Root for the Home(school) Team

Today the online community where I am most active saw some really acrimonious debate over homeschooling. A teenage boy who had been homeschooled accurately identified the bigotry which is often directed AT homeschooling families, but in his bitterness he blamed homeschooling families themselves FOR that bigotry. So I weighed in with the following. (Note that I began by mentioning a forum member who was defending homeschooling.)

This will be courteous, but relevant. ________ and I have never been each other's rubber stamp, so when I take her side here it should be plain that I have a substantive reason.

It often happens with any kind of minority that its members resent _being_ in a minority, resent being treated as inferior outsiders by the majority. So they try to distance themselves _from_ their own group. Pop psychologists refer to this as "self-hatred;" and as usual, pop psychologists are off the mark. It is not _themselves_ that these resentful souls hate; they hate the _circumstance_ of being treated with disdain.

Be that as it may, history provides illustrations of minorities disassociating themselves from their own group. In Fifties America, for example, black women not only went to considerable trouble to straighten their hair, they even purchased cosmetic products to lighten the color of their skin. Persons pursuing self-worth in such ways may despise _others_ of their group--as if it were the fault of those peers that the group was disadvantaged; but they don't really hate themselves. If they truly hated themselves, they wouldn't be seeking to _give_ themselves an improved situation.

If a homeschooled kid rebels against homeschooling because in his or her case there was "cultic" abuse, that simply is not what I'm talking about. Those black women bleaching their skin in the Fifties did not necessarily have bad parents; they were trying to cope with a broader situation in society which affected them. Likewise, a homeschooler with _wonderful_ parents might _still_ rebel, because of pressures which are not at all of the parents' making.

It is alleged that homeschooling demands too much conformity. Excuse me, public school _doesn't_ demand conformity? I went through public school, Kay through Twelve, and THE CROWD there is quite capable of mercilessly persecuting the "different." The administration likewise; remember those kids in California who recently were told they couldn't be seen wearing American-flag shirts because it might "offend" the group the school was pandering to?

Public schools of some kind have to exist in a society which both is pluralistic and forces many households to have both parents working. But having tutored at numerous public schools, I have seen their shortcomings. All other things being equal, a homeschooled child _will_ emerge smarter than a public-school child, at least in the average public school as they are now. So the more families are able to make a go of homeschooling, the better.

A quick invitation

One of my Facebook friends is a Christian woman named Traycee who is a firefighter. She is also a patriotic American--AND an African-American who is NOT fooled by Barack Obama. Traycee started a separate pro-American forum, which I have joined. I recommend it to others. You can find it at:

http://patriotsforfreeamerica.com/

Addendum to my item about HR1388

Snopes.com recently made a big deal of insisting that HR1388 was not nearly as broad in scope as had been thought. (That was why I kept my language moderate on HR1388, though I stand by everything I said about the general issue of government monopolizing humanitarian service.) If the Snopes people have an agenda to cover for leftwing politicians, telling us to quit worrying about HR1388 could be a piece of illusionist's misdirection, to prevent us from looking at ANOTHER piece of legislation which IS more inclusive in its dictatorial effects.

HR5741, the Universal National Service Act, is that other piece of legislation-- which, if what I now hear is true, is FAR more destructive to our liberty than the other law that only affected students. What I am told is that the U.N.S.A. authorizes the President to create new service agencies at his unilateral discretion, and to compel even persons as old as forty to work for them, if those persons have not yet already served in the armed forces or some equivalent.

If anyone is actually looking, I urge you to investigate this act for yourself, and don't take ONLY Snopes.com's word about it. If Barack Obama cared about helping people AS SUCH, he would be just as happy to let private charity do its job. He wants government to GET ALL THE CREDIT for any humanitarian activity, so as to set in concrete our passive dependency ON the government.

For the PIECES of Jerusalem

When Christians mechanically recite "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem," I realize that they mean well, that they do wish for the beleaguered people of Israel to be safe. But it comes across to me as--well, to use that particular Scripture just sounds as if they think that Jerusalem CURRENTLY IS at peace, and only needs to maintain it.

This is like looking at a city block which is engulfed in flames, and saying, "I trust that the people on this block will continue to be able to prevent fires. It would be unfortunate if any of these buildings burned."

Jerusalem, with all of Israel, is under attack NOW. All kinds of war are being waged already against the civilized people of the only Middle Eastern country with a stable representative government. The Barack Hussein Obama regime was waging a kind of war against Israel when it pretended Israelis had no right to build homes in THEIR OWN historical capital city. Now Israel is being expected to give up half of that city. The American hard-leftwingers who enable terrorists are CHOOSING to forget that Israel DID offer just such a concession to the Muslims a decade ago, and all the thanks they got was the Islamist rioting that the Palestinians had INTENDED ALL ALONG to do.

Praying for peace is too little and too late. The war IS on, and HAS been on since 1948 at least. Islamic orthodoxy will NEVER tolerate anyone OTHER than Muslims controlling any territory that Muslims feel like saying is theirs. Remember Spain: it pulled its troops out of Iraq, and the only thanks IT got was Islamists continuing to claim that Spain is also their territory.

I don't know what can be done. America has allowed itself to become SO weak and ineffectual. Islamists on Facebook are getting cockier every day, confident that their cause is unstoppable. (One illustration of their smugness was when a character calling himself Xmox Khan had the gall to cite Moammar Qadhafi as an authority on peace!) Of course we can still pray, but I can't help feeling that prayers are better if they are worded in a way that reflects the actual situation that's being prayed about.

The peace of Jerusalem has already been stolen. Hezbollah may open fire from the north at any time now. I pray for the SURVIVAL of Jerusalem, for waffling Westerners to recognize evil when it's spitting in their faces, and for that evil to be DEFEATED.