Partisan Politics

In our American system of government each individual gets to choose whom they vote for. In a dictatorship the ruling elite tell the people who to vote for.

HSLDA E-Lert

On October 12, 2006, J. Michael Smith of Home School Legal Defense Association sent out an e-lert urging recipients to vote for Republican Party candidates because, “I can assure you that the Republican majorities in Congress are friends of homeschooling” and that “[t]his strong, positive stance on homeschooling is not shared by many Democrats.”

Mr. Smith continued on with vague threats about George Miller, the Democrats in general and the NEA. He also took the opportunity to commend Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave for introducing HSLDA’s HoNDA legislation. He also mentioned “The lines are clearly drawn for us on the homeschool, life, and marriage issues.” When last I checked, neither marriage nor life were homeschool issues. He further added, “I am convinced that we must do all that we can to ensure that Republicans maintain control of Congress on November 7.”

Marilyn Musgrave (R-CO) is vulnerable because of her ties to the GOP, particularly Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff (voting twice to stop a House ethics investigation of his influence), and Duke Cunningham. Ms. Musgrave is also the sponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment as well as HoNDA, the HSLDA legislation that would require the Department of Defense to obtain homeschool records of our children for the purposes of “recruitment and enlistment” in the armed forces. I can assure HSLDA not everyone thought that was a good thing for homeschoolers.

Learn More About HoNDA

To learn more about HoNDA and HSLDA’s attempts to federalize homeschooling please visit HR 3753/ S 1691 – Homeschool NonDiscrimination Act 2005.

George Miller (D-CA) has served in the House of Representatives since 1975. He’s had 31 years to push what HSLDA says is his agenda of limiting homeschooling to certified teachers. One of his recent legislative accomplishments is President George Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. Miller was one of the four congressional authors of NCLB. NCLB contains provisions exempting homeschoolers from its educational mandates, including standardized testing and – presumably – teacher certification.

(To learn more about HR 6 and HSLDA’s continuing attempts to federalize homeschooling, please see:

• HR 6 and the Federalization of Homeschooling or
• The Ravage of Home Education Through Exclusion By Religion)

Perhaps Mr. Smith’s real concern is that having identified homeschooling so completely with the Republican Party he is genuinely afraid that should Democrats take control of the Congress, there will be a backlash against homeschoolers. It is conceivable that would boil over the long-simmering homeschool backlash against HSLDA, for it is HSLDA that has spent the last 25-years working to create the image that all homeschoolers are Republican Party loyalists.

HSLDA Youth March

Mr. Smith further explains how homeschool youth are working on elections. It is a great thing to see so many young people interested in our political process. However, I do not vote based on whose yard sign is the biggest, or what some nice young person stuck on my door. I vote based on the candidate’s record and political viewpoint. I am – after all – voting for someone to represent me, not Mr. Smith or HSLDA.

I am troubled that someone is using threats in an attempt to influence my vote. The only thing worse would be someone who assumes I am too stupid or too lazy to learn about the candidates and make my own choice and therefore must tell me how to vote. Mr. Smith will have the opportunity to vote in his local Virginia district. I will too, and hope you will also.

I went to the HSLDA PAC’s website and learned the names of the candidates they are supporting and soliciting money for. The candidates listed at HSLDA’s PAC website as sponsoring Generation Joshua teams include Rick O’Donnell (R-CO), Peter Roskam (R-IL), Chris Chocola (R-IN), Mike Sodrel (R-IN), Mike Whalen (R-IA), Geoff Davis (R-KY), Michael Steele R-MD), Mark Kennedy (R-MN), Michele Bachman R-MN), several unnamed candidates in Ohio, Rick Santorum (R-PA), and John Gard (R-WI).

You can research these candidates or those running for election in your district. There you will also find a link to the candidate’s official campaign website where you can learn more about their positions.

I hope you will make your very important decision based on your own research, not the thin threats made by Republican Party lobbyists. I hope you are all smarter than to let any individual, group or organization usurp your right to free choice. Remember that whomever you vote for, you are voting for someone to represent you, not HSLDA, not Michael Smith and certainly not the Republican Party. It would be a sad day in America if the Constitutional right to vote was taken away from individual citizens and handed over to professional lobbyists.

Mary McCarthy

Sovereignty

The title of this blog is “In Defense of Sovereignty.” Questions about this title might arise in the minds of readers, such as “What is sovereignty?” or “Why does it need defending?”

Sovereignty is the exclusive right to exercise supreme political (e.g. legislative, judicial, and/or executive) authority over a geographic region, group of people, or oneself. In U.S. history, sovereignty has generally referred to the right of the residents of the United States to make their own laws.

Applied to homeschooling, it refers to the right of all homeschooling families to affect and direct that which will have an impact on their families.

This right needs defending because the lawyers of HSLDA (and others) have long shown themselves to be detrimental to the sovereign rights of homeschooling families. We’ll be explaining why that is, and what can be done about it, in future posts to this blog.

We open this blog to homeschoolers to opening discuss our sovereignty and ways to preserve it. Please contact the webmasters for permissions to post to this blog.

Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control; these three alone lead one to sovereign power.

~Alfred Lord Tennyson

The Time is Right

After receiving several inquiries this week about the HSIL site, I decided that the time is right to add a blog to Homeschooling Is Legal. I’ve noticed that people tend to have very strong feelings regarding HSLDA, either being fervent supporters or vehemently opposed to the organization as a whole.

Many have categorized the Homeschooling Is Legal website as being anti-HSLDA, but the founder of this website intended it to provide full information about the organization, so that people can make a fully-informed decision about the worthiness of membership.

If you join HSLDA because you believe in their cause and you want to support the organization as a whole, then go for it. What many contributors to HSIL object to is the fear-mongering and arm-twisting tactics that HSLDA employs. I personally object to being strong-armed into joining any organization, in order to belong to another.

Many homeschooling groups still require membership in HSLDA in order to join their group. There is no justification to join HSLDA, simply for protection purposes. Most homeschoolers will never experience a legal problem during their entire homeschooling years. Yet, HSLDA continues to beat their drums, spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD).

HSLDA often runs roughshod over statewide and local homeschooling groups in order to manage or effect proposed legislation, without ever consulting those who would be forced to live under these new regulations.

In short HSLDA doesn’t always play nice with others and this practice must stop. Many years ago HSLDA was the hero to many new homeschoolers, but as the legal climate has changed, HSLDA, unfortunately, has not.

If after reading this site and the articles we link to here, you are still interested in joining HSLDA, do so. Our intention is not to prevent anyone from joining their ranks.

This blog and the HSIL website are dedicated to the memory of Dan Flynn, who first hosted this domain. Danny was homeschool dad to two young boys, who passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in late 2004. He wanted to ensure prospective HSLDA members joined with their eyes opened and were fully aware of what they were supporting with their membership dues.