Pete Hendrickson (@LostHorizons)

Reaping The Whirlwind For eighty-five years American parents, especially, have largely abdicated their responsibilities and let bureaucrats decide what goes into their children's heads. It can be no surprise that what has been coming out of them lately is hatred and scorn for those parents and their values and traditions. THROUGHOUT MOST OF MY CAREER as a writer, I have had two chief areas of interest (aside from my overarching focus on promoting a widespread and accurate understanding of American law). The first and foremost has been the nature and limits of the power of taxation allowed to government. The second has been the danger of "public" (that is, state) education of children. And danger it is. As was famously said by Vladimir Lenin, "Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevik forever." The same dynamic plays out with anyone else into whose hands are entrusted malleable young minds, and there is no safety from the resulting harm in the simple fact that those hands belong to what is imagined to be a benevolent state. "Content neutrality" is a myth. Indeed, the mere idea that content could be neutral (or, at least, that the state would deliver neutral content) is itself an ideological position, the transmission of which influences the perception of all things in the mind of its recipient. Further, the state, given the role of educator, inevitably imprints upon children a view of itself as not only benevolent, but also necessary, and an authority figure to be believed and obeyed, as well as honored. But of course, "education" doesn't stop with state idolatry. History, economics, civics, literature and all aspects of the manner in which people interact are within the scope of the education project. Each of these areas-- by which are established a person's broad understanding of the world-- are susceptible to manipulation in service to a preferred view and inescapably must be so manipulated. As observed above, "content neutrality" is a myth. However much you or I may think that our preferred view of any given subject of concern is the objectively correct view, there are others who feel differently-- or are prepared to behave as though they do, in any event. It is no surprise that when we put our vulnerable children into the hands of others for imprinting, it is the preferred view of those others which ends up being imprinted instead of the views of the children's parents. To so deliver our children to the hands and influences of others, of whose preferred views we have little direct knowledge and over whose decisions in molding our children we have little direct control is to cast those seeds-- from which the next generation of neighbors (and voters) will arise-- to the wind, to grow outside our careful guidance and nurturing... Continued: https://losthorizons.com/N/135.htm#1