m42
08-21-2008, 10:24 PM
Right on the heels of a unanimous decision by the Los Angeles City Council to implement a moratorium preventing any new fast food restaurants from popping up in the city slums, a Los Angeles court has overturned a previous decision that condemned homeschooling as an unsanctioned and illegal education.
But not everyone sees this as a "victory" for parents who opt to homeschool their children in the state of Comufornia, or anywhere else....
Tom Bowden of Capitalism Magazine recently wrote an article that voiced the concerns of anti-totalitarian, freedom-conscious individuals everywhere:
Neither the state nor “society as a whole” has any interests of its own in your child’s education. A society is only a group of individuals, and the government’s only legitimate function is to protect the individual rights of its citizens, including yours and your children’s, against physical force and fraud. The state is your agent, not a separate entity with interests that can override your rights.
To give parents a permanent victory, California would need to make its law consistent with America’s founding principles. Parents are sovereign individuals whose right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to control their child’s upbringing. Other citizens, however numerous or politically powerful, have no moral right to substitute their views on child-raising for those of the father and mother who created that child.
Instead, a proper legal system recognizes and protects parents’ moral right to pursue the personal rewards and joys of child-raising. At every stage, you have a right to set your own standards and act on them without government permission. This parental right to control your child’s upbringing includes the right to manage his education, by choosing an appropriate school or personally educating him at home.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5240
But not everyone sees this as a "victory" for parents who opt to homeschool their children in the state of Comufornia, or anywhere else....
Tom Bowden of Capitalism Magazine recently wrote an article that voiced the concerns of anti-totalitarian, freedom-conscious individuals everywhere:
Neither the state nor “society as a whole” has any interests of its own in your child’s education. A society is only a group of individuals, and the government’s only legitimate function is to protect the individual rights of its citizens, including yours and your children’s, against physical force and fraud. The state is your agent, not a separate entity with interests that can override your rights.
To give parents a permanent victory, California would need to make its law consistent with America’s founding principles. Parents are sovereign individuals whose right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness includes the right to control their child’s upbringing. Other citizens, however numerous or politically powerful, have no moral right to substitute their views on child-raising for those of the father and mother who created that child.
Instead, a proper legal system recognizes and protects parents’ moral right to pursue the personal rewards and joys of child-raising. At every stage, you have a right to set your own standards and act on them without government permission. This parental right to control your child’s upbringing includes the right to manage his education, by choosing an appropriate school or personally educating him at home.
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=5240