Judge Orders Successful Homeschooler into Inferior Public School

In North Carolina case #08CVD17753, Judge Ned Mangum has ordered that a mother stop homeschooling her children at the end of this year and enroll them in public school.  World Net Daily reports:

A statement released by a publicist working for the mother, whose children now are 10, 11 and 12, said Mangum stripped her of her right to decide what is best for her children's education.

The judge, when contacted by WND, explained his goal in ordering the children to register and attend a public school was to make sure they have a "more well-rounded education."

"I thought Ms. Mills had done a good job [in homeschooling]," he said.  "It was great for them to have that access, and [I had] no problems with homeschooling.  I said public schooling would be a good complement."

US law states that a judge cannot remove parental rights without a "compelling interest" in rectifying some harm.  In saying that he had no problem with homeschooling and that the mother had done a good job, the judge stated quite plainly that no harm is being done.  That being the case, he has no authority to override her decisions about how best to educate her children - but he did so anyway.

We've seen this sort of blatant judicial disregard for parental rights before.  Chronicles of the 20th Century, 1987 edition, Chronicle Publications, Mt. Kisco, NY p 427, gave an account of an earlier court decision which stripped a family of parental rights on pretty much the same pretext:

Nazis take children away from parents

Nov. 29, 1937 In Waldenberg, Germany, a court has taken children away from their parents because they refused to teach them Nazi ideology.  The parents are pacifists, members of a Christian sect called International Bible Researchers.  The court accused them of creating an environment where the children would grow up "enemies of the state."  The children were delivered into the state's care.

The judge delivered a lengthy statement reading in part, "The law as a racial and national instrument entrusts German parents with the education of their children only under certain conditions, namely, that they educate them in the fashion that the nation and state expect."

It shouldn't surprise you to know that Mrs. Mills is a devout Christian.  Homeschool Injustice quoted the judge as saying:

"This is not about religion."  But public school will "challenge the ideas you've taught them."

The judge knows that public school is far less effective than the homeschooling program used by Mrs. Mills.  Her children tested several grades ahead of where they'd be put in public school when given nationally standardized tests.  Clearly, the problem wasn't that the children needed to be "challenged" intellectually; more likely, they'd be bored to tears as their classmates struggle with Dr. Seuss while they'd been devouring St. Augustine.

No, the judge was well aware that the public school would "challenge" what the mother had taught her children in every other way - specifically, morally.  For sure, public school endorsement of wanton sex, homosexuality, drug culture, and moral relativism would be a "challenge" to any parent's children, but you'd think it wouldn't be a challenge any responsible parent or judge would endorse.  Is Judge Magnum saying that he wants the children brought up as he expects or is he trying to bring more business into his courtroom, in handling future juvenile delinquents?

Not Just A State Problem

Unfortunately, this cavalier attitude toward parental rights is found at higher and higher levels of the federal government.  In addition to nominating crooks and cheats, we also see the Obama administration appointing anti-family people like David Ogden for deputy attorney general, the second-highest position in the US Department of Justice.

Mr. Ogden has gone on record as saying that the rules found in the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child are already binding on the United States under the doctrines of international law, despite the fact that no President has even felt the treaty worth submitting to the US Senate for ratification, as required by the Constitution for a treaty to have any effect.  This treaty enshrines the bogus "best interest of the child" principle by which Judge Magnum overrode the mother's right to determine her child's education and would permit the government to override essentially every parental decision about their child's upbringing from bedtimes to chore assignments to finishing their spinach at dinnertime.

Has government shown such all-encompassing competence that now it is more qualified to raise a child than that child's own parents?  Yet this is what modern international "law", this UN treaty, and American elites seem to demand.

Mr. Ogden's view is hardly different from Judge Magnum's as he denied a mother's right to homeschool because he wanted the views she'd taught her children "challenged."  His views seem similar to the 1939 Nazi judge's on removing children because the parents refused to "educate them in the fashion that the nation and state expect."

It's clear that our government believes that all the money you earn belongs to them and that whatever they let you keep counts as them spending money on you.  Our government is now deciding that all children belong to the government and that they have the right to make arbitrary decisions concerning how your children are raised.

Fortunately, this state of affairs can't go on forever.  As we've pointed out, our education system is failing so badly that we could lose our technology and be forced back to muscle-powered agriculture.  At that point, half our population will starve, most likely starting with nonproductive bureaucrats.

Homeschooling teaches children far more effectively than the public schools; by preventing these children from learning anything much, the judge is bringing us closer to the day when our society collapses.

Parents will regain their traditional authority when the society collapses because kids will have to obey their parents or starve to death.  Is this a price we want to pay?