Uncategorized

State to Force Homeschoolers to Submit to Warrantless Home Inspections, Trampling Rights

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

SOURCE: MATT AGORIST @ FREE THOUGHT PROJECT
Support Free Thought

Maryland — Under the guise of preventing child abuse, lawmakers in Maryland have introduced a bill that will allow the state to intrude in the lives of innocent families, keeping tabs on them, and destroying their right to privacy.

The bill, HB 1798 – County Boards of Education – Home Instruction Program – Observation of Instruction and Reporting of Abuse and Neglect, lays out some fairly ominous requirements that will persecute otherwise entirely innocent families for doing nothing other than teaching their children at home.

According to the bill’s text, it will establish grounds for parents to essentially register with the state and be subject to some of the same constraints as the public education system. But that is only the beginning. This bill also lays out the framework for involuntary home inspections in which state agents will enter a family’s home multiple times a year—likely unannounced—and observe and inspect the homeschooling process.

This bill would require parents to annually inform their county school boards of their homeschool child’s primary instructor and of the primary location where homeschooling is taking place each year. Furthermore, in order to legally homeschool in the state of Maryland, parents would be required to allow a representative of the county board to observe instruction at the family’s primary homeschooling location at least twice a year. Finally, this bill would require county school board employees who observe a family’s instruction and who believe a homeschool child has been subjected to abuse or neglect to report their suspicion to the proper authorities.
This bill, like the similar one proposed in California last month, was a reaction to the horrific scene that unfolded in mainstream media in the case of David and Louise Turpin. The couple is facing 12 counts of torture after police learned that their 13 children were severely malnourished, forced to stay chained to their beds, and living in horrific conditions, among other forms of torture that have been ongoing for several years.

Because they were registered homeschoolers, the state is now blaming all homeschoolers.

Instead of realizing the problem of child abuse has nothing at all to do with homeschooling, lawmakers across the country are using this moment to demonize parents who wish to teach their children outside of the state.

When asked why he proposed the bill, HB 1798’s cosponsor, Delegate Frant Turner said it was in response to “recent news about homeschoolers,” indicating that he is also exploiting this tragedy to push for more government control.

As TFTP reported last month, lawmakers in the state of California are now pushing for families who homeschool their children to be subject to involuntary home visits from state employees—treating those parents with the same oversight and involvement that they would give parents who have abused their children—just like Maryland wants to do.

The new regulations could consist of forced meetings with child protective services and other government agencies, which would leave the burden on the parents to prove to the government that they are fit to be parents who homeschool their children, according to the state’s guidelines.

The audacity of the state to require that your children be inspected by them to prove that you are not guilty of child abuse is stunning and speaks to the nature of the cradle to grave mentality of the almighty controllers.

As the Washington Examiner reported, if this increase in government oversight becomes law, it would “reduce the valid legal option of homeschooling from a fundamental parental right, to direct the education and school choice for children, to compelled consent to government intrusion upon the sanctity and privacy of the home and school choice.”

Currently, only about 3.4% of children ages 5 – 17 are homeschooled in the United States. Also, studies have shown that homeschooled children typically outperform their peers from both private and public schools.

Homeschooling allows for a child to maximize their potential to become creative, adaptive, free thinkers. This, in turn, creates people who are not conditioned to think within the limited confines of an archaic and crumbling system, but who are capable of adapting and applying new thoughts, ideas, and solutions to any situation encountered.

The flexibility of being able to cater education to a particular learning style, as well as a child’s particular interests, enables valuable insight.

This insight and creativity, however, is a danger to the status quo. If the state is unable to indoctrinate the entire population into believing in a certain system, people begin questioning that system. When people question the system—instead of simply blaming it on the other party—the state loses its control. When the state loses its control, they lose their power, their ability to extract wealth from masses, and their support for spreading empire.

Freethinkers are a danger to the empire. And whether or not the lawmakers in California and Maryland will admit it, violating the rights of homeschoolers is not in the interest of public safety. It is in the interest of self-preservation.

Support Free Thought
— Read on www.blacklistednews.com/

Our Rights Were not Granted by Government

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

Gun Rights Don’t Come from the Second Amendment

TAGS Legal SystemU.S. History

03/10/2018

Whenever there is a gun massacre, statists inevitably respond that it’s time to repeal the Second Amendment. The idea is that if the Second Amendment is gone, so will be the right to own guns in the United States.

There is just one big problem with that position: It’s wrong. The Second Amendment, like the First Amendment, doesn’t give anyone any rights. Instead, it prohibits the federal government from infringing on rights that are natural and God-given and that preexist government.

The Declaration of Independence sets forth the essential principles. Every person (i.e., not just American citizens) is endowed by nature or God with fundamental rights. These include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thus, given that people’s rights are natural and God-given, they preexist government. The rights come first and the government comes second.

What is the purpose of government? The Declaration answers the question: The purpose of government is to protect the existence and exercise of people’s natural, God-given rights.

That was the reason for calling the federal government into existence with the U.S. Constitution—to protect people’s natural, God-given rights that preexisted the federal government.

A big potential problem arises: The possibility, even likelihood, that the government itself will end up infringing or even destroying people’s rights. That possibility deeply concerned our American ancestors. They were convinced that government itself, not some foreign entity, constituted the biggest threat to their freedom, privacy, property, and pursuit of happiness. That’s why they were not terribly enthusiastic about approving the Constitution. If they hadn’t approved it, the United States would have continued operating under the Articles of Confederation, under which the national government didn’t even have the power to tax people.

The American people finally decided to go along with the deal. The biggest argument that finally sold it to them was that the U.S. Constitution, which called the federal government into existence, strictly limited the powers of the federal government to those few powers that were enumerated in the document. Those enumerated powers did not include the power to infringe or destroy people’s natural, God-given rights — rights, again, that preexisted the federal government.

Thus, even without the Bill of Rights, the federal government had no legitimate authority to control what people read or what people owned, including books and guns. That’s because these rights preexisted the government and because the Constitution did not give the federal government the power to infringe on these preexisting rights.

In fact, if the government did infringe on people’s natural, God-given rights, it would be violating the very reason that people call governments into existence — to protect the existence and the exercise of their rights.

So why then was the Bill of Rights necessary? In a technical sense, it wasn’t. Since the powers delegated to the federal government were enumerated in the Constitution and since the delegated powers did not include the powers to control what people read or owned (including books and guns), the Bill of Rights was essentially superfluous.

In fact, some people even argued that by enumerating some rights in the Bill of Rights, that might be construed to mean that those were the only rights that were being protected. That’s why the Ninth Amendment was enacted — to point out that that was not the intention.

The reason the Bill of Rights was enacted was because of the deep concern that our American ancestors had about the threat that the new federal government would pose to their rights and liberties. They believed that this government — their government — would inevitably end up doing what every other government in history has done — destroy there rights.

That’s why they enacted the Bill of Rights — to hammer the message home that the American people were expressly prohibiting the federal government from traveling the road to tyranny that all other governments in history had travelled.

But notice something important about the Bill of Rights: It gives no one any rights. Instead, it prohibits the federal government from infringing or destroying rights that already exist. it really should have been called a Bill of Prohibitions rather than a Bill of Rights.

Thus, people don’t have the right to own guns because of the Second Amendment, just as people don’t have the right of free speech because of the First Amendment. People’s natural, God-given rights preexist government. They exist whether the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and the federal government are there or not.

What happens when a government infringes or destroys the rights of the people? The Declaration of Independence gives us the answer: It is the right of the people to alter or even abolish the government and institute new government whose powers are limited to its legitimate function. That’s a right that every American living today should keep in mind.

Originally published by the Future of Freedom Foundation. 

Finding Strengths Through Weaknesses – The Cracked Pot

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

Please read

Coach Muller's avatarMy Good Time Stories

Ken Hawkins Photo Dredit: Ken Hawkins via CC Flickr

I think that some people will find this hard to believe, but people are not perfect. All of us have inadequacies and deficiencies that others may look at in a negative light but what individuals don’t realize, is that in many, many ways, some weaknesses in people can, in fact, be used in positive ways! This is true in all areas of life whether it be at work, schools, businesses, etc. We should learn, especially if you are a leader, how to find strengths through weaknesses.

Consider the following story…

There was once a man who had two large clay pots which he would hang on the ends of a pole he carried across his neck when he went to fetch water from a stream.  One of the pots had a small crack in it while the other was perfect.  The perfect pot…

View original post 442 more words