Hostility

Some time ago I had promised to post about the vicious hostility occasionally displayed toward homeschoolers, generally by folks on the political left. I'm a progressive myself, but I've run into other progressives who suggest unschoolers will grow up to be mass murderers (scroll down to the purple text). Or I've had them say things like "Spare me your homeschooling propaganda!" when I'm merely mentioning that my daughter enjoys doing math problems. Most progressives do not respond this way, but the minority who have this reaction are positively rabid in their hatred of homeschoolers.

Of course, homeschooling isn't the number one all-time hot button issue for progressives. That would be vaccination. I was on a blog two nights ago and said that I had not vaccinated my children, and someone replied, and I quote:

You are a complete fool. You don't vaccinate your children? They should be taken away from you because you are an irresponsible moron.

I don't know why I let this upset me. I've been told I should have my children taken away from me before-- in fact, it happens every single fucking time I mention vaccination on a liberal political blog (pardon my language). People pile on the "Recommended!" votes for any comments suggesting you are an unfit parent, if you dare to admit that you thumbed your nose at modern medicine.

Another of these hot buttons would be mercury. Anyone who believes the mercury in vaccines, the air, and dental fillings may (just may) be harmful is stupider than dirt, in the opinion of the fascist progressive. It's a litmus test. If you express any reservation about having mercury placed in your mouth, for instance, that's it, you're incapable of scientific thought. Never mind if the World Health Organization concluded:

Human studies and experiments in laboratory animals indicate that dental amalgam contributes significantly to mercury body burden in humans who have amalgam fillings (IPCS, 1991; US DHHS, 1993; Weiner & Nylander, 1995; Health Canada, 1997).

Doesn't matter. The point is, doctors and dentists and the CDC know what is best for you, and you are to click your heels and say jawohl and hand over your kids and shut up about it.

I think the hostility toward parents who eschew mainstream schooling or mainstream medicine is all based on the same core issue: a certain group of progressives sees such decisions as a rejection of science. To them, it does not matter if I am homeschooling as a Christian evangelical fundamentalist, or as an atheist. It does not matter if I choose not to vaccinate because I'm a Christian scientist, or because I have examined the evidence and concluded it is not in my children's best interests. Either way, I have rejected science, because they get to decide what's rational. The American left increasingly views itself as the One True Party of Science.

This is also at the root of the undying stereotype that homeschoolers are primarily motivated by religion. It's not that they don't hear us when we say "Look, at least half of us are secular." It's that they throw us into the same boat with fundamentalists on the basis of our rejection of public schooling itself. They go right on implying that homeschoolers, in general, keep their kids home to teach them intelligent design instead of evolution. But you know what? Even if that were true, parents have every right to do that! Otherwise we would have to legislate 1) what constitutes truth, and 2) legal repercussions for telling your children anything but The Truth. I happen to believe dietary cholesterol is unrelated to heart disease. Does that qualify my family for a visit from Social Services?

Similarly, these vaccine fascists ought to realize that any number of things are more dangerous than not vaccinating even if I stipulated that their facts were entirely correct. Even then, it would be more dangerous to:

• not breastfeed
• smoke in the house
• let a 6-year-old sit in the front seat
• feed a kid McDonald's on a daily basis
  

Are we going to take those kids away too?

The irony is, this subset of progressives who are fascists are exactly like religious fundamentalists. Any disagreement with them is a rejection of science, just as to a fundamentalist, any disagreement with them is a rejection of God.

You're either with us or you're against us.