that the right wingnuts don't want a conservative government, they want anarchy. The people running for office want the jobs, yes, but they preach no government at all. The worst of them are fascist, authoritarians who want to insert government into every facet of our lives but they preach a hands off approach that their base swallows hook, line and sinker. They are okay with the government teaching those 'other' people lessons in 'patriotism' but hands off the good, hard-working, Christian Americans.

Tearing down our public school system is only a small part of the march toward anarchy. 'Homeschooling' allows them to keep the majority of their kids indoctrinated and fearing government intervention. While the voters and the parents of these kids rail against the government, the politicians rub their hands together in anticipation of a population that is more controllable because they have no idea how the world really works.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

Rules for thee, but not for me- the motto of the modern wingnut.

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Bill Lawrence's avatar

It's all part of the dumbing down of America, which leaves us all open to the manipulation and lies of the Right.

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Sko Hayes's avatar

No, they don't want anarchy, they want a theocracy.

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Tinker's avatar

Maybe that's what we'll call it but when their theocracy aligns perfectly with their idea of how society should punish the 'other' people instead of following the words in their religious texts, that idea is much closer to anarchy than an actual theocracy. But to be clear, while they want government small enough to fit inside a woman's womb, they also want zero government intervention in business because their so called leaders have convinced them that government is bad and business will always do the right thing. So what I am really saying is they want anarchy when it comes to commerce but push theocracy when selling it to the masses.

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Robert Jaffee's avatar

It’s amazing how the people who manipulate and defraud the evangelical community, are the same Christian charlatan’s who claim to live a stellar life by surrendering to the teachings of Jesus.

Fake Christian healthcare insurance that essentially covers nothing; except “hope and prayers.” Prosperity ministers who tell their gullible flock to give them all their money, and god will return it tenfold. The Mormon Church who has amassed over $100 billion tax free, and has given little back to the community it serves.

And of course, the Scientologists that run a multi-level marketing scam. The grifts are endless, as are the plethora of faux religious guru’s who stake their prey like vultures honing in for the kill.

Imagine what the world would be like should these charlatans and incompetents ever hold elective office? Oh wait, can anyone say Mike Johnson, Mike Pence and the rest of religious zealots who have invaded the halls of our democratic institutions?

God help us all; no pun intended. Okay, pun intended!....:)

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

"thence to a 'Field of Miracles' (Il campo dei Miracoli), where coins can be grown into a money-producing tree."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fox_and_the_Cat

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xenubarb's avatar

More like Campo Flegrei, amirite?

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Robert Jaffee's avatar

Perfect! Modern day alchemy....:)

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

Homeschooling is setup to be fractally degrading. Intelligent well educated parents can teach their children to also be intelligent and well educated. But religious parents who went through better schools teach their children only what they want them to know, and they can be lazy about it, especially when there’s no oversight. Those children are a little (or a lot in many cases) less educated than their parents. They go on to homeschool their kids, who are sheltered from more knowledge than their parents. They homeschool and shelter their kids further, and so on and so on until one generation is completely illiterate and incompetent. It doesn’t even take that many generations to reach that point. Some families do it in one.

The school choice/voucher program/parental rights advocates have this goal in mind. Only the elite chosen few get an actual education, the ones who can pay premiums for it, and the rest of the population are mindless drones to die on the job making the corporation profits. What the advocates don’t understand is that our economy isn’t built on mining and manufacturing anymore, and we need to have a basic education to do most of what the corporations need to thrive. It’s all a concerted effort to keep the masses compliant.

Anyway, if folks want to homeschool they ought to be able to, however there’s always a need for oversight and standards. I find this and the last story pretty disturbing and telling when it comes to the values and morality of the religious organizations involved in these schemes. How can the religious folks lecture us on the morality of abortion when they actively undermine the lives of born children, from homeschooling grifting, to foster home grifting, to withholding medical care for religious reasons, it’s all so much more harmful than women having bodily autonomy and choosing when and if to have children. The morality of religion is suspect at best, in these circles it’s downright evil.

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Critical Pondering's avatar

I'd argue that they actually want 'the economy' to move back to mining and manufacturing. People too busy slaving away in mines and factories are both mentally and physically exhausted, whereas those slaving away in offices just might have some energy left.

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Stephen Brady's avatar

The wingnut evangelicals truly want to return to the 16th century. If your kids are serfs on the family sharecropper's farm, they don't need to know anything but how to dig potatoes and feed the hogs. And if they catch some (preventable) disease - oh well, it's gawd's will. Some of this generational personality disorder is due to willful ignorance on the part of parents and the state and some of it is lathered on by the grifters who need these uneducated young people to cadge off of.

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Troublesh00ter's avatar

𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦’𝑟𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑛𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑘𝑖𝑑𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑠𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑒—𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑝𝑒𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑠 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑝𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑎ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚, 𝑎𝑐𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑚𝑒𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚 𝑖𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒.

In other words, those supporting this bogus diploma mill are more interested in the bucks they'll get from scamming colleges into believing that they have qualified homeschooled applicants than they are in the kids, themselves. This also makes me wonder what those kids have been doing (if anything) to educate themselves in the meantime. Not only do we have irresponsible adults producing those diplomas, we also have equally irresponsible parents who fail to see the potential consequences of their lack of action on their children's behalf.

What this amounts to is a particularly pernicious form of child abuse, not sexual, obviously, but just as damaging in its own way.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

What's important for theses parents is to have sheeldren, not children.

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Sarah Rain's avatar

My daughter Madison got A honor roll in her private Christian schools until this year I got her into an amazing Magnet school & its absolutely kicking her butt! We work so hard and homework is long and hard and I met with her teachers only to learn she is completely behind the rest. My honor roll A girl is now barely passing but it is getting better and her teachers are the best. Never again. Never again.

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CozmoTheMagician's avatar

What the actually FUCK is a FRESHMAN COURSE in : Immigration Policy? I'm guessing it goes like this

Lesson A) BROWN PEOPLE BAD

B) SEE LESSON 1

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

I was surprised there wasn't a course for girls about "how to collect coupons to maximise a non-existent budget" or "the correct way to serve your owner".

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larry parker's avatar

Covered in 4 years of "Bible".

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cdbunch's avatar

That's called Home Economics and was taught in my Junior High in the 80s. I don't think boys were actually *barred* from taking the course, but they were *supposed* to take shop. (Manly crafts like woodworking and leatherworking and drafting) (Fun side note, I nearly lost 2-3 fingers in shop, and while I'm bleeding, the teacher holds my hand up as an object lesson until I nearly pass out) (I ended up with a couple of minor scars, but a few seconds earlier under that saw and I'd be typing one-handed.)

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Zizzer-Zazzer-Zuzz's avatar

"I'd be typing one-handed."

I do that and I've got all my fingers.

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cdbunch's avatar

Mom was very persuasive in convincing me to take a typing class the other semester when I took Driver's Ed in 10th grade. (Not that there were that many choices of one semester courses)

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Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

Another required class for everyone at my middle school.

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cdbunch's avatar

Not even offered until high school.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

I got the best education, we had to take both shop and home ec, no matter what gender you were.

The year before I attended high school one girl in theater (she was building the set) cut through her hand on the radial arm saw, the blood made it all the way to the ceiling in the theater. She had it reattached and it was still mostly functional. Another kid in her grade (which was the same as my older brother hand he was in the kid’s scout troop until the incident) cut off three fingers with a hatchet chopping wood at scout camp. I learned my lessons from them.

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cdbunch's avatar

Like I said, I don't think the school would prevent a boy from taking Home Ec, but pity the poor boy who did for the reactions of his 'peers'.

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Val Uptuous NotAgain's avatar

In my school both were compulsory.

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cdbunch's avatar

Learning about cooking and other domestic duties would be good for boys.

But what I really think should be compulsory is money and especially credit management. Also parenting classes including non-corporal methods of discipline.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

Crafts and stuff like were also teached in mine but they were for children who couldn't follow the standard curriculum and were legally too young to start an apprenticeship (13 or 14 years old at that time).

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Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

Home EC was a required course for everyone in my middle school, along with small engines, printing, and wood shop.

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cdbunch's avatar

Medium size military town in Oklahoma. Gender roles were pretty solid. I was weird in elementary school for joining the pep squad. Now my sophomore year of high school we did have 3 male cheerleaders, but they all graduated that year, and there weren't anymore the other two years.

Both shop and home ec were electives in my Jr. High.

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CozmoTheMagician's avatar

I'm guessing that 'phys ed' has such topics as "How to say YES when you really mean no..."

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cdbunch's avatar

Brings to mind this awful chant caught on video at my Alma Mater:

"No means Yes. Yes means Anal"

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Whitney's avatar

The one I noticed was "Apologetics" for both Junior and Senior years. I mean, what respectable school would teach such a thing? And taking it TWICE?!?!

I think I'll go lie down. My head really hurts.

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Operation Plowshare's avatar

Do the people running these schemes not understand this is an America Last strategy? Not giving our children a quality education is actually making us slide behind the rest of the developed world and will heavily impact our workforce moving forward.

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cdbunch's avatar

Uneducated masses can be abused by their employer and not know any better. We know we're being abused, and keep agitating for unions or government intervention.

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Geoff Benson's avatar

Homeschooling is a form of child abuse, except in exceptional circumstances. Regardless of the quality of teaching a child receives there is no substitute for the social interaction that attending a public school provides. Homeschooling should be permitted only in very particular circumstances and should be regulated and monitored.

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Black Hole and DM mourner's avatar

I read the article about sibley morrison' "school" I am angry for theses teens and young adults (seemingly mostly girls/women) who are conned* of a better life. Louisiana must love his abysmal rates of 49th in higher education.

*My sister was taken out of school at 14 to be married to a man chosen by her family. When we met, she tried to get her florist diploma, it was hard and she nearly didn't get it because nobody told her as she had no diploma at all, she would have history/geography, French and maths questions**. She learned about it about 10 days before her exams, we spent theses days cramming as much information as we could in her head. She finally got it and could be proud of herself.

** If I had go to her school I would not had to pass this part of the exam since it was for a CAP and I have a higher ranked diploma.

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Bill Wilson's avatar

At the very least the home schoolers are exposed to the metric system, i.e. 9mm and 10mm plus the fundamentals of gun control, i.e. using both hands.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

Millimeters?! 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘮! Little Timmy will carry a .45 and be grateful for it, just like John Moses Browning intended!

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Whitney's avatar

I worry about homeschooling. I worry that the kids that get their education at home won't be able to participate in society in any meaningful way until they fix their education. I worry that the larger numbers of home schooled people we're seeing these days will drag the economy down for many years to come. I worry, because I know the truth is that by allowing these parents to home school their kids, we're failing those kids.

Parents do not need more rights when it comes to their kids. They have plenty; and there's no valid reason to need any more. This bleating about 'parental rights' we hear so often has, at least in my head, become whining about wanting to control every aspect of a child's life to the point of manipulation and abuse. It's also become something of a code for 'let's defund the public schools system, one student at a time if we must!' Neither one of those is helpful to society, indeed, they are intended to break society down and create long term misery.

Christians seem to want to both run US society as a whole while not being part of it, and the public school system seems to be where that shows the most. I see no reason to give these folks what they want and many, many reasons to deny them; I have no interest in participating in the mind games and manipulation being espoused. Refusing oversight seems to be Christian code for 'we don't want to get caught', which to me seems like a good reason to insist on oversight, particularly when it comes to kids. Heck, yesterday's article proves my point; yet another Christian group in hot water because they're taking government money and not caring for the traumatized kids given to them. Why any parent would trust a Christian group with their kids after everything we've seen coming out about them I will never understand.

Good luck to those home schooled kids. They're going to need it. Badly.

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cdbunch's avatar

They trust them because 1) They often don't know of these abuses and certainly not how widespread they are and 2) because they've been trained to think Christian automatically equals good and Non-Christian equals bad.

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Zorginipsoundsor's avatar

They want to control what every child, especially those not their own, is exposed to and taught.

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Sean's avatar

Homeschooling seems more of a fraud than a legitimate way to educate children. A coworker from Colorado was talking about homeschooling his kids. Apparently, Colorado requires registration with an organization that checks up on children's education progress. The one he joined (christian, of course), doesn't do the checks, but provides the state with "proof" that they have checked up on the children. I'm thinking: fraud? Aren't there laws against lying to government officials. We did have a president get impeached for lying to gov't officials.

What commandment was that about not lying? Oh, wait, it's actually not bearing false witness. Just don't lie on the stand, everywhere else is fine.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

I'm increasingly coming to believe that conservative Christians regard the admonition against "bearing false witness" as a literal prohibition on carrying around a mannequin on a mock-up witness stand, and absolutely nothing else besides.

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Sean's avatar

A lot of the commandments and rules only applied in certain ways. The whole "Love thy neighbor as thyself" doesn't mean everyone. Leviticus 19:18 prefaces that: "Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against any of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself." In other words, love the people of your nation (or tribe) as yourself. I don't think that applied to non-Israelites.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

Not unless "love" meant slaughtering everyone but the virgin girls they took home as sex slaves, anyway.

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Sean's avatar

Actually, virgins were a commodity that could be sold. Otherwise, "using" them "spoiled" the spoils of war. Either way, I don't think it mattered to the sex slaves, but being sold probably meant better living conditions. I guess you have to look on the bright side where you can.

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