"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Lord Acton

Controlling the Children

A few weeks ago I blogged about the California homeschooling ruling. (And Chris Banescu wrote about it in an Acton Commentary.) As you may have heard, the ruling was vacated so the threat has gone away, for now.

But in the meantime, Acton senior fellow Jennifer Morse offered some interesting thoughts on the matter at ToTheSource. Especially striking to me was this passage:”Perhaps this California homeschool dispute represents a larger conflict over the future of society. Whose children are these, anyway?” She goes on to cite the argument of a recent book, “that the competition for the control of children will only increase as children become more scarce.”

Remember that study two years ago showing conservatives having more children than liberals? Connect the dots. I feel a conspiracy theory brewing.

Campaigning for State Involvement in Education

I came across a troubling essay in this month’s issue of Grand Rapids Family Magazine. In her “Taking Notes” column, Associate Publisher/Editor Carole Valade takes up the question of “family values” in the context of the primary campaign season.

She writes,

The most important “traditional values” and “family values” amount to one thing: a great education for our children. Education is called “the great equalizer”: It is imperative for our children to be able to compete on a “global scale” for the jobs that fund their future and provide hopes and dreams for their generation.

So far, so good. But from the somewhat uncontroversial assertions in that paragraph, Valade moves on to make some incredibly unfounded conclusions. (I say “somewhat” uncontroversial because it’s not clear in what sense education is an “equalizer.” Do we all get the same grades? Do we all perform as well as everyone else?)

Valade simply assumes that an emphasis on “education” as a “family value” means that we ought to push for greater government involvement in education, in the form of funding and oversight. “Education funding should be the most discussed topic of the campaign; it should be the focus of budget discussions,” she writes.

Let’s be clear that the immediate context for these comments are the national primary elections. It’s thus fair to conclude that Valade is talking primarily about the role of the federal government. This is underscored by her claims that “Head Start and pre-school programs are not a ‘luxury’ in state of federal budgets; they are an absolute necessity.”

The problem with Valade’s perspective is that it equates concern for education with concern for political lobbying: “Who will ask for such priorities if not parents? Who will speak on behalf of our children’s well-being if not parents?”

It is the case that the great concern that so many parents have for their children’s education have led them to move them into private schools and even (gasp!) to home school them. There is no facile and simple connection between valuing education and valuing government involvement in education. Given the performance of public schools in general compared to charter schools and private schools, there is an argument to be made that greater government involvement in education weakens rather than strengthens our children’s education.

Placing a high priority on a child’s education leads some parents to want their kids to be instructed in the truths about God and his relation to his creation, and this is instruction that by definition is excluded from a government-run public education. So there’s at least as strong a case to be made that valuing education means that we should lobby for less government involvement rather than more, or at least not think of education as primarily a political issue but rather a familial and ecclesiastical responsibility.

“There are many things the government can’t do – many good purposes it must renounce,” said Lord Acton. “It must leave them to the enterprise of others.” One of those “good purposes” is an education centered on Christian moral formation.

See also: “Too Cool for School: Al Mohler says it’s time for Christians to abandon public schools.”

And: H-Net Review, Religion in Schools: Controversies around the World (Westport: Praeger, 2006).

A Child’s Faith

“People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.” (Mark 10:13-16 NIV)

“Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the LORD swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.” (Deuteronomy 11:18-21 NIV)

Let’s not leave it to the worldly culture to teach our children the fear of the Lord.

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’

He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: ‘I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

‘And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

‘Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!’” (Matthew 18:1-7 NIV)

Baxter on the Provision of Affluent Estates

Regarding John Armstrong’s insightful post yesterday, I want to pass along some related wisdom on the subject from Richard Baxter from his 1682 treatise, How to do Good to Many. Writing on the text of Galatians 6:10, he writes about the problem and responsibility of passing along wealthy estates to heirs:

III. The Text plainly intimateth that it is a great Crime in them, that instead of doing good while they have opportunity, think it enough to leave it by Will to their Executors to do it. When they have lived to the flesh, and cannot take it with them, they think it enough to leave others to do that good, which they had not a heart to do themselves: But a treasure must be laid up in heaven before-hand, and not be left to be sent after, Matth. 6. 20, 21. And he that will make friends of the Mammon of Unrighteousness, must now be rich towards God, Luk. 12. 21. It’s no victory over the World, to leave it when you cannot keep it: Nor will any Legacy purchase Heaven for an unholy worldly soul.

IV. Yet they that will do good neither Living nor Dying are worst of all. Surely the last Acts of our Lives, if possible, should be the best; And as we must live in health, so also in sickness, and to the last in doing all the good we can; and therefore it must needs be a great sin, to leave our Estates to those that are like to do hurt with them, or to do no good, so far as we are the free disposers of them.

The Case, I confess is not without considerable difficulties, how much a man is bound to leave to his Children, or his neerest Kindred, when some of them are disposed to live unprofitably, and some to live ungodly and hurtfully. Some think men are bound to leave them nothing, some think they ought to leave them almost all: And some think that they should leave them only so much as may find them tolerable food and raiment. I shall do my best to decide the case in several propositions. (more…)

Job Licensing and ‘The Children’

Do you ever walk into a business and see a license on the wall and wonder if that specific industry really needs to be licensed by the state? I know I have thought that, if just a few times. John Fund of the Wall Street Journal looks at how licensing laws hinders low prices and competition in the marketplace. In a piece titled, License to Kill Jobs, Fund also explains how over regulation has stymied job growth and the ability of new entrepreneurs to become more self reliant.

Fund also notes in his column:

In the 1950s, only about 4.5% of jobs required a license to work. Today, that proportion is more than 20%. Many of the jobs that require a government stamp of approval don’t involve health or safety. Depending on the state, you need a license to be a hair braider, florist, auctioneer, interior designer or even fortune-teller.

The cost of the education for the license also hurts those who may have the necessary skills but can’t afford to meet all the requirements. Furthermore, sometimes the licensing requirements have little to do with the relevancy of the actual work performed. Another aspect Fund looks at is the arbitrary nature and requirements from state licensing, compiled by a major study by the Reason Foundation. California requires 177 specific business types to be licensed, while Missouri requires only 41. The “Live Free or Die” state of New Hampshire, requires a walloping 130 licenses for specific businesses types.

Another interesting point Fund makes is the licensing requirements hurt the very consumers it’s meant to protect. Fund notes just a few of the facts from the Reason Foundation study:

The higher prices such licensing bodies impose for services can also hurt consumers by creating incentives to do dangerous jobs themselves. “Electrocution rates are higher in states with strict electrical licensing requirements, as more consumers risk performing their own electrical work,” the study notes. “Similarly, states with stricter dental licensing laws also have the highest incidence of poor dental hygiene.”

In the Wall Street Journal piece, the author also declares how in some instances the courts have stepped in and found some of the licensing requirements completely unnecessary, and additionally acts as a regulatory infringement on the right to earn a living. Fund also declares, “Some courts are even citing the 14th Amendment’s due process and equal protection clauses in striking down protectionist government regulations.”

Which makes one wonder all the more: Are the over-zealous requirements and so called need for licensing helping the consumer or just perpetuating higher prices, and lack of competition, which can result in inferior products and service? Obviously licensing in some classes of business are needed. But does everybody, in say an interior design or the florist industry need to be licensed? There are large and powerful lobbying groups able to protect and strengthen certain businesses from more competition, but in some cases little help for newcomers trying to break into the market. In addition, we often overlook just how much the market can regulate itself.

It all reminds me a little bit about the stories you see in the news print and media about young children getting their lemonade stands shut down by bureaucratic governmental standards . Concerning the crackdown on lemonade stands, where are the “It’s For The Children” speeches when they are actually needed?