Open Letter to First Pro-HB2144 Email Received
Posted on March 14th, 2009
Ms. Name Withheld,
I understand your concern. As a parent who home educates, I also severely dislike the fact that there are those few who do not really intend to homeschool and abuse the liberty that rightfully belongs to a parent. It gives home educators a bad name. It undermines those who do a good job, which is the MAJORITY contrary to your assertions below.
I have been thinking about ways to address the concerns of you and those who support HB2144, but do so with out infringing upon the rights of the parents. So far, I have not come up with a good solution. Sometimes, if we value freedom and liberty, there is NO solution. Freedom indeed does not come free in society. Sometimes there are (societal) costs to liberty, and those cost are higher when that particular society loses it’s moral foundations and fails to demonstrate the personal responsiblity required of those who live in freedom and liberty. Everyday in the legislature, I am faced with that exact question. What is more valuable? Liberty or the cost of that liberty? I rips my heart to shreds. You have no idea.
I am sure it grieves you when some parents fail their children as you have described below, but it is not your right nor mine to remove that liberty from ALL because a FEW abuse it. It grieves me as well… probably even more, for all the reasons you stated and a few out of my personal self interest.
It grieves me when I can google “teacher charged with a felony abuse” and turn up 377,000 hits, with most of those felonies being crimes against children. [Link to Google Search]
I am sure that very thing greives you too, for the exact same reason it does me, plus those of your personal self interest.
Let me ask you. Should I remove your liberty to teach unhindered by the constant eye of video cameras broadcasting your classroom to the internet because a few have abused their liberty? Why should you have that liberty removed because of the relative few that abuse the privilege that parents grant them to nurture thier children relatively unsupervised? Is the cost of that freedom and liberty too high that I might deny it to honest and upstanding teachers?
What about grade inflation? Should we remove from the teacher the liberty to use some amount of subjective decision making in grading because some ( statistics show a very large number ) teachers are abusing that liberty?
I think you probably understand the point I am trying to make, even if my parallels are not exact.
If both of the above are liberties –that are deserved of a professional such as yourself– are valuable, how much more valuable are the liberties deserved by a parent? The freedom entrusted to a parent by nature and nature’s God is a “natural liberty” that I dare not abate. A natural liberty is supremely more weighty than that of the simple professional or “derived / granted” liberty that you rightly enjoy as a teacher. If I take this step toward removing the “natural” liberty of parents, what logical right do I then have to protect your less important derived liberties as a professional teacher?
I agree with you, there is sometimes a high price to be paid for the liberties we enjoy. Sometimes the price is as high as the very lives of our sons and daughters who fight in war to preserve our liberty and freedom… and the liberty and freedom of people around the world. Sometimes the price is a few uneducated children sacrificed by their own irresponsible parents to a life of poverty and ignorance. If I am willing to offer up my own life and the life of my son and daughters to fight and die for your personal liberty, how much should you be willing to give up for my natural liberty to educate them as I see fit, regardless of the other –relatively minor by comparison– societal costs?
My answer to you is… NO! Here I stand, I can do no other. The liberty of parents to educate their children as they deem best is one so basic that if you were to put torch to the stake and burn me alive, I would not change my vote. That is a high price to pay to defend liberty, but still not as costly as the price many Arkansans have already paid to defend the liberty and freedom here and around the world on battlefields both current and covered with sand…. and those old and covered with poppies.
Sincerely,
Rep. Mark Martin
It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it. – George Washington
—–Original Message—–
From: Name Withheld [mailto:name_withheld@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 11:34 PM
To: Abernathy, Bill; Blount, Nancy; Martin, Mark; Saunders Rick; Rainey, David; Cook, David; Cheatham, Eddie L.; Bradford, Toni; Greenberg, Dan; Breedlove, Steven L.; Wagner, Charolette; Brown, Jerry R.; Hutchinson, Donna; Dickinson, Jody; Betts, Monty; Dale, Robert; Tyler, Linda; Perry, Mark; Carnine, Les; Summers, Tim
Cc: 3hines@arkansas.net; Will Robbins; Clint Montgomery; Kyle Cannon; Robert Crawford; Edd Puckett; Randy Horton
Subject: HB2144
I am in favor of HB 2144. As a school superintendent, I am working non-stop to ensure that each child intrusted to Mena Public Schools receives a quality education. This week, our principals sent letters to parents warning them that their children had reached the 12 day (since semester) absence limit. I have had parents in the office or on the phone since the letters were mailed trying to home school their children.
One parent said, “They don’t like lunches at school; they don’t like to get up in the mornings, and I don’t want to bring them to school (they ride buses and are on free lunches)–so I want to homeschool.” The boys were in grades 5 and 8. The mom had no idea what she was going to use to teach them, how she was going to help them like school, how she was going to discipline them as a teacher/mom. I tried to talk them out of leaving. They were determined, and mom basically let 10 and 13 year olds drop out.
I have many more stories just like these that convince me that homeschooling in Arkansas is promoting the very things that Gov. Beebe, Presidents Bush and Obama, and each of you are against. We are seeking to educate the children so that they are not left behind. We want to improve our number of graduates and students going to college. How are we going to do that when we allow children to leave our schools at the whim of a parent? There are some who do a good job, but the majority are perpetuating the low regard for education that has been the curse of Arkansas’ progress. Our school district of 1954 has more than 130 students being home schooled. Many never come back and are added to the cycle of generational poverty. Please help us by passing HB 2144.
Tags: freedom, homeschooling
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The Rise of Parentalism: Afraid to be Free
Posted on March 4th, 2009
There has been an unprecedented deluge of bills filed and passed in the Arkansas legislature this session that I think point to the greatest emerging threat to liberty in America today.
It is not just the desire among many in government to interfere in nearly every aspect of our lives that concerns me. Perhaps more frightening is the lack of concern on the part of many Americans that this is happening. A growing portion of the public seems to want to have their behavior prescribed to them, much like the paradoxical discovery that children actually want and find comfort in parental rules.
While you might think that this tendency comes primarily from progressives/leftists, the parentalist-paternalist trend isn’t at all isolated there. Conservatives are equally guilty of perpetuating this troublesome movement, particularly the Christian right. Both groups can be seen promoting laws and regulations that value the “collective good” over personal choice, precaution over risk, and the community over the individual.
This convergence of left and right to limit individual freedoms and the establishment of paternalistic reforms have historically been extremely detrimental to the vison of America put in place by our founding fathers. The results of this convergence is probably best demonstrated by the failure of prohibition and other social reform experiments occuring between 1890 and 1920, growing into the monsterous nanny state that we have today.
I see a disturbing trend that may be indicating a repeat and amplification of those past mistakes. While Christian conservatives may have good intentions, we need to re-evaluate our willingness to agree to social contracts that we think will “make society better.”
Like “government” itself, social contracts should be viewed as a necessary evil. In fact, there is no basis for a U.S. Constitution without relying on social contract theory. Still, we need to heed and understand the warnings of Murray Rothbard about social contracts and limit their use to the carefully prescribed limits outlined in the U.S. Constitution.
In my view, there should be no perpetual social contract except that of the U.S. Constitution. I agree with Rothbard that social contracts cannot be valid if the contract is not renewed by each generation, therefore even if a law or regulation is created by a valid social contract it should periodically and automatically sunset.
When we prepare our children for adulthood, we prepare them to bear the full costs and receive the full benefits of their own actions. Until they do so, they are never really “free” of parental control.
When individuals bear the full costs and receive the full benefits of their own actions, the justification for government involvement is much weaker. Unless and until an individual does so, they can never be free. I hope Americans have not lost their desire to be truly free.
I guess the warp and woof of what I am saying is, “Grow Up America!”
Tags: freedom
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