Tuesday, December 18, 2007

homeschooler not for huckabee

No single group of homeschoolers speaks for all homeschoolers, and no single presidential candidate can be said to be the choice of even a majority of homeschoolers.

You may be asking why you should care, and I imagine most people here don't and likely shouldn't. Those readers are probably not aware of HSLDA or Mike Farris. HSLDA, Home School Legal Defense Association, is a group of fundamentalist lawyers that like to think they invented homeschooling and single handedly fought to make it legal. They are heroes to a number of families who homeschool for primarily religious reasons and have decided they like Huckabee.

Not that any of that matters until you find your family being spoken for by people who not only don't represent you but also don't really even have your best interests at heart. Because the fundy voice is loudest in the world of home education, it is often assumed that they are descriptive of us as a whole.

So should you happen to hear that homeschoolers support Huckabee, remember that not all of us do. The majority of homeschoolers I tend to associate with aren't even considering the republicans any more than to be scared that someone, somewhere is considering them.

I personally like Gravel and Kucinich. I won't give you the rant about them not getting the same share of air time as the other democrats and how that effects their fund raising. I won't rant about the whole rest of the democratic candidates combined don't have a tenth of the balls either of these two have.

I don't dislike Hillary, but her camp already trying to get the dirty game started doesn't help. The only way I could really vote for her would be not so secretly looking for Bill. I'm not sure about Obama. If he could prove that he could be as a good a president as he is a speaker then I'd vote for him. I liked Chris Dodd in whichever debate that I saw when he was actually allowed to talk, but when everyone keeps shoving past him to get to Hillary/Obama/Edwards, it's hard to hear him.

So, I don't support anyone right now. However Doc likes Hillary and even made a pretty button.

7 comments:

Crimson Wife said...

What I don't get about Kucinich is how he can be a vegan for ethical reasons but also support abortion. So it's okay to kill a human child out of convenience but not okay to kill an animal for food?

Someone who is truly against violence would have to be pro-Life. More babies die every single day in America as the result of abortion than U.S. combat deaths in the almost 5 years of the Iraq war.

samuel said...

Of course this argument requires the assumption that abortion equals killing babies. I'd say that our concern really needs to be with the babies already here. We already have plenty of children not being adequately cared for.

I also feel that any discussion of abortion needs to understand the various reasons a woman may seek to terminate a pregnancy. We should also discuss the lack of education/knowledge about their bodies that allows many young women to become pregnant. Let's also educate our young men about sex and respect for women and themselves. There are some good ways to lower the abortion rate.

And if you are going to state as fact that more abortions are performed daily than the total of US combat deaths then I'd expect some proof to back up that position. I don't much care for the comparison and feel that in discussing deaths as a result of the Iraq war must include all deaths, not just those of US soldiers and our allies. You have to count the ones we kill and accept that they were just as important as ours.

Anonymous said...

How funny- I posted my own rant about this situation this morning on my blog. I don't agree with the candidates you support, Doc, but I agree that the HSLDA is not representative of All HSers, even the Fundie ones, and I think we as HSers need to be careful about dividing amongst ourselves. We do have a common purpose and goal for our families that is similar enough that we don't need to tear each other's throats out.

Michele said...

I worry about Democrats because they usually seek bigger government regulation. Hillary would scare me a bit in this arena. Let me follow that up by saying that Republicans aren't much different.

When it comes to homeschooling, I really like Ron Paul. You may like him too. He's running on the Republican ticket, but he's more of a Libertarian.

Anonymous said...

He's a vegan.

Weirdo.

Scratch him off my list.

threelilmnms said...

Hi! I came to your site looking for a particular post in response to the TOS and homeschoolblogger boycott, but I haven't found it yet. I'll keep looking though. And along the way, I've been reading your posts and some of the comments. I agree with you that HSLDA does not represent all homeschoolers, but they have a great ministry in trying to protect our rights to educate our children at home. I'm thankful for that.

Have you personally seen an actual miscarried fetus or aborted fetus' and seen footage of an abortion or read legal transcripts of abortionists? I was raised in a pro-choice home and naturally believed what my mom did...for a time. When I left the home, I was accountable for the choices I made. I could go on and tell you of my personal account of having an unwanted pregnancy and deciding against abortion, but I won't. I've seen many miscarried fetus' (as a former ER nurse) and the pictures, ultrasounds, and video footage I've seen and read on abortion is horrific. Human life is precious - just look at your beautiful children.

http://www.heartofwisdom.com/PUREANDSENSIBLE/

samuel said...

Yeah, way to simplify the concept. The fact is that every woman is not you, and every pregnancy does not need to go full term. When you adopt all the unwanted children floating around in the system, then maybe you will have a valid point. Arguing that things aren't always pretty doesn't actually help your point at all.