Education by force
Well, the government is up to its old tricks, this time in my own back yard. A divorce court judge in Wake County is apparently ordering a divorcing couple's kids into government schools after having been home schooled by their mother for the past few years. The mother's curriculum seems to be based on the Biblical teachings of some kind of fundamentalist Christian sect, and the father is opposed to such education (as is the judge, it would seem).
Now I'm certainly no fan of religious education and all its attendant absurdities. It's always disheartening to know that there are people out there teaching their children that many of the foundations of modern science are wrong, that two of every living thing on the planet were carried around in a big boat while the whole planet was underwater, that long-extinct creatures (like dinosaurs) were included in that big boat party, that people were healed and raised from the dead and walked on water through some supernatural means, that an ancient book of history combined with mythology (that has had its inherent absurdity compounded by being thoroughly garbled by a multitude of poor translations and intentional additions, deletions, and redactions) is the infallible word of an apparently schizophrenic supreme being, and that they will be tortured forever after they die if they break any number of ridiculous rules.
Nevertheless, it's every parent's inherent natural right, as the trustee of their dependent children, to determine how and whether their children are educated. Disagreements between parents on the issue should be settled through private, voluntary means---not compulsory action by others (i.e. the state). The state is committing a gross violation of natural rights by making and enforcing laws that require children to be educated, using force to cause the vast majority of children to go to the state's institutions where they are then taught for years on end to view the compulsion foisted on them by the government in a positive light and to not attempt to reject it or defend themselves against it, and by funding all these actions through funds taken by force from all of us.
If someone wants their kids to worship Yahweh, Zeus, Odin, or the great and powerful Tom Cruise, we should perhaps feel sorry for them but should never use the illegitimate power of the state to force them to do otherwise. Hell, we probably have less to fear from people who worship mythological characters (with a few notable exceptions) than we do from people who worship the very real and very dangerous state.
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