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The “Solution” to Flag-Burning is Simpler Than a Constitutional Amendment

June 20, 2019June 20, 2019 Thomas L. Knapp

On June 14 — “Flag Day” in the United States — US Senator Steve Daines (R-MT) and US Representative Steve Womack (R-AR) proposed a constitutional amendment: “The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.” President Donald Trump promptly indicated his support for the amendment via Twitter, calling it a “no-brainer.”

The amendment isn’t likely to get approval by 2/3 of both houses of Congress and ratification by the legislatures of at least 38 states, to become part of the US Constitution.

Nor is that its proponents’ goal. It’s just another perennial election tactic, pulled out in every Congress since the Supreme Court noticed that flag-burning is protected by the First Amendment, that Republicans hope will gain them a few points in close races by allowing them to caricature their Democratic opponents as “unpatriotic.”

One downside of the tactic is that it exposes those who use or support it as authoritarians. Which, admittedly, doesn’t hurt Republican candidates very much since most of them work overtime to expose themselves as such anyway.

Another downside of the tactic is that it allows authoritarian Democrats to use flag-burning as a proxy for civil liberties generally so that they can pretend they support freedom.

If flag-burning is really a “problem,” it’s a problem with a simple solution:

If you don’t want to burn a flag, don’t buy a flag, soak it in kerosene, and set it on fire.

If you do want to burn a flag, don’t steal someone else’s flag, and don’t burn a flag on the private property of someone who objects, or in a way that creates a danger to others (in a dry forest, for example).

Either way, don’t try to tell people what they may or may not do with pieces of cloth they rightfully own.

Wow, see how easy that was?

Yes, I understand that many Americans care deeply about the flag. I get it. I served under it in the Marine Corps. My grandfather’s coffin was draped in the 48-star version of it in honor of his service in World War 2.

The flag is an inspiring symbol for millions. Those millions are fully entitled to their heartfelt emotions over it and to express those motions by standing in its presence, singing songs that praise it, and so forth.

For others, it symbolizes various evils to which they object. And those others are likewise entitled to voice their objections in any peaceful manner they choose, including burning it.

It’s a piece of cloth. Anything beyond that is something you bring to it, not an intrinsic quality of the flag itself. Feel free to express your convictions through the flag. And tolerate others who do likewise.

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Pork is Not the Problem

June 14, 2019June 14, 2019 Thomas L. Knapp

It’s that time of year: Citizens Against Government Waste just released its annual “Pig Book,” a compendium and analysis of pork barrel spending, aka earmarks, by the US Congress in 2019.

Summary: Congressional appropriations for 2019 include 282 earmarks, up from 232 last year. The cost comes to $15.3 billion, up from $14.7 billion.

That sounds like a lot of money, and it is. But not nearly as much as one might think, in the scheme of things.

The federal government plans to spend more than $4.5 trillion in 2019. Those earmarks constitute a whopping one third of one percent of that total.

Critics of earmarks point out, correctly, that they’re used by members of Congress to direct federal spending to their own districts, not always with much “public good” justification (cue complaints about $500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum, $7.5 million for golf education, etc.)

True, all of it — but it’s baked into any political process. Whether formal earmarks exist or not, politicians will support bills that spend money in their districts, oppose bills that don’t, shill for their favored projects, and make deals to bring home the bacon.

And, it should be mentioned, earmarks do not directly increase total spending. They simply require that if Congress appropriates $10 billion for Purpose X, $1 million of that $10 billion be spent on Project Y.

The problem in that hypothetical isn’t the $1 million earmark, it’s the $10 billion appropriation.

The problem with the real numbers isn’t $15 billion in earmarks, it’s $4.5 trillion in federal spending.

If Congress has $9 million to spend on a fruit fly quarantine program and $3 million to blow on bad loans to ship buyers (among 2019 earmarks), Congress has too much money to spend on, respectively, Agriculture and THUD (Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development).

Congress DOES have too much money — money it takes from all of us via various tax schemes, and money it borrows in our names on the promise to bond-holders that it will beat us out of it, with interest, later.

Earmarks could be part of the answer to that problem.

If Congress specified in greater detail where and how EVERY dollar of EVERY appropriation must be spent, instead of just handing the dough over the executive branch under broad categories, we’d have a much better idea of where it was going — and be better prepared to protest, and bring pressure to bear against, wasteful spending.

It would also clarify “separation of powers” violations, such as President Donald Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional “emergency” misappropriation of Treasury and Defense Department funds for his pet “border wall” project, making it easier to rein in presidential misbehavior.

Silly earmarks are fun to point out, but concern over them comes at the expense of addressing the bigger problem: The spending is too damn high.

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If the University of Alabama Doesn’t Need Hugh Culverhouse, Jr.’s Money, it Doesn’t Need Yours

June 10, 2019June 10, 2019 Thomas L. Knapp

Last year, Florida attorney and philanthropist Hugh Culverhouse, Jr. donated $26.5 million to the University of Alabama. The university, grateful for its largest private contribution ever, reciprocated by naming its law school after him. Hugh and UA, sittin’ in a tree …

On June 7, the UA’s board of trustees voted to return his donation (and presumably rename the school). Love-hate relationship, I guess.

Why? They claim it’s over an argument as to how they spend the money, but he says they’re lying and the reason he offers is a lot more believable given the timing.

His discussions with the school over the uses his donation are put to are ongoing. But last week, he said something they didn’t like. Specifically, he publicly urged students to boycott the school in protest of Alabama’s new abortion law.

Agree with him or not — on abortion, on the specific law, or on how students should respond to that law — Hugh Culverhouse, Jr. is a private citizen with a right to say anything he pleases.

Agree with the board of trustees or not on what Hugh Culverhouse, Jr. should say, the University of Alabama is a “public” institution that expects taxpayers nationwide to pick up a substantial portion of its operating costs.

The university’s financial report for 2017-18 notes nearly $45 million in federal grants and contracts and another $213 million in student loans funded by the US Department of Education through the Federal Direct Student Loan Program.

Check your voicemail. Any calls from the board of trustees asking whether it’s OK for them to keep taking your money while refusing Hugh Culverhouse, Jr.’s? I didn’t think so.

If you call up the university and start trying to tell them how to spend your money, or put out a press release urging students to cheer for Tennessee at the next Crimson Tide – Volunteers game, do you think they’ll send you a refund check? Feel free to try it and see what happens, but don’t hold your breath.

If the University of Alabama is so flush that it doesn’t need Hugh Culverhouse, Jr.’s money, they’re getting way too much of yours.

A federally funded university which turns down a private donation over the donor’s constitutionally protected speech should have the full amount of that donation subtracted from its federal funding for the following year.

And by the way, remember to cheer for Tennessee at the next Crimson Tide – Volunteers game.

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100 Reasons to Homeschool Your Kids

June 6, 2019June 6, 2019 Kerry McDonald

This is my 100th article for FEE.org, so here are 100 reasons to homeschool your kids!

Homeschoolers perform well academically.
Your kids may be happier.
Issues like ADHD might disappear or become less problematic.
It doesn’t matter if they fidget.
YOU may be happier! All that time spent on your kids’ homework can now be used more productively for family learning and living.
You can still work and homeschool.
And even grow a successful business while homeschooling your kids.
Your kids can also build successful businesses, as many grown unschoolers become entrepreneurs.
You can be a single parent and homeschool your kids.
Your kids can be little for longer. Early school enrollment has been linked by Harvard researchers with troubling rates of ADHD diagnosis. A year can make a big difference in early childhood development.
Some of us are just late bloomers. We don’t all need to be on “America’s early-blooming conveyor belt.”
Then again, homeschooling can help those kids who might be early bloomers and graduate from college at 16.
Whether early, late, or somewhere in the middle, homeschooling allows all children to move at their own pace.
You can choose from a panoply of curriculum options based on your children’s needs and your family’s educational philosophy.
Or you can focus on unschooling, a self-directed education approach tied to a child’s interests.
Homeschooling gives your kids plenty of time to play! In a culture where childhood free play is disappearing, preserving play is crucial to a child’s health and well-being.
They can have more recess and less homework.
You can take advantage of weekly homeschool park days, field trips, classes, and other gatherings offered through a homeschooling group near you.
Homeschooling co-ops are growing, so you can find support and resources.
Homeschooling learning centers are sprouting worldwide, prioritizing self-directed education and allowing more flexibility to more families who want to homeschool.
Parks, beaches, libraries, and museums are often less crowded during school hours, and many offer programming specifically for homeschoolers.
You’re not alone. Nearly two million US children are homeschooled, and the homeschooling population is increasingly reflective of America’s diversity. In fact, the number of black homeschoolers doubled between 2007 and 2011.
One-quarter of today’s homeschoolers are Hispanic-Americans who want to preserve bilingualism and family culture.
Some families of color are choosing homeschooling to escape what they see as poor academic outcomes in schools, a curriculum that ignores their cultural heritage, institutional racism, and disciplinary approaches that disproportionately target children of color.
More military families are choosing homeschooling to provide stability and consistency through frequent relocations and deployments.
While the majority of homeschoolers are Christians, many Muslim families are choosing to homeschool, as are atheists.
Homeschooling has wide bipartisan appeal.
More urban parents are choosing to homeschool, prioritizing family and individualized learning.
Religious freedom may be important to many homeschooling families, but it is not the primary reason they choose to homeschool. “Concern about the school environment, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure” is the top motivator according to federal data.
Fear of school shootings and widespread bullying are other concerns that are prompting more families to consider the homeschooling option.
Some parents choose homeschooling because they are frustrated by Common Core curriculum frameworks and frequent testing in public schools.
Adolescent anxiety, depression, and suicide decline during the summer, but Vanderbilt University researchers found that suicidal tendencies spike at back-to-school time. (This is a pattern opposite to that of adults, who experience more suicidal thoughts and acts in the summertime.) Homeschooling your kids may reduce these school-induced mental health issues.
It will also prevent schools from surreptitiously collecting and tracking data on your child’s mental health.
Your kids’ summertime can be fully self-directed, as can the rest of their year.
That’s because kids thrive under self-directed education.
Some kids are asking to be homeschooled.
And they may even thank you for it.
Today’s teens aren’t working in part-time or summer jobs like they used to. Homeschooling can offer time for valuable teen work experience.
It can also provide the opportunity to cultivate teen entrepreneurial skills.
Your kids don’t have to wait for adulthood to pursue their passions.
By forming authentic connections with community members, homeschoolers can take advantage of teen apprenticeship programs.
Some apprenticeship programs have a great track record on helping homeschoolers build important career skills and get great jobs.
Self-directed learning centers for teen homeschoolers can provide a launchpad for community college classes and jobs while offering peer connection and adult mentoring.
With homeschooling, you can inspire your kids to love reading.
Maybe that’s because they will actually read books, something one-quarter of Americans reported not doing in 2014.
Your kids might even choose to voluntarily read financial statements or do worksheets.
You can preserve their natural childhood creativity.
Schools kill creativity, as Sir Ken Robinson proclaims in his TED Talk, the most-watched one ever.
Homeschooling might even help your kids use their creativity in remarkable ways, as other well-known homeschoolers have done.
With homeschooling, learning happens all the time, all year round. There are no arbitrary starts and stops.
You can take vacations at any time of the year without needing permission from the principal.
Or you can go world-schooling, spending extended periods of time traveling the world together as a family or letting your teens travel the world without you.
Your kids can have healthier lunches than they would at school.
And you can actually enjoy lunch with them rather than being banned from the school cafeteria.
Your kids don’t have to walk through metal detectors, past armed police officers, and into locked classrooms in order to learn.
You can avoid bathroom wars and let your kids go to the bathroom wherever and whenever they want—without raising their hand to ask for permission.
Research shows that teen homeschoolers get more sleep than their schooled peers.
Technological innovations make self-education through homeschooling not only possible but also preferable.
Free, online learning programs like Khan Academy, Duolingo, Scratch, Prodigy Math, and MIT OpenCourseWare complement learning in an array of topics, while others, like Lynda.com and Mango, may be available for free through your local public library.
Schooling was for the Industrial Age, but unschooling is for the future.
With robots doing more of our work, we need to rely more on our distinctly human qualities, like curiosity and ingenuity, to thrive in the Innovation Era.
Homeschooling could be the “smartest way to teach kids in the 21st century,” according to Business Insider.
Teen homeschoolers can enroll in an online high school program to earn a high school diploma if they choose.
But young people don’t need a high school diploma in order to go to college.
Many teen homeschoolers take community college classes and transfer into four-year universities with significant credits and cost-savings. Research suggests that community college transfers also do better than their non-transfer peers.
Homeschooling may be the new path to Harvard.
Many colleges openly recruit and welcome homeschoolers because they tend to be “innovative thinkers.”
But college doesn’t need to be the only pathway to a meaningful adult life and livelihood. Many lucrative jobs don’t require a college degree, and companies like Google and Apple have dropped their degree requirements.
In fact, more homeschooling families from the tech community in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are choosing to homeschool their kids.
Hybrid homeschooling models are popping up everywhere, allowing more families access to this educational option.
Some of these hybrid homeschool programs are public charter schools that are free to attend and actually give families access to funds for homeschooling.
Other education choice mechanisms, like Education Savings Accounts (ESAs) and tax-credit scholarship programs, are expanding to include homeschoolers, offering financial assistance to those families who need and want it.
Some states allow homeschoolers to fully participate in their local school sports teams and extracurricular activities.
Homeschooling may be particularly helpful for children with disabilities, like dyslexia, as the personalized learning model allows for more flexibility and customization.
Homeschooling is growing in popularity worldwide, especially in India, Australia, the United Kingdom, Israel, and even in China, where it’s illegal.
Homeschooling grants children remarkable freedom and autonomy, particularly self-directed approaches like unschooling, but it’s definitely not the Lord of the Flies.
Homeschooling allows for much more authentic, purposeful learning tied to interests and everyday interactions in the community rather than contrived assignments at school.
Throughout the American colonial and revolutionary eras, homeschooling was the norm, educating leaders like George Washington and Abigail Adams.
In fact, many famous people were homeschooled.
And many famous people homeschool their own kids.
Your homeschooled kids will probably be able to name at least one right protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, something 37 percent of adults who participated in a recent University of Pennsylvania survey couldn’t do.
Homeschooling can be preferable to school because it’s a totally different learning environment. As homeschooling pioneer John Holt wrote in Teach Your Own: “What is most important and valuable about the home as a base for children’s growth in the world is not that it is a better school than the schools but that it isn’t a school at all.”
Immersed in their larger community and engaged in genuine, multi-generational activities, homeschoolers tend to be better socialized than their schooled peers. Newer studies suggest the same.
Homeschoolers interact daily with an assortment of people in their community in pursuit of common interests, not in an age-segregated classroom with a handful of teachers.
Research suggests that homeschoolers are more politically tolerant than others.
They can dig deeper into emerging passions, becoming highly proficient.
They also have the freedom to quit.
They can spend abundant time outside and in nature.
Homeschooling can create strong sibling relationships and tight family bonds.
Homeschooling is legal in all 50 US states and has been since 1993, but regulations vary widely by state.
In spite of ongoing efforts to regulate homeschoolers, US homeschooling is becoming less regulated.
That’s because homeschooling parents are powerful defenders of education freedom.
Parents can focus family learning around their own values, not someone else’s.
Homeschooling is one way to get around regressive compulsory schooling laws and put parents back in charge of their child’s education.
It can free children from coercive, test-driven schooling.
It is one education option among many to consider as more parents opt-out of mass schooling.
Homeschooling is the ultimate school choice.
It is inspiring education entrepreneurship to disrupt the schooling status quo.
And it’s encouraging frustrated educators to leave the classroom and launch their own alternatives to school.
Homeschooling is all about having the liberty to learn.

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The First Amendment Protects Ex-Politicians Too

June 3, 2019June 3, 2019 Thomas L. Knapp

Most Americans loathe “lobbyists,” and most Americans think “bi-partisanship” sounds like a good, moderate idea representing compromise and common ground for the public good. So a surprise “bi-partisan alliance” between US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), with the proclaimed goal of passing a bill to ban politicians from working as “lobbyists” — maybe for life, maybe just for some long period — after leaving Congress was bound to get some good press.

It’s a bad idea. It’s an unconstitutional idea. And it’s yet more evidence that “bi-partisanship” is almost always less about the common good than about the one value that America’s two largest political parties share: The desire to have the heavy hand of government make everyone else do things their way.

What’s a “lobbyist?” Someone who “lobbies.” That is, someone who attempts to influence public policy.

If you call your district’s US Representative or your state’s US Senator to ask for a yes or no vote on a bill, you’re lobbying that official.

If you write a letter to the editor hoping to bring public pressure on government officials on an issue you care about, that’s lobbying too.

Suppose you make a sign with a slogan on it and join a crowd in front of a public building to have that sign read by the media and, hopefully, by politicians with the power to act on it? Yep, lobbying.

It’s lobbying if you do it on your own. It’s lobbying if you do it as an activist with a grassroots group. And it’s lobbying if you’re paid to do it by a corporation, a theoretically “independent” policy institute, or a foreign government.

What’s the problem with banning former members of Congress from “lobbying?” Try this on for size:

“Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

That’s most of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. It clearly protects your phone calls, your letters to the editor, and your public protest outings in one fell swoop. It includes no exceptions for former members of Congress, or for people who are paid to speak, write, or protest.

Yes, powerful entities with lots of money like to hire former members of Congress to lobby on their behalf.

Yes, there’s a “revolving door” between Congress, the federal bureaucracy, and those lobbying jobs that lends itself to corruption and sweetheart dealing.

Yes, that’s a problem.

No, a ban on those practices isn’t the solution. It’s unconstitutional, it won’t solve the problem, and a threat to the rights of one American — even a former member of Congress — is a threat to the rights of all Americans.

The only practical, constitutional, and moral way to reduce the influence of powerful lobbies over Congress is to give Congress less power over the things those lobbies care about — a prospect sure to elicit “bi-partisan” horror among politicians.

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America Proved Minarchism is a Myth

May 31, 2019 Alex R. Knight III

It is beyond any measure of denial to assert that the American experiment in “limited government” – “constitutional” or otherwise – has proven itself an abject failure. The US government is the largest, most expensive, and most powerful cabal on the planet. And it shows no signs of reversing course.

But for the true believers in minarchism, it gets even worse. Consider the original idea behind the “United States”: A loosely confederated group of smaller sovereign governmental entities – all more or less modelled after the overarching federal one, each with a constitution and bill of rights. There are currently 50 of them, in addition to the special federal District of Columbia. Plus two overseas commonwealths, and three semi-autonomous territories.

Notwithstanding a few uninhabited islands and sandbars dotting the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean that the US federal government lays claim to, that equals not just one, but 57 separate experiments in “limited government.” We could also include all various municipalities contained therein too – counties, cities, towns – and then we’d be talking “limited” governmental experiments almost beyond number.

In zero of these cases have governments remained constrained by the pieces of paper ostensibly designed to do so. This is not to say that residing within one of the more egregious cases – such as Commiefornia, New York, or Marxachusetts – is entirely equivalent to living in South Dakota, Alaska, or Wyoming. Only that none of them have refrained from or been immune to their endemic nature: Growth. They have each of them expanded in scope and power over time – and continue to do so. Never contracting or downsizing. And ever at the expense of the individual.

You might, as a dedicated government apologist, try to excuse one, or two, or even half a dozen such failures as unfortunate anomalies plagued by corrupt politicians and judges. Maybe. If you wanted to be charitable. If you were stretching to clutch at straws in a desperate defense of the idea known as political governance.

But 57? Or the countless thousands and thousands of lesser subdivisions within those examples?

If the greater federal historical example of America does not dispel the minarchist “limited government” myth for the fantasy that it is, then all of the smaller examples under its very own rubric surely do.

“Small government” has never worked out. And it never will.

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