Compulsory Nation

The United States Constitution begins with a short preamble setting forth the legitimate purposes for our new government, to wit: “… establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

Government is necessary therefore only to preserve and protect the rights of the people – not to compel the people to act against their rights. Sadly, however, over the last 240 years, our government has slowly become less inclined to preserve and protect our rights and more inclined to compel us to act against them. The United States of America has become a compulsory nation.

Nowhere is this fact more evident than in the case of compulsory education. Our government has no legitimate powers or authority under the Constitution to compel parents and children during their entire formative years to participate in educational indoctrination programs. We know that if the government can compel this kind of scheme on children, it can do the same with adults.

It’s unconstitutional; because it plainly violates our First Amendment right to freedom of expression and association. It plainly violates our Fifth Amendment right to liberty. Education, just like religion, is a wholly private and personal aspect of our lives which should be entirely free from government intrusion, interference and coercion.

We have a constitutional right to decide for ourselves and our minor children matters of religion and education. It might be widely considered unwise, for example, when some parents, for religious reasons or otherwise,  believe that their children should not go to school for a formal education during their formative years; should instead grow up on the farm learning from nature and common sense. Unwise, perhaps, but that is their constitutional right.

The lack of a formal institutionalized education might be considered by you and I as a disadvantage to such children, but if so, it is one which can easily be rectified and overcome later in life when the individual is free to pursue whatever learning he or she desires. That is liberty. That is freedom.

Meanwhile, compulsory education routinely leads to egregious outrages like this:

A public school substitute teacher in the Carlisle Area Pennsylvania School District took it upon herself to badger, berate and reprimand an innocent student in front of the whole class for exercising his First Amendment right to remain seated in his classroom during the pledge of allegiance.

“And if you don’t stand up, you’d better have a good reason why,” barked the teacher. When the student declined to answer this nasty rebuke, she continued: “Well OK, then maybe you would just like to leave the country.”

In this instance the teacher was dismissed for her outrageous conduct, but many innocent American children are being coerced daily in their public school classrooms to recite the pledge and conform otherwise to the compulsory government education agenda in violation of their First and Fifth Amendment rights. This is the kind of government excesses we get when education is compulsory.

Today Americans are compelled by our government to be educated; compelled to file a detailed annual report to our government pertaining to our private finances; we’re even compelled by our government to purchase health insurance.

America has become a compulsory nation.