Homeschooling: What makes it different?

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the series opening or the first series post.

After my last post, where I explained what makes homeschooling so important, I would now like to talk about the benefits that make it so different (and better).

As common sense would show, one-on-one tutoring is more beneficial than one teacher for a classroom of twenty to thirty or more students. The child receives individual attention and focus. He or she can ask questions or interrupt whenever there is a misunderstanding. The teacher will almost immediately know when the child does not understand the material. Therefore, the learning is at the child’s own pace.

All of us excel in some subjects and need more work in others, but in a classroom setting, the teacher must teach at whatever pace will benefit the class as a whole, not one individual. This can cause boredom and laziness in students who excel at the material. I can certainly vouch for that! The boredom I experienced from school turned me away from learning for quite a few years. Students who have trouble with the material will be left behind and some will never catch up. I experienced this through my “tutoring” of others in middle school and high school. In the home school, each subject is learned at the child’s pace so that he may be at a fourth grade reading level and a sixth grade math level in the same year.

The parent can incorporate the child’s own learning style into the lesson. This is especially helpful for visual or kinesthetic learners who have a difficult time learning from a lecture in a classroom. Many children lag behind in a specific subject only because they are not experiencing the material in the way they can absorb it most efficiently.

Homeschooling also allows for younger ones to be able to move around more when learning. Often times, young children, boys especially, need a break to “get the wiggles out”. You can even incorporate movement while learning if the child is really active. In a classroom setting, this would cause chaos! As I noted before, there are some schools that no longer allow recess. Many others, as discussed in this article, are trying to limit the opportunities for play. I cannot imagine the plight of those teachers!

With all the government regulation regarding school, it is no wonder why some children excel, while others are left behind. They are all forced to start school at the same age! Some children are ready to start earlier, but will be held back because they are too young; therefore, they will be bored in school, having to learn at a slower pace. Other children may not be ready until the next year, but must start at the mandated age, because that is what the government decided.

Homeschooling is also better for the character development of the child. I cannot count the amount of articles I have read regarding parents who say their children do not have time for chores because their schedules are so full—between school, homework, and extracurricular activities. To do their part for the family, children should be assigned chores according to their ability. When children stay home, they are also more exposed to cooking and shopping and will have a better perspective on true family life (as opposed to those children who are so busy away from home that they do not even have time to help).

As I discussed in my last post, teaching our children about Catholicism is one of the most important duties we have as parents. We should not be relying on schools (whether CCD classes or Catholic schools) to teach our children doctrine. This allows error to be portrayed as truth through other people’s opinions, views, and beliefs being interjected into the teaching or from answering questions. Also, religion must be avoided in public school because of the difference between religions and the “need” for tolerance, and a weekly CCD class from first through eighth grade instills very little catechesis—I say this from experience. The ability to add our religious teaching to the yearly curriculum, without the outside influence of others, sets homeschooling apart from all other types of learning environments.

Classroom settings offer pretty much a one-size-fits-all approach. To offer anything else would be out of the teacher’s ability. Homeschooling fits the material to the child, instead of the other way around. Is it any wonder why most homeschooling students have better test scores and are even preferred by colleges?

For more information on homeschooling, please read the resources listed here.

Homeschooling: Why Is It Important?

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the series opening or the first series post.


Although not everyone has the ability to homeschool (because of financial or other concerns), it is important for so many reasons and I will try to address as many of them as possible in this post; so it is rather long.

As emphasized by a declaration from the Second Vatican Council and by Blessed Pope John Paul II in two different writings, we as parents must keep in mind that we are not only the primary but also the principle educators of our children. This duty was not given by the Church but by God himself and as such this right is completely inalienable. (See Familiaris Consortio, 40.) In Proverbs 1:8, the child is told “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and reject not your mother’s teaching.” We must teach our children from the beginning about the world and about God. It is our duty and our right to be the principle teachers of our children, not to surrender our responsibility to someone else.

Whether we want the duty or not we are the primary teachers of religion. Our attitudes, actions, beliefs, and words will form the child in his or her view of religion. Catholic schools are not designed to be the only or even the primary teachers of religion, because the child will follow the parent, not the teacher. Therefore, homeschooling fulfills the duty for us as parents to educate our children, especially where religion is concerned.

Along with this, I must emphasize the principle of subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is a principle of Catholic social teaching which states that all institutions exist for the sake of the individual/family so that whatever the individual/family is able to do, society should not take over and what small societies can do, larger societies should not take over. Below are two excerpts from writings of Blessed John Paul II.

Familiaris Consortio, 45: “But society -- more specifically the state -- must recognize that ‘the family is a society in its own original right’ [111], and so society is under a grave obligation in its relations with the family to adhere to the principle of subsidiarity. The public authorities should take care not to take from families the functions that they can just as well perform on their own or in free associations; instead it must positively favor and encourage as far as possible responsible initiative by families.”

Letter to Families, 16: “Parents are the first and most important educators of their own children, and they also possess a fundamental competence in this area: they are educators because they are parents. They share their educational mission with other individuals or institutions, such as the Church and the State. But the mission of education must always be carried out in accordance with a proper application of the principle of subsidiarity. This implies the legitimacy and indeed the need of giving assistance to the parents, but finds its intrinsic and absolute limit in their prevailing right and their actual capabilities” [emphasis original].

Thus, when parents have the ability to teach their own children, it becomes important that they do. They have the ultimate responsibility as primary and principle educators of their children to teach them the ways of the world. As Chesterton says in What’s Wrong with the World, “How can it be a large career to tell other people's children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone, and narrow to be everything to someone?” Governments cannot usurp this responsibility from parents, although many states try. Parents have an obligation and a right to decide what is important for their children to study and to teach it to them. The government’s role is to make sure children are being taught, but not to tell the parents what to teach.

We must also heed the warning from Chesterton in one of his Illustrated London News articles when he says, “The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.” Looking back at my old education post, we recall this quote from the HSDLA.

“Is it merely a coincidence that the two countries [Germany and Japan] whose educational system we have most admired gave rise to totalitarian states in the 20th century, bent on world domination? Looking into the dying embers of two world wars should remind us that the utopian impulse that lures men to entrust control of the individual—including compulsory attendance and state control of education—to the wisdom of the state, sets the stage for corrupt and domineering governments. And, as experience should have taught us, this can lead to horrible results. Although today’s proponents of compulsory attendance will argue that their purpose is benign, when the power to control education is concentrated in the hands of a few, it can easily be turned toward objectives which are not all benign.”

We must be careful sending our children away for nine months a year, twelve to fourteen years of their young, moldable lives, especially when there is plenty of evidence of schools keeping parents out of the loop. How many children are graduating today, after twelve years of school, without the ability to perform simple math problems or to write articulately? As parents, it seems by giving up our responsibility to the government, we have ourselves allowed education to decline.

The purpose of compulsory education today is quite different than when it first came into law. In the 1800’s, its main purpose was to keep children out of the work force and teach them to become good citizens. Today, it seems to be solely about test scores—teachers teach to the tests as well as teaching test-taking skills. Many schools have gotten rid of recess time and some have even gotten rid of the playground. (Yes, it is true. I have read the news articles.) The authorities think more time sitting in a classroom will somehow make better students, but many of the boys are being drugged with ADHD medications in order to keep them still (more on that later). Meanwhile, many young homeschooling students are finished before lunch and have higher test scores!

Children (and adults) have a grave need to be kept away from temptation so as not to fall into sin. Both public and private schools (secular and Christian) are full of foul language, materialism, sexual information, tolerance and encouragement of sin, and false religions. All these things can cause children to succumb to sin and turn away from their family even with a Godly, religious upbringing. The large amount of time children spend in school, school activities, and transiting to and from (seven to eleven hours on school days, nine months a year) as well as the strong urge to fit in can easily allow children to be led down the wrong path. This article shares a similar perspective: Parents: Beware the Danger of Peer Orientation.

We must always remember that even though we live in the world, we are not of the world. As Romans 12:2 says, “And be not conformed to this world: but be reformed in the newness of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and the acceptable and the perfect will of God.” Cultures, society, sometimes even laws must not keep us from living as true Catholics. The popular opinion, government mandates, and even “majority rule” do not imply goodness or Godliness. Let us look at James 1:27. “Religion clean and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their tribulation and to keep one's self unspotted from this world [emphasis added].” It is clear that we must not live as if we are of this world and it follows that we must not allow our children to live as if they are of this world as well. Looking back at the previous paragraph, we can see that the influence of others can and most likely will greatly exceed our own as parents when the children are sent off to school.

Finally as mentioned above, the bible stresses the importance of parents passing on their faith. Blessed Pope John Paul II in his Letter to Families says, “Certainly one area in which the family has an irreplaceable role is that of religious education, which enables the family to grow as a ‘domestic church’” (16, emphasis original). We cannot send our children off to Catholic school and expect any faith teaching to stick if we are not practicing our faith and setting the example in the home. In the Second Vatican Counsel’s declaration Gravissimum educationis, Pope Paul VI states, “Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking” (3).

Public schools, especially, cannot teach religion to children when there are children from twenty different religions present in the classroom. Yet, Chesterton says in What’s Wrong with the World, “It is quaint that people talk of separating dogma from education. Dogma is actually the only thing that cannot be separated from education. It is education. A teacher who is not dogmatic is simply a teacher who is not teaching.” Even when the schools are trying to avoid religion, they are still actually teaching it. They just choose, willingly or unconsciously, to teach atheism.

As you can see, there are so many immensely important reasons to homeschool our children. If you can make the sacrifice to teach your children, you should do so, for their benefit and the benefit of this country and the world. Where the family goes, society will follow.

For more information on homeschooling, please read the resources listed here.

Homeschooling: A Brief History

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the series opening or the first series post.

What we consider “traditional education” today, is actually not traditional at all. As seen from my regulation of education post, compulsory attendance did not come into law until 1852 in America. Before the 1800s, homeschooling had been the main approach to education since the beginning of time, only the methods and subjects have changed. Some children, mostly those of the wealthy, were taught by tutors while most children were simply taught basic life skills and religion by their parents.

The Catholic missionaries set up schools to teach things such as reading and Catholic doctrine, and some missions even taught math and astronomy, but these schools were primarily for adults who would then go home to teach their children.

Between the 1920s and 1970s, because of the compulsory attendance laws, it was illegal to teach children at home. Homeschooling during this time still existed, but was underground and mostly in rural areas. Some parents set up small private schools as a way to overcome academic and doctrinal issues in public schools.

During the 1970s, radicals helped push for homeschooling and by 1982 three states recognized the right to homeschool. Today, homeschooling is legal in all fifty states, but more than half have moderate to high regulations.

For more information on homeschooling, please read the resources listed here.

Food, Naturally: Articles IV

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

Here are a few articles related to government regulation of the food industry and the ability to make our own food choices. Pretty soon we may not have the ability to buy from a farmer’s market or to choose whole milk at the grocery store. (Yes, I am sensationalizing, at least I hope.)

Amish Milk: The Latest Target of the Obama Regulatory State
— Be careful where you buy milk! Sting operations are in place to catch the Amish selling raw milk across state lines!

Sugary-drink ban starts to affect S.F. sites
— I would bet that whole milk was not on the list of acceptable choices for vending machines …

Department of Transportation Sets Sights on Farmers’ and States’ Rights
— A new multi-million dollar business for the government … CDL training for all farm machinery operators, DOT numbers, and plenty of paperwork and oversight for the farmers.

Wisconsin Judge Denies Basic Property Rights and Fuels Outrage
— Now we will really have to fight for our freedom to choose our own food, even if we produce it! (If nothing else, be sure to read the judge’s clarification of his ruling in the numbered list.)

This is the direction our country is heading. Big government needs to step down or there may be another revolutionary war, unless "We the People" decide to sit back and take it.

Food, Naturally: Know Your Ingredients, Read Your Labels

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

I talked last time about eliminating processed foods, but let’s face it; they are never going to be totally eliminated from our homes. As long as we eat real food 80% of the time, we can usually afford to compromise 20% of the time and hope our bodies will be forgiving. We should remember that the more “compromises” we make with food, the more strain we are putting on our bodies. As I briefly discussed here, the foods we eat are stressing our bodies to the point of exhaustion. But if you truly want to serve healthy, real food for your family and your budget is cutting you short, incorporating the meal blessing will give you the opportunity to ask and trust God to make up the difference.

So, what about those much talked about food labels? If I have not gotten the point across by now, I will repeat myself: do not trust them!

Here are just some of the many food label problems:
* Expiration dates: Use by, sell by, best by dates are only regulated by the USDA for infant formula. Only twenty states require dates (on some products) by law. Some dates are for store use only (such as sell-by dates) and are not an indicator of food safety. Other dates are given by the company to indicate peak freshness, not expiration and food safety.

* Trans fat: If the product has .49g or less trans fat per serving, the company is allowed to claim “no trans fat” on the box! Just a hint, you should read the serving sizes since they passed that law. Many are so small you would certainly be eating double or triple (or more) of the serving size in a normal meal/snack. So you could potentially be eating 1 - 1.5+ grams of trans fat with that one product. If the ingredient lists partially-hydrogenated oil, hydrogenated oil, and/or shortening, it contains trans fats no matter what the box and nutrition label says!

* “Raw” sugar (ex. Sugar in the Raw) is actually processed. Now how exactly do they get away with claiming “raw” on a processed food? Because there is no law that says otherwise, therefore the company can make any claim they wish to dupe you into buying their product.

* Health food claims: These are the worst. You think the product is healthy because they state all the vitamins and minerals in it, but do you stop to read the food label and ingredients as well? You should. Take children’s sugary cereals for example. They have always been marketed as “healthy” because of the added man-made vitamins and minerals (which are only added because of the poor quality of the original ingredients) and now for the “whole grains!”, but they have way too much sugar! And we all know now why we should limit sugar.

* “Wheat” products: The word “wheat” on a package does not mean anything unless the words “whole” or “100% whole” are accompanied with it. White flour, also known as enriched flour on food labels, is wheat flour. It has just been processed down to the endosperm only and bleached. Almost all the nutrients in wheat are found in the bran and germ. This is why white flour must be “enriched”!

* Multi-grain products: These are made to sound nutritious by claiming multiple grains, but usually these products are made with mostly white flour. Again, read the ingredient list.

Reading Nutrition Labels:
* Ingredients are listed according to weight, so the first ingredient is what makes up the majority of the product and so on.

* Look at the serving size. Because so many people are worried about nutrition anymore, many companies have lowered their serving sizes instead of lowering the sugar, sodium, or other content as claimed on the package. Also, many serving sizes are now much smaller than you would normally eat in one sitting (as stated above).

* Next look at the amount of sodium and sugar listed. For every 600 milligrams (mg) of sodium listed, there is ¼ teaspoon of salt per serving. For every 4 grams (g) of sugar listed, there is one teaspoon of sugar per serving. Most products include massive amounts of salt as a preservative so the product stays “fresh” longer. Sugar is included so often (especially when unnecessary as in the case of my crab) because our culture is now addicted to sugar.

Ingredients List: What to Look For
First, always look for partially-hydrogenated oil, hydrogenated oil, and/or shortening. If any of those words show up in the product list, don’t buy it! I promise, you can find crackers, tortillas, and other baked items without trans fats. You just have to look harder.

Next, how many types of sugar can you spot? Sugar may not be listed first, but that does not mean a product is not mostly sugar, or at least made up of too much sugar. If the company uses many types of sugar, they could all add up to being the main ingredient. Sugar words to look for include (in no particular order): sugar, fructose, sucrose, glucose, dextrose, maltose, corn syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, cane syrup, and honey.

One more thing to look for is monosodium glutamate or MSG. The only problem with this is it can be found among so many names. If you think you are ready to spot them out, read the article linked in the previous sentence and also this Truth in Labeling table.

There are many other ingredients to stay away from in processed foods such as food dyes, chemical additives and preservatives, nitrates and nitrites (in processed meats), and others. If you are ready to tackle all of those, one of the best things to do is start looking for products listed as “natural” or “organic” and read only those food labels. It will narrow down your search, making it a little faster. I will talk more about natural and organic products in my upcoming posts.

For more information on ingredients and food labels, please read the books and blogs listed here.

Food, Naturally: Article II and More

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

From Michael Pollan

The American paradox: we obsess about food constantly, but have the highest rates of obesity and diabetes in the world

UPDATE: Need another reason to support locally-owned, small, sustainable farms? Read the two stories here about MRSA and honey bees.

My thoughts: Why would big companies want to change their behavior? They are making money and do not care about the consequences. Big companies care only about their shareholders (which means they need a big bottom line). The FDA does not even want to be involved because they obviously get a lot of pressure from the pharmaceutical companies who do not want to lose (at least) 70% of their antibiotic business! Did we need another example of why capitalism is bad? It's time for distributism to take hold.

On another note: It is acceptable for arsenic to be found in apple juice as long as it is below the levels that somebody else deemed to be safe. Do you really trust their research based on what you have read so far in this series? (Like this post or this one.)

Food, Naturally: Why Eat Real Food, Part II

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

Like I discussed last post, “experts” and “researchers” can deceive us. This is for the reason previously stated in the introduction:

“There are so many false sources out there that it can be hard to sift through them, but one of the most important things to remember is this. Do they have a political, financial, or other gain that may be obtained by making these remarks regarding what we eat?”

Most things are done and said today for the sole purpose of making money.

• Poorly-conducted studies are carried out just so companies have “proof” that their product is safe to use or consume, even if it is not (and long-term effects can never be studied quickly—which means most food products on the market today have not been tested for long-term side effects).
• Companies make claims on their packages that have never been confirmed and may even be false. Our government has made multiple laws stating what can and cannot be advertised on packaging, but there are still many things which are not yet regulated.
• Many large businesses employ lobbyists whose sole purpose is to pressure the government with the idea their product is safe, but their concern is money, not safety.
• Government officials are swayed by kickbacks or campaign funds instead of actual facts and figures done by legitimate double-blind, random, large research studies.
• Most companies hire lawyers for lawsuit-protection instead of chemists and chefs to change their “formulas”. (Real food doesn’t need a chemist or a lab.)
• Companies buy the cheapest ingredients so their foods are more profitable and then enhance the flavor with artificial ingredients and add “nutritional value” by fortifying/enriching with manmade vitamins and minerals.

If you don't believe me, read this article linked on a later Food, Naturally post.

As you can see, the consumer must always remember the old phrase “buyer beware”. We cannot and should not trust the companies making the food—their concern is profit. We cannot and should not trust the government to regulate our food—more laws means less freedom. (Big government is bad.) We must control the market ourselves by voting with our food dollars. We should buy safe, local products—real foods. We have a right to be able to speak in person to the farmer and ask questions about the products. We have a right to see where our food is grown or raised. We must demand more for ourselves and our families. And it all starts with what we are buying … it should be Food, Naturally.

Food, Naturally: Why Eat Real Food, Part I

In case you are new to the series, you can start at the beginning or the introduction.

Why is where we begin all reasonable discussions. This is the reason for including it at the beginning of the series, rather than specifically with each subsequent post. We should think for ourselves, because some things that “experts” or “researchers” say are actually harmful to us and we may not know or understand that without coming to our own conclusion beyond “so-and-so said I should”.

For everything, it is best to use common sense. Eating food is no different. Just as with other things, people (including myself) can get lazy and decide that “others must know better than I do” or “if they make it, it must be safe”. The worst excuse we use is “if government officials say something is or is not safe, they must be right”.

Using common sense with food is so easy, though. God made our bodies to function using the food that He gave us and people ate this way for thousands of years. Yet, in the past century or two, man thought he could make it easier on everyone by developing his own food in factories and over-crowded farms. This food can never compare to what God gave us. God knew what we needed to survive and thrive, to live longer and healthier. Processed and industrially-farmed food can never compare to Food, Naturally.

Open to Life: Eugenics and Abortion

If you are new to this series, I recommend starting at the beginning: Open to Life Series: What is Openness to Life?


Last time I talked about eugenics and IVF. If that did not wake you up to the Truth of the world, I hope that this post will.

Prenatal testing is now commonplace. According to Physicians for Life, “an estimated 70% of all pregnant women in the United States will choose to have prenatal screening tests.” One of the main purposes of this testing is to abort diseased, disordered, or imperfect children. This is not just my opinion: “Recent US studies have indicated that when Down syndrome is diagnosed prenatally, 84% to 91% of those babies will be killed by abortion. This trend is not isolated to the United States. In England, a 2004 study showed that 94% of babies who were diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome were subsequently aborted” (Physicians for Life). This post from Accepting Abundance also discusses the issue.

In my post about Planned Parenthood’s beginnings, I talked about how Planned Parenthood claims to help the poor … by not helping them. In other words, they are just strictly pro-abortion and we can “only guess” as to their motives (if we really need to). Their statements in this recent Fox News article advance this idea further:

After a law scheduled to go into effect July 1 will require women to wait 72 hours and consult a crisis pregnancy center adviser before getting an abortion, Planned Parenthood argues that it violates First Amendment rights. They (PP) say that HB 1217 aims to misinform pregnant women with the intent of dissuading them from getting an abortion. They further argue, “Under the law, these crisis pregnancy centers must have as their central mission a desire to dissuade a woman from having an abortion, no matter what her particular risks or circumstances.”

Really … What could they possibly be so afraid of from fewer women deciding to have abortions unless they have ulterior motives?

In addition, let us not forget about the abortions in other countries and possibly in the U.S. when the child is not the “correct” sex. Especially with China’s one-child policy and parents wanting males who will take care of them in old age.

The only way we can stop the madness of eugenics by another name is by setting a Christian example, especially by being Open to Life, advocating for these innocent babies, and teaching our children—living as a light to the world.


Up Next: The Population Myth

For full texts of the documents used, see my Open to Life Series: Introduction

Distributism: A Synopsis

I talked about why capitalism (and socialism) is bad, so what is the solution? It is a little-know idea, encouraged by many Popes as Catholic social justice and promoted by Hillaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, called Distributism. Pope Leo XIII first expressed the idea in his encyclical Rerum Novarum. What he articulated was the connection between property and justice for the poor.

In Distributism, every family is a property owner. As Chesterton says, “three acres and a cow” is all a family needs. When families are self-sustaining or small business owners, they do not rely on the “Big Shops” for cheap prices and even cheaper labor. They can grow their own food, make their own clothes, and they do not worry about capital and wages.

As small business owners, they set reasonable prices on their goods instead of gouging the consumer in order to make a profit, and manufacture quality goods when the emphasis is taken off mass production.

What about goods and services that individuals cannot offer, such as automobiles? Then families assemble guilds where each person is self-employed and owns their own tools and machinery. As entrepreneurs, they are free to make their own decisions instead of being slave to the capitalist.

However, governments cannot force distributism on society. A change to the system must come from within the family. It is more like a change of heart, not a change of law. The good news is that you can start living like a distributist today. Here is a Twelve-Step Program to get you on your way.

The Regulation of Education

Comparison of compulsory education in America from its establishment to today:

	1852 ~ 1900	Today
Compulsory Education Laws	The first compulsory education law was adopted in Massachusetts in 1852. No other state followed for 15 years.	As of 1918, all 50 states now have laws requiring compulsory education.
"Reasons" Behind the Laws	To level disparity between poor and wealthy, to “Americanize” immigrants, to improve the situation for children following the outlaw of child labor.	“Education is far too important to be entrusted to the common man.”
Compulsory Age Laws (Minimum)	Most states did not require attendance until age 8, but Ohio and South Dakota did not require attendance until age 10. And only one state (New Hampshire) required attendance of 6 year olds.	Today, 28 states require attendance of 6-year-olds, and Arkansas, D.C., Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia require compulsory attendance of children as young as 5!
Compulsory Age Laws (Maximum)	In 1887, only Washington (state) required attendance of 18 year olds.	Today, 14 states require attendance of 18 year olds.
Length of the School Year	In 1887, the average school term was only 130 days.	The average school term is now 180 days.

Education is very important … to a point. When parents cannot even make decisions about what should and should not be taught to their children and what ages said children will be taught, the state has overexerted its power. As Chesterton says in his book The Well and the Shallows, “The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.”

Emphasis needs to and should always be on subsidiarity. As Pope Pius XI says, in his encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, "Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do." Since the family can educate (as proven for millennia in human history and today through homeschoolers), then the government is “gravely wrong” for taking away that right from the families.

Almost every week I read an article about the shocking things the schools are now teaching, or allowing or disallowing. Just yesterday I was reading about the boys who were not allowed to go to their prom after taping a “… will you go to prom with me …” sign to the front doors of the school! A few months ago, I read multiple articles about how schools in Texas (without parental consent or vote) were now going to teach Islamic culture and religion. (But not Christianity which is True, believed by more citizens, older – as a form of history, and originates from the same region. See “Contempt for Christianity” for more.)

In his Illustrated London News column on September 7, 1929, Chesterton says, “The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.” If that doesn’t prompt you to change your ideas about public schools, consider what the Home School Legal Defense Association states in its September/October 2000 issue of Court Report,

“Is it merely a coincidence that the two countries [Germany and Japan] whose educational system we have most admired gave rise to totalitarian states in the 20th century, bent on world domination? Looking into the dying embers of two world wars should remind us that the utopian impulse that lures men to entrust control of the individual—including compulsory attendance and state control of education—to the wisdom of the state, sets the stage for corrupt and domineering governments. And, as experience should have taught us, this can lead to horrible results. Although today’s proponents of compulsory attendance will argue that their purpose is benign, when the power to control education is concentrated in the hands of a few, it can easily be turned toward objectives which are not all benign.”

Even homeschoolers are not completely free of the government’s hand. Eighty percent of states have laws requiring homeschoolers to at least notify officials of their intention to homeschool. Many states have laws stating exactly what subjects you must teach your children. (You should see the list of required subjects for North Dakota!) Looking at the table below, it is easy to see how much control has been taken away from the families. Twenty-seven of fifty-one states (includes the District of Columbia) require parents to submit either test scores or a professional evaluation of the student.

	Description	# of States
States with high regulation	Requires parents to send notification, achievement test scores and/or professional evaluation, plus other requirements (e.g. curriculum approval by the state, teacher qualification of parents, or home visits by state officials)	6
States with moderate regulation	Requires parents to send notification, test scores, and/or professional evaluation of student progress	21
States with low regulation	Requires parental notification only	14
States requiring no notice	No requirement for parents to initiate any contact	10

Contempt for Christianity

I think Stanford Nutting (a character from G.K. Chesterton: Apostle of Common Sense) says it best in his thoughts on Christmas: “We don’t use the “C” word in the Nutting household. Christmas we don’t say. It’s too judgmental. It’s too exclusive. We need to be inclusive. That’s why we need to exclude Christmas, and so we say, ‘Merry Kwanza-Rama-Hanukkah-dan.’” You should watch the whole thing. It is hilarious, and it gets the point across very clearly.

We are no longer “allowed” to say “Merry Christmas”, because it is too exclusive. But we can say “Happy Hanukkah” or “Happy Kwanza” or “Happy Ramadan”. The problem with this country is not its lack of tolerance of other religions, but its hypocrisy through persecution of Christianity. It is only the Christian religion that is not tolerated in America (and other countries around the world). And yet America claims to be an open-minded, welcoming, free society.

How much persecution have Christians and especially Catholics suffered in this past century alone? A show from EWTN penned it as the bloodiest century for Catholics. Here are some numbers to give you an idea:

* Approximately one million Catholics were martyred in the twentieth century.

* Millions of Catholics were killed in WWII. Many people hold the false idea that Catholics were not persecuted for their religion during the war, only Jews. This is a lie. In Poland alone, – a country specifically targeted by the Nazis – the same amount of Catholics (over three million) were killed in death camps as Jews (approximately three million).

* 108 Martyrs of WWII – The Nazis martyred 108 clergy, other religious and lay Catholics in Poland. Pope John Paul II recognized these people in 1999 for their sacrifice.

* Wikipedia has 46 articles about wars and other persecutions of Catholics in the 20th Century.

But the most important thing fact is that Catholic persecution has been going on since Jesus’ death. The fact that most people today feel (or even “learned”) that Catholics “started” the Crusades out of intolerance or that the Church is against science prove that the persecution is deeply ingrained in our culture. You cannot read an article or a book about the Crusades that does not blame the Church and throw pity on the Muslims. Or one about science that accuses the Church of suppressing discoveries.

The Crusades were not started by the Catholics in order to “wipe out” Islam. It was provoked by the Muslims and was an effort to take back the land that the Muslims already stole from them. For more information on this, you should watch The Catholic Church: Builder of Civilization on EWTN.

As far as the Catholic Church being against science, all I can do is laugh, and tell you that Catholic priests and monks have made thousands of significant scientific advances and discoveries over the last two thousand years. Copernicus was a priest and was the first one to come up with the heliocentric idea (and was not “punished”). Galileo was punished because he called the theory “a law of science” before it had been proven as such and continued to teach it in that manner. You can also find more information on this on the show The Catholic Church: Builder of Civilization on EWTN.

The only way we can change people’s minds and hearts is by example. Show them who Catholics really are and what they really believe. And by speaking out against atrocities when they happen.

Why Not Capitalism?

Chesterton wrote, “It may be incredible that one creed is the truth and the others are relatively false. At the same time, it is not only incredible, but intolerable, to believe that there is no truth in or out of the creeds, and all are equally false. For then nobody can ever set anything right, if everybody is equally wrong.”

Chesterton also said, “Too much capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists.” Neither capitalism nor socialism can ever create an ideal society, and actually, capitalism will eventually create socialism, because the government will need to put restraints on Big Business and will eventually feel that Big Government can do a better job itself. Think “national health care” which was just rammed down our throats without our consent. Dale Ahlquist, in his post “A Prophetic Look at National Health Care”, says, “When health care started becoming too expensive, the solution was supposed to be health insurance. But insurance quickly made health care even more expensive. On the one hand, the medical industry stopped worrying about being affordable; on the other, a new layer of private bureaucracy and overhead was added that also needed to be paid for.”

Hillaire Belloc once said that capitalism is a “Servile State” which is “a state of society in which certain fully free citizens can compel, by positive law, the other inhabitants of that society to produce wealth for them.” And Chesterton (in The Outline of Sanity) says capitalism is “the economic condition in which there is a class of capitalists roughly recognizable and relatively small, in whose possession so much of the capital is concentrated as to necessitate a very large majority of the citizens serving those capitalists for a wage.” He also states that what we call Capitalism ought to be called Proletarianism – the practice of workers, especially industrial wage earners, not possessing capital or property and selling their labor to survive. With capitalism, we are all just wage slaves. Businesses become so big that they control the market (e.g. Walmart), and we must work for them because they have swallowed up all the competition.

I will leave you with this Chesterton thought, “the point is not that some people have capital, but that most people only have wages because they do not have capital.”

Actual First Amendment Right

To those who believe that the First Ammendment, giving a separation of Church and State, means "the Church" (or any religion) should keep its "hands" out of government:

Actual First Amendment Right:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

This right refers to the government "keeping its hands" out of religion, NOT to religion keeping its hands out of government! Therefore, court houses/court rooms should be allowed to post the Ten Commandments, children should be allowed to pray and read/learn about the Bible in public schools, "In God We Trust" should be allowed to be written on American money, the word "God" should be allowed in the swearing in for court ("so help you God") and in the Pledge of Allegiance ("one nation under God"), and people should be able to enact moral laws according to a moral code which some would infer as religious.