RE: opt out?

["Doug Jones" <credenda@moscow.com>]

Sunil wrote:

> Again, it's a game with straw men.  Sure, it's easy to criticize the
Nazi or
> Soviet press; they were the only media allowed and no competing views
were
> permissible. Your comparison between that system and public schools
would be
> valid if only public schools were permitted to exist.  Obviously
that's not
> the case in Moscow, Idaho, so it's not a valid comparison.

The Nazi invocation was Tom Hansen's not mine; that's why it was funny.
Still the question isn't one of extremes (i.e., your invocation of black
helicopters, as if that's even near a pigeon hole you assume I live in).
It's a question of worldview norms, flow of info, ultimate values, etc.
no matter how calm and mainstream and unthreatening and boring. 

Who needs extreme government threats? Subtle things are far more
effective. I think it's pretty clear that, over the long run, the
Enlightenment rationalism embedded in the public schools just guts
creativity and a sense of deep playfulness about life; it kills the
arts. And public school parents should be free to inflict that sort of
faith on their kids, bureaucratize their minds, and even harm the
broader community in that way. Go for it. Just don't force others to pay
for your religious idiosyncrasies. Separation of church and state. 

Doug Jones