The article talks about how the power of the state is bounded by 1) traditional religion and 2) parental authority in the family.
Excerpt:
The second most powerful obstacle to the state and government assuming primary authority is parents.
It was no meaningless phrase when baby boomers on the left declared, “Never trust anyone over 30.” Who was over 30? First and foremost, their parents.
As with religion, the further left the state or ideology, the more it seeks to undermine parental authority. In the Soviet Union, Komsomol, the Soviet Youth League substituted for parents. Mao, too, did what he could to destroy the family’s authority. Although no way comparable to Stalin or Mao, the American and European left also seek to undermine parental authority.
The battle over parental notification in the case of abortion is primarily about parental authority.
The battle over sex education in schools is largely about that, too — who gets to teach youth about sexuality and homosexuality? Parents or schools (i.e., the state)?
The battle over school vouchers is in large measure also a battle over governmental authority versus parental authority. Who gets to choose where one’s child attends school — the state or the parent? The battle over who gets to actually educate our children has already been lost to the state in the vast majority of cases. It is why the left is so uncomfortable with home schooling — parents, not the state, get to teach children.
As the late James O. Freedman, former president of Dartmouth University, said in a commencement address in 2002, the purpose of a college education is “to question your father’s values.”
Just as the left has substituted the authority of the state for the authority of God, it has substituted the authority of the state for that of parents. And just as God has been reduced to a non-judging, non-disciplining pal, so, too, the left wants parents to become non-judging, non-disciplining pals of their children.
In a nutshell, the left wants to have ever-expanding authority over people’s lives through ever-expanding governmental powers. It does so because it regards itself as more enlightened than others. Others are either enemies (the right) or unenlightened masses. It is elected by demonizing its enemies and doling out money and jobs to the masses.
I find that the expanding intrusion of the secular state into the family (via the schools) is very frustrating. I am concerned that the state will turn my children against me using my tax dollars. And the worst part is that if my children reject Judeo-Christian values, then they would actually be hurting themselves, and imposing social costs (e.g. – health care costs, etc.), on the rest of society. I think it would hurt me a lot to take so much trouble to have and raise children and then to see them become immoral, self-destructive and ungrateful to their parents.
WINTERY KNIGHT 