staying home from school

I imagine you have heard the "controversy" about President Obama giving a speech to the nation's school kids, a speech about "controversial" things like staying in school and trying your best. Conservative pundits called for people to keep their kids at home, rather than have them subjected to this "propoganda".

And in the more liberal media, that idea has been (probably correctly) scoffed at - one commentator I heard said "this is the kind of craziness that leads to things like homeschooling!".

Oh.

I know there are always folks who think homeschooling is crazy, and I know homeschooling is associated with conservative Christianity. However, there are people all along the political and faith spectrums of our society who choose to homeschool, for a lot of different reasons. And, personally I don't think it is totally crazy to want to have more say in what your children are taught.

None of these personal life choices are really consistently and purely political. A few years back it was the conservative position that government could do whatever it wanted - like wiretap your phone without a warrant and keep tabs on what books you checked out from the library. And then liberals were all about liberty and "this is not My government". Now we are seeing the flip side of that, and now those conservatives are worried that the government is too intrusive in their lives.

As usual, I'm just not very good at black and white thinking or at following the crowd - even when it is mostly my crowd. Olberman and Maddow - I love you guys, but I also homeschool. And I don't think that is a crazy thing to do.