I think I’ve finally got these homeschoolers figured out. I know exactly what drives them.
And it’s not because homeschooling is a money-saving tool for budget-minded families. It’s not. In fact, it can get quite expensive, especially when you think of the opportunity costs that are lost when one parent stays home to school the brood … and believe you me, it’s always a brood.
And it’s not because they worry that their child might not learn something invaluable, like say the Pythagorean theorem or the year of the Norman invasion or whatever is that Boss Tweed and his comrades at Tammany Hall did. (If I remember correctly, they like tried to put LSD in the New York water supply, but Teddy Roosevelt stopped them with the help of Sherlock Holmes and Wyatt Earp.)
And it’s certainly not because they want their kids to actually get a better education. We’re talking about mom and dad, here. Now I’m not going to talk bad about your mom and dad and you better not talk bad about my mom and dad, but can’t we all admit that our parents are idiots? Surely, this is something we can agree on. And frankly, I don’t want idiots teaching my kids. (Hi, Dad. Hi, Mom. Love you.)
Homeschoolers aren’t concerned about any of those things. They are worried about one thing and one thing only: That their kids might learn something in school.
Like say how men and women make babies.
Or how carbon dating works.
Or that there are guys out there who like guys and girls out there who like girls.
Or that there was this guy named Charles Darwin, who … ah, it’s better if we don’t talk about that guy. Biggest dick ever.
Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not a public school apologist. Nor do I believe that private schools have all the answers. Both have their pros and cons.
What matters to me is that our children are being taught to have a hunger for new information, to embark on a quest for knowledge. That they are encouraged to question, to theorize, to test, to explore. It’s that pioneering spirit, that lust for learning, that is the heart of American exceptionalism.
Ben Franklin.
The Wright Brothers.
Alexander Graham Bell.
Lewis and Clark.
Thomas Edison.
Crick and Watson.
The crew of Apollo 11.
These weren’t timid men. These weren’t people who were afraid of knowledge, of what they might learn from their endeavors. There weren’t spirits who trembled at the thought that what they might discover could not only potentially change their worldview, but the world itself. They weren’t cowards.
Unlike homeschoolers.
You won’t find the hunger for adventure and exploration among that ghastly gaggle of homebody hermits. They want safety. They want routine. They want to know that they know everything that they need to know and that it is all that is worth knowing.
Rick Santorum is one of these sad, misguided half-men.
And not only does he homeschool his kids as a way of protecting them from the world, he doesn’t think you should send your kids to college. In fact, he thinks that’s the worst thing you can do.
On Saturday, Santorum proclaimed that the only reason President Barack Obama wants your children to go to college is so that they will be remade in his liberal image.
To make matters worse, years ago the former Pennsylvania senator let it be known that Satan himself had taken over our nation’s colleges and universities, all in part of a campaign to destroy the United States. (The Evil One has also destroyed mainline U.S. Protestantism, according to Rick, but that’s another matter entirely.)
For Pete’s sake, do we really want this guy running our country? I mean, this is a man who not only hates your children, but he hates his own kids so much, that he wants to deprive them of a good education. He wants to send them off into the world ill-prepared to meet the challenges that are before them. He wants them to be intellectually weak and hobbled. He wants them to fail.
Our great country’s long history of exceptionalism was built upon the pioneering spirit, the hunger for knowledge, of the daring men and women that came before us — the explorers, scientists, inventors, and social activists — and not fraidy cats like Rick Santorum, who look at the world beyond their litter box and shit themselves out of fear.
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