Back at you, Mr. Editor

Spectrum, by Ron Hamman

Mr. Ameduri, pre-

sumed writer of Sunday's opinion, greetings.

As a home-schooling father I take issue with your questions in a recent editorial, "Student tracking bill shouldn't get a failing grade from parents," Feb. 22, that you say need to be begged, and I accept your challenge. In like manner, I challenge you to answer questions of my own.

First of all, you begged the question as to just how far a person should be able to opt out of society. This is a very good question, but uninformed. Have homeschoolers here in the Valley really opted out of society? Do we not pay taxes, half of which go to a failing school system that we do not attend, on our personal property? Is it really opting out of society just because our children don't attend?

Your assumption is based on the faulty reasoning that funding is missing because of a lack of attendance, and therefore we do damage to society and have opted out. However, have you never heard of a boycott before? The strongest language you can use against any manufacturer when they have poor business practices, or a poor quality product, or any other grievance is to stop purchasing their products. The hope is that at some point they will realize that if they want to continue in business, they must make a few changes.

This is the contention of most homeschoolers I know. And not only does public education put out a faulty product such that the state Legislature had to mandate minimal graduation standards (that needed to be dumbed down for the schools' inability to make the grade) for the benefit of society whose employers need well educated employees, but they show an increasing antagonism to the traditional Judeo-Christian values that were espoused by our forefathers, as well as most homeschoolers in general. In fact, most homeschoolers take the position, in regard to our country's Christian heritage, that society is leaving them, and that in a selective withdrawal from anything that smacks of Jesus Christ.

For example, society withdraws from Christianity when it espouses the religion of evolution under the guise of science. Though evolution is still an unproven theory, it is staunchly defended by its adherents because the only other alternative to it is the acceptance of a creator who not only created the universe in six days, but also has written laws by which he expects man to conduct himself, an unconscionable alternative to them.

Society also withdraws from Christianity when they reject corporal punishment. Not only do they attempt to intimidate families into believing that it is against the law in our state, which it is not, but we abandon it altogether in our schools as abuse and violence. Instead, we put in its place detentions and expulsions that get less and less any serious response from students each additional year. A sow bear has more brains in this regard than modern society.

Thirdly, modern society withdraws from Christianity when it advocates welfare which requires no work in exchange for the food and/or money they receive. You might contend that they do require welfare recipients to find a job, but the Biblical command is that if you don't work, you don't eat. In other words, the government has no business providing what is the responsibility of the individual.

I know that modern socialists play on the sympathies of the mentally weak, but until people learn that bad choices have hard consequences, they will never be good citizens. Hear me well: Good citizens are those that are productive members of society, who through labor support themselves so that society need not bear their burdens. Bad citizens are those who leech off the labors of their neighbors.

And sometimes these same bad citizens make bad choices that hurt their own children. Again, the mentally weak feel sorry for those who are hurt, the innocent victims. And who doesn't feel bad for them? But it is not the obligation of society to have someone else's responsibility put on their back.

Truthfully, Mr. Editor, you are advocating communism, and I am advocating individual responsibility. It is high time for Americans in general, and Alaskans in particular, to awaken out of their stupor and shake off the chains of communism before it is too late.

The proof of your advocacy of communism is the second question you begged, the final of 10 planks of communism, as publicly published: Public education. To what degree is a community responsible for the education of its children? In short, they really don't have any control. They are told repeatedly that they must, and they increasingly shoulder more tax burden to do so, but when they ask for the schools to educate their children, they get a mixed bag. What we find is that those children whose parents are actively involved get an education, while those parents who aren't, their children don't. Being a former school bus driver, if I had to guess by the behavior of the children on my bus, I'd have to say that maybe 50 percent of parents even cared about their child's education.

How can a community be responsible to educate someone who doesn't even want to be there? Is it even reasonable for an uncaring parent to hand over their poorly behaved child and expect a miracle from any teacher? This is tantamount to baby-sitting, nothing more.

However, the fact is that society only has the responsibility to pay (as our system now stands) for the education that someone else determines is best for our children. If society truly has a responsibility, than it is high time for vouchers so that the people can dictate the terms of their child's education. Uncaring parents whose children simply will not perform will be relegated to schools that will take whosoever they can get, because parents who do care, with children that will perform, will go to those who will give them what they pay for, and there will be no room for slackers, guaranteed.

Lastly, the third question you beg, upon which the first two hinge, is uneducated and misguided. And particularly so when you dismiss offhandedly the failure of public education to produce an adequate education in the first place. Doesn't it strike you as odd for the pot to call the kettle black? Is it not the height of hypocrisy for the state to demand from any additional group what it fails to be able to obtain from what it already has charge over? Sir, you would make a poor business man, for you would put a thief in charge of your accounting department.

Education is neither a right nor a choice, but a privilege. The only reason why Americans in general consider it a right is because there are those whose paychecks depend upon it being so. However, in developing countries it is viewed as a privilege. The advantage to it being a privilege is that privileges are not guaranteed and can be taken away or lost. In countries where it is a privilege, children know that they must be good students and learn their lessons, or they may lose the privilege, and not just for a week or month or the rest of the school term, but the rest of their lives. In countries where it is a privilege, children know that they must be well behaved, or they might forfeit their privilege, and again, for the rest of their lives.

In these cases privilege increases the value of education as it affords greater opportunities for the future, opportunities that are lost when the education is not obtained. But where education becomes a right which is mandatory to obtain, it is cheapened, for no matter how bad a child may be, we are still obligated to give it to them. And that is the problem now in our schools; we have so long touted that it is a right that many of our children could care less if they do well. And now people howl when their children might not graduate because they cannot pass an exit exam. No wonder.

But you are right, for the first two hinge on the third. If education is a right, then society must bury itself under increasing taxation to educate those who could care less. But if it is a privilege that can be taken away or lost, then it becomes a precious gift only to those who care to get it. It is no respecter of race, religion or gender, for it is open to all who can make the grade.

Oh, and one more thing. Sen. Scott Ogan is sweating as to whether or not his political career is over even if he survives the recall drive, and these over-perceived threats against private property. Here is your question: To whom do the children belong? Do they belong to the state, or do they belong to their parents? This is the issue with homeschooling parents. If our children do not belong to us, then the state has every right to do as they please with them, not to mention to us as parents, because we are slaves. But if there is such a thing as parental rights, and children belong to their parents, then this bill is an attempt by some misguided Republican to abrogate the rights of parents and intrude into parental jurisdiction. If you are a communist or a socialist, then you must answer that they belong to the state (or society, whichever you wish to call it). But if you still believe in liberty, then children belong to the parents to whom God gave them. No wonder Rep. Mike Chenault is re-thinking his options; the right of recall is still an option.

Ron Hamman is a Wasilla resident.