Thoughts From A Conservative Mom

Posts Tagged ‘Education’

Translation: Don’t think. Don’t Question.  Just go along with whatever the ruling class tells you to do.

Erica Ritz reports:

A year to the day after kicking off his re-election campaign at Ohio State University, President Barack Obama returned to the college campus and told graduates that only through vigorous participation in their “democracy” can they right an ill-functioning government and break through relentless cynicism about the nation’s future.

Obama also urged the students to “reject these voices” that warn of the evils of government, saying:

Still, you’ll hear voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s the root of all our problems, even as they do their best to gum up the works; or that tyranny always lurks just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave, creative, unique experiment in self-rule is just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.

We have never been a people who place all our faith in government to solve our problems, nor do we want it to. But we don’t think the government is the source of all our problems, either. Because we understand that this democracy is ours. As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together, through the hard and frustrating but absolutely necessary work of self-government.

[...]

The cynics may be the loudest voices—but they accomplish the least. It’s the silent disruptors—those who do the long, hard, committed work of change—that gradually push this country in the right direction, and make the most lasting difference. [Emphasis added]

Read more at The Blaze

Doug Powers makes a powerful observation:

Interesting. Obama said that those who warn others to be on the lookout for government tyranny run counter to the reason this “brave, and creative, and unique experiment in self-rule” called the United States of America was formed, when in fact a stand against government tyranny is precisely why this country came into existence. Can somebody please flick the paradox switch on the teleprompter to the “off” position?

Thomas Paine wrote about the “government and society should be a single entity” approach in Common Sense, and concluded the two should never be indistinguishable:

“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher. Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one;”

Read more at Michelle Malkin

Gordan Runyan remarks:

Two things:

1. We need no further proof to justify a chorus of horse-laughter over his claim to being a Constitutional scholar. Because a Constitutional scholar would have read a book or two. Specifically, say, the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers. He would’ve seen that the nation was extremely concerned about tyranny in America in the run-up to the ratification of the federal Constitution. Indeed, those on the Anti-Federalist side seem more like prophets with each passing day, as they were convinced that the new Constitution would not, in fact, keep tyranny from happening here. Warning about government tyranny is practically the sine qua non of the American experiment.

President Reagan spoke as an American in this honorable tradition when he quipped that the scariest words in our language were, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help.” Mr. Obama speaks those words in earnest, like he really means them, and wonders why anyone would be nervous about it.

2. I really have no idea who he’s talking about, these mysterious voices warning of tyranny lurking around the corner. Everyone I know who is paying any attention is aware that tyranny is here right now, out in the open! I wish we lived in a time when tyrants were still afraid to show themselves!

Read more at Last Resistance

I especially like Trifecta’s take on this:

View on YouTube

Obama advice to grads: Antithesis of Jefferson’s warning on governmental tyranny

Why All of Us Should Mistrust the Government

Washington’s Message to Americans: ‘We Own You’

Mark Steyn: ‘Rights’ Have Been Perverted Into Gifts That Kings Bestow Upon Subjects

We the Serfs

America’s Ruling Class – And the Perils of Revolution

THIS is why we need the Parental Rights Amendment!

Parents don’t even realize that the state now considers their parental rights something that are delegated to them by the state, rather than being unalienable rights endowed by Nature and Nature’s God! If a doctor decides to play god or someone decides to make a false accusation, your rights as a parent can be suddenly revoked, and you’re considered guilty until proven innocent!

News 10 reports:

A Sacramento family was torn apart after a 5-month-old baby boy was taken from his parents following a visit to the doctor.

The young couple thought their problems were behind them after their son had a scare at the hospital, but once they got home their problems got even worse.

It all began nearly two weeks ago, when Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex took their 5-month-old boy Sammy to Sutter Memorial Hospital to be treated for flu symptoms, but they didn’t like the care Sammy was getting.

For example, one day Anna asked why a nurse was giving her son antibiotics.

“I asked her, for what is that? And she’s like, ‘I don’t know.’ I’m like, ‘you’re working as a nurse, and you don’t even know what to give to my baby for what,’” Anna explained.

According to Anna, a doctor later said Sammy shouldn’t have been on the antibiotics.

Anna said Sammy suffers from a heart murmur and had been seeing a doctor at Sutter for regular treatment since he was born. After Sammy was treated for flu symptoms last week, doctors at Sutter admitted him to the pediatric ICU to monitor his condition. After a few days, Anna said doctors began talking about heart surgery.

“If we got the one mistake after another, I don’t want to have my baby have surgery in the hospital where I don’t feel safe,” Anna said.

Anna argued with doctors about getting a second opinion. Without a proper discharge, she finally took Sammy out of the hospital to get a second opinion at Kaiser Permanente.

“The police showed up there. They saw that the baby was fine,” Anna said. “They told us that Sutter was telling them so much bad stuff that they thought that this baby is dying on our arms.”

Medical records from the doctor treating Sammy at Kaiser Permanente said the baby as clinically safe to go home with his parents. The doctor added, “I do not have concern for the safety of the child at home with his parents.”

“So police saw the report from the doctors, said, ‘okay guys, you have a good day,’ and they walked away,” Anna said.

Read more at News 10

That SHOULD have been the end of the story, but it wasn’t.   Many doctors are no longer recognizing the right of parents to disagree with their recommendations and/or seek a second opinion.  With god-like arrogance, they seek to intimidate, threaten and punish any patient that dares to question them, and the law allows them to do it.

Political Outcast continues:

Evidently the doctors and staff at Sutter were offended that Anna wanted to seek a second opinion because the day after the two hospital visits, police and Child Protective Services showed up at their house.  Alex met them outside the door and says that the police pushed him against the house and then smacked him down to the ground.  The police then opened the door without asking permission and entered the house.  Anna, who was frightened to death, turned her camera on to record what was happening.  She recorded one of the police officers telling her:

“I’m going to grab your baby, and don’t resist, and don’t fight me ok?”

The policeman took Sammy from them and turned him over to the CPS agent.  They told the shocked and frightened parents that they had a report that Sammy had been severely neglected and that an investigation was being launched.

Alex and Anna have retained an attorney to help them sort the whole thing out.  Their attorney says that there are absolutely no signs of neglect and that the exact opposite is true.  The parents have never missed an appointment and they have the doctor’s records from Kaiser indicating that Sammy was okay to go home and that he was not in any danger.

Read more at Political Outcast

Even though the baby shows no signs of neglect and the parents have not been charged with any crime, CPS forced them to agree to restrictions on their parental rights in order to regain custody.   They have lost their right to disagree with the doctors over their son’s treatment, and must allow  intrusive “follow up” visits into their home.  ”Follow up” for what?  Further proof that the parents have done nothing wrong?  These parents are being treated as if they are guilty until proven innocent!

News 10 reports:

Five-month-old Sammy, who was removed from his parents’ custody by Sacramento County Child Protective Services last week, will be transported to Stanford Medical Center in Palo Alto, a Sacramento County judge ruled Monday. The baby has been in protective custody at Sutter Memorial Hospital.

The Nikolayevs have since been fighting to get their baby back and talking with local and international media to explain their case.

The court also ruled Monday the parents must following all medical advice from now on, including not taking their child from Stanford without proper discharge.

A county social worker will make regular house visits to check on Sammy once he is returned home.

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Paul Seave said he believed all of the attorneys involved worked in the best interest of Sammy.

Read more at News 10

The “best interest of Sammy” was to be left with his parents the minute the cops saw he was in no danger, investigate the first hospital’s false reports to CPS, and investigate CPS’s unlawful abuses of power to harass and tear apart an innocent family!

ParentalRights.org explains why the Parental Rights Amendment is desperately needed:

Traditionally, the Supreme Court has recognized the “fundamental liberty interest of natural parents in the care, custody, and management of their child,” found in the Fourteenth Amendment’s “Due Process” clause. Santosky v. Kramer, 455 U.S. 745 (1982) This protection, however, has been lost on Sacramento CPS. It is also being weakened through judicial erosion in the courts.

Passage of the Parental Rights Amendment will provide parents an explicit constitutional protection; otherwise, they’ll have to rely on the courts, hoping they will continue to interpret the Fourteenth Amendment as they traditionally have (but increasingly no longer do). And the PRA will allow organizations like CPS to know exactly what the rules are that they must follow.

“The liberty of parents to direct the upbringing, education, and care of their child is a fundamental right. Neither the United States nor any State shall infringe this right without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.”

These two sentences would make clear that CPS cannot take a child away unless it is prepared to prove that the child was in danger caused by abuse or neglect. In this case, it would increase the chances that common sense would prevail and baby Sammy would have gotten to stay home safe and sound with his mom and dad.

Read more at ParentalRights.org

Imagine how many more incidents like this we are likely to see with a government takeover of health care!

Confiscating the baby: Obamacare and Parental Rights

Calif. Parents Whose Baby Boy Was ‘Snatched’ by Police Tell Their Unbelievable Story; Lawsuit ‘Absolutely’ Forthcoming

Couple calls for CPS reforms after reuniting with baby

The Child: America’s Battle for the Next Generation

MSNBC Host: Kids Don’t Belong To Their Parents, They ‘Belong To Their Communities’

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

DOJ: Children Do Not Need – and Have No Right to – Mothers or Fathers

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child

Who will raise kids: Mom, Dad or state?

Earlier this week, an irate mom tweeted a photo her child had taken in class, in which the teacher openly mocked Fox News as an example of “media bias”:

The teacher was trying to explain what media bias looks like. Fox News was the only media example she used (because no other media outlets are biased, dontcha know?). FYI, snarky Wonka memes are an example of TEACHER bias, not media bias.

This is so typical. I remember from my “Critical Thinking” class in college, I could tell you exactly how the textbook authors and teachers voted by the end of the class. Their bias was that obvious.    Of course, you expect that now in universities, but it’s already seeped down to grades K-12.

In Wisconsin, a crossword puzzle assigned to 8th graders told students that “conservative” meant “restricting personal freedoms“:

A mother at a Wisconsin public school said her daughter’s eighth grade class was assigned a worksheet with some eyebrow-raising definitions for “conservatism” and “liberalism.”

Conservatism, it stated in part, believes in “preserving traditional moral values by restricting personal freedoms” while liberalism is for “equality and personal freedom for everyone.”

“This is indoctrination,” Tamra Varebrook, a Republican activist in Racine, Wis., told TheBlaze on Thursday after her 13-year-old daughter showed her the crossword-style vocabulary sheet from Union Grove Elementary School earlier this week.

Read more at The Blaze

In New York, students were asked to write an essay from the Nazi perspective of “Why Jews Are Evil”:

An unnamed English teacher at Albany High School who wanted to “challenge” his/her students to “formulate a persuasive argument” tasked them with writing an essay about why “Jews are evil,” as if they were trying to convince a Nazi official of their loyalty. One third of the class refused, and the principal has apologized while insisting that there wasn’t any “malice or intent to cause any insensitivities to our families of Jewish faith.”

Read more at New York Magazine

Only one-third of the class refused.  That means, even with the example of principled resistance before them, two-thirds of the class went along with it!

In Florida, a father was stunned to discover this note written in crayon in his son’s handwriting:

The words are written in crayon, in the haphazard bumpiness of a child’s scrawl.

“I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure.”

They’re the words that Florida father Aaron Harvey was stunned to find his fourth-grade son had written, after a lesson in school about the Constitution.

Harvey’s son attends Cedar Hills Elementary in Jacksonville, Fla. Back in January, a local attorney came in to teach the students about the Bill of Rights. But after the attorney left, fourth-grade teacher Cheryl Sabb dictated the sentence to part of the class and had them copy it down, he said.

Read more at The Blaze

If you think these are isolated incidents that would never happen at your child’s school, think again.  These are just the more blatantly obvious ones that happened to get caught.   The real indoctrination happens far more subtly, through half-truths and omissions, false assumptions, stories that manipulate the emotions and pressure to agree with the teacher and follow the crowd.  Day after day, year after year, they slowly break down the child’s resistance to their view of the world.

School Tells Students, Americans Don’t Have Right to Bear Arms

CSCOPE: Exposing The New Marxist Public School Curriculum

America’s School Children Being Indoctrinated With Marxism

Progressive-Communist Teachers Indoctrinate Children To Become Marxist

Public Education: Progressive Indoctrination Camps

Stalin-style U.S. public education

New Book Exposes the Effort to Introduce Radical Political Philosophy into K-12 Classrooms

Third Graders Want to Tax “Greedy” Rich, Marybeth Hicks Says Don’t Let Your Kids Drink The Marxist Koolaid

Progressive-Communist Teachers Indoctrinate Children To Become Marxist

What the hell is wrong with these people???

Rosa Prince writes at the Telegraph:

Helen Reece, a reader in law at the London School of Economics, called on Theresa May, the Home Secretary, to relax rules which automatically ban sex offenders from caring for children, saying that this could breach their human rights.

In an article in the respected Child and Family Law Quarterly, Miss Reece suggested that reoffending rates were not high among sex criminals, adding: “despite growing public concern over paedophilia, the numbers of child sex murders are very low.”

[...]  In her article, Miss Reece suggested that the review should also introduce an assumption that sex offenders including child abusers posed no threat once they had served their sentence.

She said: “There is no reason why all sex offenders should not be considered as potentially suitable to adopt or foster children, or work with them.

“The Vetting and Barring Scheme and other legislative measures single out sex offenders for unfair special treatment and they destroy the principle that a prisoner pays his or her debt by serving their sentence before re-entering society on equal terms.”

Read more at the Telegraph

The idea that a pedophile has paid his “debt to society” in a short prison term is ridiculous.   A predator’s debt isn’t to “society,” it’s to the victim, and the victim serves a life sentence of emotional scarring.   In a more civilized age, pedophiles were executed along with rapists.  A life sentence was considered merciful.

The idea that a person predisposed to find children sexually attractive, who has already crossed that line once, will pose no threat to children after release from prison is willful ignorance.   Allowing that individual to face continual sexual temptation in the form of children he is permitted contact with is playing with fire – and the lives of children.

It is common knowledge that pedophiles usually have victimized several children by the time they get caught.   A sex offender with a record is more likely to kill and hide his victim in an attempt to cover his tracks.

Child rape is a crime deserving of nothing less than life in prison without the possibility of parole.   Predators should NEVER be allowed to re-enter society, much less be permitted to have contact with – or adopt – more potential victims.

Academics Trying to Redefine Pedophilia as ‘Intergenerational Intimacy’

Sexual Anarchy: The Agenda to Normalize Pedophilia

Pedophiles, Psychiatrists Host Conference To Normalize Adult-Child Sex

The Shadow Sexual Revolution – The Push To Legalize Pedophilia

Don’t Be an Enabler — When a Child Is Abused, Here’s What to Do

Funny how Marxists don’t recognize your unalienable right to keep the fruits of your labor (especially if you happen to be more successful than they think you should be), but they claim that they have a “right” to demand free goodies at the expense of others.

Erica Ritz reports at The Blaze:

Speaking outside on a sunny day, Harris-Perry says in an ad that aired Wednesday morning:

Americans will always want some level of inequality, because it’s a representation of meritocracy.  People who work hard and sacrifice and save their money and make major contributions — we think that they should earn a little more.  They should have more resources, and that’s fine.  But we also, however, have to have a floor under which nobody falls.  And if you’re below that — especially if you’re a child and you’re below that — we are not going to accept that.  You do have the the right to health care, and to education, and to decent housing and to quality food at all times.  ​[Emphasis added]

Read more at The Blaze

When something is a “right” (your life or conscience, for instance), it means you don’t have to do anything to earn it. You get to have it just for existing. It’s a gift from your Creator.

When you describe goods and services like food and housing as “rights,” you are saying that the people who produce these goods and services are obligated to provide them for you, whether you pay for them or not. There’s a word for this: slavery. Only slaves are forced to produce for others without compensation. TRUE rights come from God, and are unalienable. They cannot be provided by others, who could just as easily take them away.

You have an unalienable right to work and trade for goods and services. You do NOT have a “right” to demand them free of charge from others.

Sunstein: Obama Wants ‘Second Bill of Rights’

Barack Obama and “The Second Bill of Rights”

Where do your rights come from?

Mark Steyn: ‘Rights’ Have Been Perverted Into Gifts That Kings Bestow Upon Subjects

MSNBC Host: Kids Don’t Belong To Their Parents, They ‘Belong To Their Communities’

Melissa Harris-Perry: All Your Kids Belong to Us (Not the Parents)

View on YouTube

I’ve seen the village, and I don’t want it raising my kids!

In a scripted MSNBC promo, Melissa Harris-Perry made the following statement:

“We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had a private notion of children, your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of these are our children.  So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”

Got that?  You kid doesn’t belong to you.  He/she belongs to the “collective” – meaning, the state.

Ironically, this is the same woman who calls unborn babies “things that turn into humans.”

How do I put this politely?  Stay the **** way from my kids!

Erick Erickson observes at Red State:

So kids belong to whole communities? Didn’t we fight a war back in the 1800s to prove that people weren’t owned by the state or anyone else, but were, in fact, people? Seriously?

But take that out of it. This is amazingly stupid commentary. All of us who own property (real property, not children) pay property taxes to fund a public education system to educate our children. We have democratically elected school boards to make the decisions on how tocollectively educate our kids to common, state approved standards.

It is failing spectacularly. And I suspect that the tangible efforts to improve it, from neutering teachers unions to giving parents choices in where to send their children, are opposed by Melissa Harris-Perry.

I never thought I’d see the day when self-styled progressives advocated the state owning the people.

Read more at Red State

Ken Shepherd at Newsbusters correctly points out that this is actually Maoist philosophy she’s spewing:

[T]he notion of collective responsibility for children was a philosophy that undergirded the Cultural Revolution in Communist China under Chairman Mao. I bring that up because, as you may recall, another Harris-Perry “Lean Forward” spot contains a reference to a “great leap forward,” which calls to mind the disastrous agricultural reform plan which starved millions of Chinese to death in the 1950s.

Read more at Newsbusters

The Five on Fox made some great points about this collectivist mentality while discussing this around the table:

View on YouTube

Sarah Palin tweeted a few ingenious responses to this:

Love it! After having spent 22 hours of my life in labor, I heartily agree!

After the justifiable outrage and backlash, Harris-Perry is trying to walk back her statements and blame the views for misunderstanding her.   Nice try.   This is typical for the Left.  They float a trial balloon and then pretend it was all an innocent misunderstanding when they get called for dropping their mask. The mask goes back up, but the ugliness behind it doesn’t go away. They work by desensitizing people over time, so that what sounds outrageous now will actually start to sound reasonable a few years from now. I don’t buy her “backpedaling” for a second.

Sign the petition to adopt the only Constitutional Amendment that will protect children from this kind of power grab – the Parental Rights Amendment!

The Child: America’s Battle for the Next Generation

Sarah Palin: It’s unflippingbelievable that MSNBC thinks your kids don’t belong to you

‘Is an unborn child owned by the collective?’: Greg Gutfeld, ‘The Five’ blast MSNBC’s collectivist Borg

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

DOJ: Children Do Not Need – and Have No Right to – Mothers or Fathers

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child

Who will raise kids: Mom, Dad or state?

Common Core is a federal attempt to nationalize curriculum.  We MUST oppose this, from every school board!

Americans For Prosperity is sounding the alarm:

Critics of the Common Core State Standards had our fears confirmed on Monday when Education Week reported that the Department of Education will oversee the assessment test design for the new national standards. This is no April Fool’s joke: Washington will soon be directly regulating what America’s schoolchildren learn and on what they are tested. This massive expansion of federal power is concerning considering the federal government’s failed history of intervening in public education.

As I recently explained in AFP Foundation’s school choice policy report, the federal government has had its meddling hands in America’s public schools for decades. From the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 to No Child Left Behind today, Congress has provided Title I federal funding to schools with low-income student bodies for the past half-century. But, this money is by no means free. As is often the case with federal funds, Title I comes with strings attached – which explains how Washington has been such a major player in American education despite the fact that public schools are function of the states.

[...]  After decades of failed federal intervention in America’s public schools, Common Core’s similar approach of centrally planning public schools has worried education reformers since the initiative was launched in 2009. For years, proponents of the standards have tried to soothe these fears by emphasizing that they are not administered by the federal government. Common Core’s official website, for example, downplays the protests by claiming “[t]he federal government had no role in the development of the Common Core State Standards and will not have a role in their implementation.”

Perhaps this claim could hold water four years ago, but today it’s evident that Common Core is nothing more than a federal ruse to exert even greater control over America’s classrooms.  [...]

[I]t looks like Common Core is poised to repeat and amplify the federal government’s failed educational interventions by giving the central government even greater control of what American schoolchildren are learning. If the success of school choice has taught  us anything, it’s that education is most effective when controlled by actors on the local level, like teachers with freedom in how to teacher their students at charter schools, or parents with options of where to send their child to school through opportunity scholarships. Choice from the bottom, not force from the top, leads to effective learning.

Read more at AFP

Attention, parents: Common Core opt-out form now available

Six Reasons Why Conservatives Should Object to the Common Core

‘Common Core’ Threatens Homeschooling Freedom

Feds Launch Intrusive New ‘Common Core’ Student Tracking Database – Time To Opt Out!

‘Common Core’ Banishes Literature, Replaces With Government Propaganda

CSCOPE: Exposing The New Marxist Public School Curriculum

Obama Takes Over Public Schools With ‘ObamaCore’ Curriculum

Rotten to the Core: Reader feedback from the frontlines

Rotten to the Core, Part 1: Obama’s War on Academic Standards

Rotten to the Core, Part 2: Readin’, writin’ and deconstructionism

Rotten to the Core, Part 3: Lessons from Texas and the Growing Grassroots Revolt

Rotten to the Core, Part 4: The Feds’ Invasive Student Tracking Database

Support School Choice!

Plain meaning: if government militias get to carry arms, so do the citizens!

This is one of the reasons why it is an incredibly dangerous conflict of interest for the government to be shaping the hearts and minds of future voters.  Clearly, the Left wants the next generation of Americans to believe that they have no unalienable right to self-defense, from the government or anyone else.   They start by indoctrinating the young.

The Left knows it’s better to apologize after the fact than ask for permission. The seeds of deception have already been planted in these kids’ minds. They’ll let the outrage settle down, and then try again. This is why parents should have the choice to send their children to a school that isn’t out to indoctrinate their kids!

Todd Starnes reports at Fox News:

The father of a Connecticut child is furious after discovering that his son’s school is teaching students that Americans don’t have a Second Amendment right to bear arms.

“I am appalled,” said Steven Boibeaux, of Bristol. “It sounds to me like they are trying to indoctrinate our kids.”

Boibeaux’s son is an eighth grader at Northeast Middle School. On Monday his social studies teacher gave students a worksheet titled, ‘The Second Amendment Today.’

“The courts have consistently determined that the Second Amendment does not ensure each individual the right to bear arms,” the worksheet states. “The courts have never found a law regulating the private ownership of weapons unconstitutional.

The worksheet, published by Instructional Fair, goes on to say that the Second Amendment is not incorporated against the states.

“This means that the rights of this amendment are not extended to the individual citizens of the states,” the worksheet reads. “So a person has no right to complain about a Second Amendment violation by state laws.”

According to the document, the Second Amendment “only provides the right of a state to keep an armed National Guard.”

Boibeaux said he discovered the worksheet as he was going over his son’s homework assignments.

“I’m more than a little upset about this,” he told Fox News. “It’s not up to the teacher to determine what the Constitution means.”

Mat Staver, the founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel, called the lesson propaganda – that is “absolutely false.”

“In fact, the US Supreme Court has affirmed that the Second Amendment ensures the individual the right to bear arms,” Staver told Fox News. “The progressive interpretation of the Second Amendment is that it doesn’t give you the right to bear arms – that it’s a corporate right of the government – but that has been rejected by the Courts.”

Read more at Fox News

Gun Hysteria Leads To Harrassment Of Innocent Children In Public Schools

Schools’ ‘Zero Tolerance’ Weapons Policies Used To Bully Innocent Children

Brainwashing Kids About Guns

Brainwashing Kids About Guns: the Sequel

The Second Amendment: Much Ado about Firearms

What We Believe, Part 5: Gun Rights

Short answer: because if they acknowledge parents’ fundamental right to educate their children, they will have to recognize it for all parents here, as well.

Dell Tackett warns at Truth Observed:

Uwe and Hanna are home-school parents from Germany. But Germany doesn’t tolerate home schooling. Those who do are harassed, fined, imprisoned, and can lose custody of their children. Uwe and Hanna had such a religious and moral problem with what German government schools were teaching that they chose to school their children themselves, just as millions in this country do every day. But Germany’s laws, based upon a 1938 law signed by Adolph Hitler, believe that Germany’s children belong to the State from an educational standpoint. The law prohibits parents from educating their own children so that Germany can prevent a different worldview, or “society” as the law states, from arising.

After increased persecution from the German state, Uwe and Hanna fled to the United States. A Federal judge heard the arguments and granted them asylum, stating that Germany’s law and policy was “Nazi-esque”.

Immediately, the Obama Administration filed suit against the ruling and will bring the case before the United States Court of Appeal for the Sixth Court on April 23. They are seeking to deport the Romeike family, which would send Uwe and Hanna back to Germany to face jail and possibly the loss of their children.

Why does the administration seek to do this?

Because it agrees with the German law. It doesn’t believe that parents have a right to educate their children. It is more in line with the National Education Association that homeschooling shouldn’t be allowed. It believes that the government can best educate “America’s children”. It doesn’t want another worldview taught in this country. It wants America’s children to have one worldview and one worldview only.

That is why they don’t want to grant asylum to the Romeike family. That would affirm parental rights—rights that have been fought for by so many courageous parents over the last 40 years in this country. Rights that I believe will take a serious hit if this case is won by the Administration.

Think of it this way: if the Administration wins this case, the legal statement and precedence will be set that parents do not have a fundamental right to educate their children and if the State were to ban home schooling, it would not be a violation of parental rights at all.

Read more at Truth Observed

A plea from abused homeschoolers

Attorney General Holder: Parents Have No Right to Educate their Children

German Homeschooling Family Flees to US

Flashback: US grants home schooling German family political asylum

Crackdown on Homeschooling in the Near Future?

Threat to Parents’ Rights a Bigger Issue than Rights of a Child

NO ONE is exempt from the new federal power-grab over education, which is designed to force all states and schools to teach a government-approved (Marxist?) curriculum.

William Estrada warns at HSLDA:

The CCSS removes education standards from the purview of state and local control to being controlled by unaccountable education policy experts sitting in a board room far removed from the parents, students, and teachers who are most critical to a child’s educational success.

Will the CCSS Affect Homeschools?

The CCSS specifically do not apply to private or homeschools, unless they receive government dollars (online charter school programs have no such protection). However, HSLDA has serious concerns with the rush to adopt the CCSS. HSLDA has fought national education standards for the past two decades. Why? National standards lead to national curriculum and national tests, and subsequent pressure on homeschool students to be taught from the same curricula.

The College Board—the entity that created the PSAT and SAT—has already indicated that its signature college entrance exam will be aligned with the CCSS. And many homeschoolers worry that colleges and universities may look askance at homeschool graduates who apply for admission if their highschool transcripts are not aligned with the CCSS.

Read more at HSLDA

Cheeky Bums answers homeschoolers’ FAQ’s:

The more that I read and study, the more convinced I am of the extreme detriment that the Common Core (CC) poses, not just to our children and our educational system – but to our country.

There are a few questions and comments that I have received this past week, some ranging from fear, and some from outright astonishment that I would even propose that CC presents a risk.  I want to, as succintly as possible, answer some of these…

The Common Core is being introduced into the PUBLIC school, so if I’m homeschooling, I don’t need to worry, right?

WRONG.  The CC is being adopted by 45 of the 50 states, including the District of Columbia, and it’s goal is NOT educational excellence.  One look at the standards and examples that we detailed in our previous post will undeniably confirm that.  The goal of Common Core is CONTROL.  The government is seeking to Nationalize educational standards, which goes COMPLETELY against that 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which outlines education as being within the scope of the State government, not the Federal government. If the States decide not to adopt CC, they will not be granted federal dollars, so although it’s not a mandate, it’s a mob version of law via monetary coercion.

Furthermore, homeschoolers will eventually need to meet the same educational standard and use CC approved/aligned curricula because the SATs, State tests and GEDs will all be modified to fit the new CC standards.

But homeschoolers traditionally test higher in academics, so I’m not worried.  My child will do fine on the tests. 

Although it’s true that homeschoolers traditionally, on average, test significantly higher than their publicly educated peers, this is not a safeguard given what is coming down the pipeline in terms of change.   Standardized testing is slated to be reformatted and rewritten, so we’re talking about a totally different measure of scope and sequence.  For example, math problem, as formed by the CC, are based on mental and verbal math; the emphasis is now on the process, not the answer.  Eventually, CC-educated students will be asked to verbally explain their method for solving the problem, regardless of whether or not the answer was correct.  If your homeschooled Senior can successfully complete complex mathematical algorithms but he is unable to explain how he got his answer, he will not pass.

Additionally, the literature requirements are changing significantly.  Non-fiction manuals are now required to compose 70% of your child’s “literature” by the time they graduate.   Here is a sample of the suggested reading within the CC:

• Petroski, Henry. “The Evolution of the Grocery Bag.”
• California Invasive Plant Council. Invasive Plant Inventory
• Kurlansky, Mark. Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/U.S. Department of Energy. Recommended Levels of Insulation
• FedViews by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
• Calishain, Tara, and Rael Dornfest. Google Hacks: Tips & Tools for Smarter Searching, 2nd Edition
• Fischetti, Mark. “Working Knowledge: Electronic Stability Control.”
• U.S. General Services Administration. Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management
• Gawande, Atul. “The Cost Conundrum: Health Care Costs in McAllen, Texas.”

As enlightening as they may be, we’ll be tossing out “To Kill A Mockingbird”, “The Scarlet Letter” , Shakespeare and many other classics in lieu of “The Evolution Of The Grocery Bag”.  Therefore, as homeschoolers, if we haven’t been reading the above list with our Seniors, they have no hope of passing the SATs or GEDs, because we’re talking about two completely different lists of topics and material.

But as a homeschooler, I get to choose my own curriculum, so it’s my decision what my children will read and study. 

True, for now.  However, I was disheartened to see that many large homeschool publishers have already, or are planning to, rewrite their curriculum in order to meet CC standards.   For a very thorough and growing list, check out the curriculum updates on The Educational Freedom Coalition.

Read more FAQ at Cheeky Bums

And then they came for the Homeschoolers

Education Policy Expert on Threat of Common Core Standards to Homeschoolers

‘Common Core’ Banishes Literature, Replaces With Government Propaganda

Obama Takes Over Public Schools With ‘ObamaCore’ Curriculum

CSCOPE: Exposing The New Marxist Public School Curriculum

Feds Launch Intrusive New ‘Common Core’ Student Tracking Database – Time To Opt Out!

You can’t make this stuff up!  And no, it wasn’t an April Fools joke!

Terence P. Jeffrey reports at CNS News:

President Barack Obama, who has increased the national debt by $53,377 per household, has proclaimed April“National Financial Capability Month,” during which his administration will do things such as teach young people “how to budget responsibly.”

“I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities to improve their understanding of financial principles and practices,” Obama said in an official proclamation released Friday.

[...]  The proclamation on the White House website links to two other government websites: the site for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and MyMoney.gov, which includes materials from 21 federal agencies.

Listed among the “popular topics” on MyMoney.gov is “Managing Debt and Credit,” which includes a link to a page on the Federal Reserve’s website called “Getting the most from your credit card.” Tip 2 on that page is: “Stay Below Your Credit Limit.”

When Obama was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009, the total debt of the federal government was $10,626,877,048,913.08. As of the close of business on March 28, 2013, the total debt of the federal government was $16,766,988,432,792.62—an increase of $6,140,111,383,879.54 since Obama took office.

That means that under Obama the federal debt has increased $53,377 for each one of the 115,031,000 households the Census Bureau says there are now in the United States. The president is required by law to submit a budget proposal for the next fiscal year by the first Monday in February.

Thus far, Obama has not submitted his budget proposal for fiscal 2014.

Read more at CNS News

Jeannie DeAngelis observes at Clash Daily:

It’s the liberal way to perceive yourself as diametrically opposed to what and who you actually are. Therefore, Barack Obama being a financially incapable liberal is precisely the reason why the man who has yet to submit a budget proposal for 2014 feels he’s qualified to teach young people “how to budget responsibly.”

What’s next, Bill and Hillary Clinton running a Marital Cohesiveness and Fidelity Seminar? How about first daughters Sasha and Malia, who took not one but two spring break vacations, sharing with the younger set how to spend a week at the Atlantis in the Bahamas and River Run in Sun Valley, Idaho on a limited budget? Sorry, but if Barack Obama is financially capable, then outgoing MSNBC host Ed Schultz is qualified to host a new “Eradicate Bias in the Media” show.

Then again, this is the president who is expert at exempting himself from what he insists others do. That is why a person who clearly has no understanding of sound financial principles can say with a straight face: “I call upon all Americans to observe this month with programs and activities to improve their understanding of financial principles and practices.”

Wait! When Obama says “all Americans” does “all” include himself and the $10 million dollar vacationer he’s married to, or does “all” just mean everybody except Mr. and Mrs. Obama?

Either way, the president must truly believe that he’s an authority on stretching a dollar, because in his “National Financial Capability Month” proclamation, he said that his “[a]dministration is dedicated to helping people make sound decisions in the marketplace.” That marketplace, by the way, is the same marketplace that he’s currently in the process of destroying. It could be that President Obama thinks that the soundest way to save money in the marketplace is to exchange the marketplace for something altogether different.

Read more at Clash Daily

Federal Government Goes Deeper in Debt to Warn Young People About Dangers of Overspending

What Awaits Young Americans

What Can Washington Politicians Learn From America’s Moms?

Federal Budget vs. Household Budget: How Do They Compare?

To Pay For Current Spending Commitments, U.S. Government Would Have To Raise Taxes 64%

US Gov’t Is Bankrupt, System of Republican Constitutional Gov’t Is At Stake

Creepy doesn’t begin to describe this.

Liz Klimas reports a The Blaze:

As part of the government’s initiative to institute Common Core standards for education, so comes a system that would mine information about students to establish best practices for effective teaching. But some think the technology that would conduct the mining crosses a line.

[...]  In the draft “Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century” report released in February by the Department of Education is a section detailing how to measure such qualities in a student through Behavioral Task Performance.

“Behavioral task performance measures are the broad set of methods used to capture behaviors consistent with perseverance or lack thereof—and in many cases, associated emotional experiences, physical movements or facial expressions, physiological responses, and thoughts— that students do in response to a particular challenge,” the report states.

[...]  Understanding the emotions or physiological state of a student while they’re presented with a challenge, the report said, can be measured through “analysis of facial expressions, EEG brain wave patterns, skin conductance, heart rate variability, posture and eye- tracking.”

The report presents this figure showing a variety of sensors that could be used to determine the emotional state of a student while performing a certain task:

“Sensors provide constant, parallel streams of data and are used with data mining techniques and self-report measures to examine frustration, motivation/flow, confidence, boredom and fatigue,” the report states.

It presents MIT’s Mood Meter — a device that captures facial expression through a camera on a laptop while software analyses the mood — as an example of technology that can conduct these measurements.  [...]

A study in 1999 published by MIT researchers delved into the use of a posture-sensing chair to evaluate a student. The experiment using a chair with pressure sensors on the seat and back evaluated student interest in order to better learn how to improve the experience for students in a computer-learning situation.

But a camera, chair, mouse and wristband equipped with sensors to track different metrics isn’t not all. The report also highlights the value of FMRI (functional magnetic resonance imagery), which would reveal different areas of activity in the brain through scans.

Read more at The Blaze

Apparently they see classrooms full of children as guinea pigs who can be used for their Frankenexperiments – a captive audience that can’t leave once they find out that they have become the show.

Feds Launch Intrusive New ‘Common Core’ Student Tracking Database – Time To Opt Out!

Attention, parents: Common Core opt-out form now available

Common Core is Not Just About Standards, it’s also about Data Mining

‘Common Core’ Banishes Literature, Replaces With Government Propaganda

Obama Takes Over Public Schools With ‘ObamaCore’ Curriculum

Data-Crazy Department of Education Throws Privacy Out the Window

Planned Parenthood’s primary source of income is abortion.   The purpose of their “sex ed” agenda is to encourage kids to experiment sexually and create as many new potential customers as possible.   They will bulldoze anybody who dares to get in the way.

Kristan Hawkins reports at Life News:

Last week, a Portland, Oregon math teacher was led out of his classroom by police and is expected to be fired for his opposition to Planned Parenthood. For years, Benson High School teacher Bill Diss has protested Planned Parenthood of Columbia Willamette (PPCW) building an abortion facility as well as their infiltration into the city’s schools.

This Fall, he refused to allow Planned Parenthood staffers to come into his class to push their agenda, under the auspices of the Teen Outreach Program – why was this interrupting a math class, of all things? – and ever since, the school’s administration (not to mention PPCW) has had it out for him.

Now that PPCW has completed the heroic task of stopping Mr. Diss, they can go back to their very important, regularly scheduled programing – promoting sex toys!

Tonight, as part of “Sexy Tuesdays,” PPCW is offering a “Sex Toy Workshop & Soiree.”

Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is the organization that Benson High School allows access to their students to, even to the point of interrupting class time against the wishes of teachers, and firing educators like Mr. Diss.

Read more at Life News

Sex toy seminars are just the tip of the iceberg.   Planned Parenthood is determined to indoctrinate children as young as 5 with their sexual anarchist ideology:

While the White House says sequestration has eliminated funds for children touring the White House, President Obama has no problem spending $350 million federal tax dollars for sexual indoctrination programs starting in kindergarten for those same children.

This is not your grandmother’s sex education about how things work and what can go “wrong.” In fact, the exact opposite is the essence of the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP):  Obamacare funnels $75 million annually into PREP, which must be used exclusively for Planned Parenthood-style “comprehensive” sex ed programs where no type of sex is wrong and the only sexual behavior PP considers “unsafe” is becoming pregnant.

More than one-fourth of the funds ‒ $20 million ‒ has been awarded to a coalition of six Planned Parenthood affiliates, operating under the name Northwest Coalition for Adolescent Health, to implement HHS’s TOP program across Montana, Oregon, Idaho, Washington, and Alaska at over 50 sites. In Oregon schools, Planned Parenthood is paying children cash incentives to participate.

PP is funded with our tax dollars to market sex to our children in our schools under the guise of sex education, anti-bullying, diversity, and tolerance. Once sexualized, those children then become PP sex customers for contraceptives, STD testing, and abortion.

Read more at the Washington Times

Portland Teacher Fired For Fighting Planned Parenthood In School

Salem Parents Object To Planned Parenthood Teaching Sex Ed In Their Children’s Schools

Oregon Planned Parenthood sponsors pornographic website for teens

Planned Parenthood Targets Children, Teens With Sexually Explicit Content To Create Future Customers *Updated*

Shocking video: Planned Parenthood reps tell students to ignore ‘science’ about when life begins

Parents Furious After School Teaches 11-Year Olds Graphic Details About Oral, Anal Sex

Planned Parenthood Launches ‘Social Change Initiative’ to Teach Parents How to Educate Children About Sex, Including Masturbation, Homosexuality

Planned Parenthood releases new sex, abortion guides for youth ahead of UN meeting

Planned Parenthood now teaching girls how to hide self-medicated abortions from their parents

Why are we still funding Planned Parenthood?

From our nation’s founding until the Supreme Court ruling on Engel vs. Vitale in 1962, school children across the country began their day with a prayer like this:

“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.”

How shockingly “offensive” to ask God to bless us, huh?

Until 1963, students could voluntarily choose an elective such as “New Testament Survey,” which studied the most influential book in history (especially Western Civilization).   Teachers could read from the Bible in a historical context, and teach children to recite “The Lord’s Prayer” (seeing as it’s the most well-known poem in the world).

But now, no more.  American school children have no idea of where common cultural references such as “David vs. Goliath,” “The Golden Rule” or “going the extra mile” come from.   The have no frame of reference for understanding why the Reformation was such a pivotal point in European history, how Henry VIII’s break away from Rome was so significant, and the reason why the Puritans and Separatists were so intent on escaping to the New World.   Children today aren’t taught where Thomas Jefferson got the phrase “Nature’s God” for the Declaration of Independence, or why our founders built our nation on the idea that unalienable rights come from our Creator.

They have no idea of an absolute moral standard – a Natural Law – which no man, woman, king or president is above.

And that’s exactly how tyrants want it.  If there is no recognized authority above the state, the state reigns supreme in people’s lives, and can do as it pleases with no accountability.

Pope Francis witnessed this first-hand in Argentina, and he offered this warning:

In a 2011 book,  Cardinal Jorge Maria Bergoglio, the new Pope Francis, stated that parents have a right to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs and that sometimes when the government intervenes to deprive young people of that religious element, it can produce terrible consequences, including “cases like Nazism” whereby many students were indoctrinated with views alien to those espoused their parents.

The book, in Spanish, is entitled Sobre El Cielo Y La Tierra (On Heaven and Earth), by Jorge Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka, the latter an Argentinan rabbi. The book is in interview-style and Skorka asks the cardinal a variety of questions throughout 29 chapters.

In Chapter 18, “Sobre la educacion” (On Education), the future Pope Francis says, “In the Bible, God presents himself as a teacher. ‘Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, who took them in my arms,’ it says.  A believer is obliged to raise his children. Every man and every woman has a right to educate their children in their religious values.”

“When a government deprives children of this formation, it can lead to cases like Nazism, whereby children were indoctrinated with values opposite to those of their parents. Totalitarianism tends to take over education so it can use the water for its own mill,” said then-Cardinal Bergogolio.

Read more at CNS News

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Why is the Church Silent on Education?

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Calif. Teacher Punishes Students for Saying ‘God Bless You’

Second-grader suspended over drawing of Jesus

Judge rules against student’s religious expression

ACLU suit forces NJ students to cover, avoid religious symbols by using side door to auditorium

God & Country Banned in Public Schools?

Canada Violates Religious Liberty, Forces Private Catholic Schools To Teach Moral Relativism

If there’s one think Planned Parenthood is good at, it’s targeting and destroying the opposition.   Prosecutors are terrified of going after them for their crimes.   A lone teacher doesn’t stand a chance.

Neither did the people who tried to save the Jews from the holocaust.  But they did it anyway, and today they are remembered as heroes.

Rita Diller reports at Life News:

An exemplary math and computer science teacher has been unjustly escorted out of Benson High School by police following a protracted battle with school officials about Planned Parenthood’s presence in the school and its association with his students.

Bill Diss was notified on Tuesday after the last student left his class that he was being placed immediately on administrative leave “pending a recommendation to the superintendent that you be dismissed from your employment with Portland public schools for reasons that have been discussed with you.” The mild-mannered Mr. Diss told STOPP that he was given only a few minutes to gather his belongings before police escorted him out. He was ordered not to return to the Portland, Oregon, school where he has taught for 11 years.

Mr. Diss is an outstanding teacher, who recently was awarded certification and recognition as the only teacher in Oregon who is qualified to teach college level computer science to high school students for dual credit. He has taught at the college and high school level for a total of 18 years.

Planned Parenthood has been in pursuit of Mr. Diss since 2007 when he began organizing efforts to stop Planned Parenthood. A STOPP press release from February of 2009 noted that Planned Parenthood of Columbia Willamette wanted Bill Diss’ teaching license revoked. The press release quoted American Life League’s Jim Sedlak: “Bill has organized one of the most effective efforts against Planned Parenthood in the country. It’s no surprise Planned Parenthood will resort to anything—even going after his teaching license—in order to silence him.”

Bill was opposing, on his own time, outside of any school activities, the construction of a Planned Parenthood killing center in an African American neighborhood in Portland. The Planned Parenthood business was eventually built, and today targets minority women for abortions.

Planned Parenthood was unsuccessful in its revocation bid but, incredibly, a decree came from the school district that Bill could not indicate that he was a teacher at Benson or that he taught for the Portland schools when he was giving talks outside the school.

Things really started heating up again at the beginning of the 2012-2013 school year when Planned Parenthood of Columbia Willamette began to push its Teen Outreach Program (TOP) in partnership with Benson High School. The program is fueled by a multi-million dollar Obamacare teen pregnancy prevention grant, funneled through a coalition of Planned Parenthood affiliates. Benson High is located in the inner city, where sixty-two percent of the students qualify for free or reduced price lunches.

On September 17, 2012, Planned Parenthood operatives entered Mr. Diss’ classroom where he was tutoring students in basic math skills and other subjects. They expected to be given the floor to recruit students for the Teen Outreach Program. Because Mr. Diss had been notified that TOP representatives were coming to speak to the class and they produced ID showing they were from Planned Parenthood rather than TOP, Mr. Diss asked them to leave his classroom. They left, and a few moments later the principal and vice principal came to remove Mr. Diss from class.

The next day he was forced to sit through a Planned Parenthood presentation. “They were extremely aggressive in obtaining the children’s signatures by promising them all sorts of gifts and cash,” Bill said. Planned Parenthood filed a formal complaint against Mr. Diss with the school. You can read STOPP’s coverage about the events of that day and the TOP permission forms here.

Read more at Life News

Interview With Lars Larson Show: Bill Diss says he was removed from his teaching position for his opposition to Planned Parenthood

STOPP – Stop Planned Parenthood – Teacher booted from Portland School District after protracted battle with Planned Parenthood

Salem Parents Object To Planned Parenthood Teaching Sex Ed In Their Children’s Schools

Oregon Planned Parenthood sponsors pornographic website for teens

Planned Parenthood Targets Children, Teens With Sexually Explicit Content To Create Future Customers *Updated*

Shocking video: Planned Parenthood reps tell students to ignore ‘science’ about when life begins

Parents Furious After School Teaches 11-Year Olds Graphic Details About Oral, Anal Sex

Planned Parenthood Launches ‘Social Change Initiative’ to Teach Parents How to Educate Children About Sex, Including Masturbation, Homosexuality

Planned Parenthood releases new sex, abortion guides for youth ahead of UN meeting

Planned Parenthood now teaching girls how to hide self-medicated abortions from their parents