Via Pat Hines, Think Progress:

The group and its origins sound innocuous enough. But the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) — a right-wing group founded 36 years ago — has deepened connections between America’s religious right and Russians even as the latter have been sanctioned by the United States, according to a ThinkProgress investigation.

By networking with Russians, the HSLDA — now America’s largest right-wing homeschooling association — has provided the Kremlin with a new avenue of influence over some of the most conservative organizations in the United States.

[ … ]

But at the same time that details — and criticism — of these links between Russia and American right-wing groups were emerging, the HSLDA co-sponsored a formal homeschooling conference in Moscow and St. Petersburg, ThinkProgress found. One of the conference’s other sponsors was a foundation run by sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeev. The event featured some of the most outspoken anti-LGBTQ officials in Russia, and included a Russian official who’s currently sanctioned by the U.S. for her role in stoking Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

It’s almost impossible to know where to begin, but I’ll attempt to offer up a few points.

Home schooling has been around for as long as America has been around, and even when the head master of a local school taught children, or supervised those who did, the teacher was always functioning in loco parentis.  This is so basic, so fundamental, so axiomatic, that is makes no sense to debate with someone who doesn’t know or understand that.

In the wake of Horace Mann and John Dewey, even if parents didn’t understand what they were doing, the state assumed ownership of children and what they are taught.  Communism is founded in and based on the assumption of state ownership of mankind.  The writer has it exactly backwards.  Horace Mann brought communism to American education, not Russia, or home schooling, or anything else.

The father of the modern American home schooling movement is Rousas J. Rushdoony.  Period.  End of discussion.  There is no debate about that.  It is axiomatic, and if someone doesn’t understand that, he is too stolid and ignorant to debate.  Debating someone over American history who knows nothing about American history is a waste of time.  For a discussion of the Christian basis for Rushdoony’s advocacy for home schooling, read his many works, all of them scholarly.

I know absolutely nothing about connections between anyone who was born in Russia, or calls themselves by a Russian surname, and any American home schooling association.  I find such a connection dubious to say the least.  At any rate, suffice it to say that the fundamentals behind what is being taught in American home schools and communism is diametrically opposed at every step.  Every one.

The only divide I currently find in the American home schooling movement is between the classic home schoolers – who still appear to hold sway, albeit waning – and the much more libertarian.  The former want to see state acceptance of the curricula, attendance, activities, etc., and are willing to allow state representatives to visit unannounced to verify records.  The later aren’t so willing and see neither need nor right to do that.

The American home schooling movement isn’t the monolith that this writer seems to imagine.  It is basically bifurcated between states, with each state having multiple home schooling associations, and with some home schoolers not a member of any particular association at all.

As for Russia, inasmuch as they are still communists, I opposed them at every turn.  Regardless of who catalyzed the war in the Ukraine, the Ukrainians don’t appear to want to be part of Russia, and I believe they have as much right not to be a part of that country as the American South does not to be a part of the U.S.  To the extent that they oppose gun rights, and they still appear to strongly oppose them, I consider them to be of the same ilk as the horrible controllers in America.

Not coincidentally, the author of this idiotic article is likely a controller and opposes God-given rights, which makes him more a supporter of communism and Russia that I could ever be.  Communists are the same the world over.  There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them.

But something strange happens later in the article that I quoted above.  The author says, “The event featured some of the most outspoken anti-LGBTQ officials in Russia.”  So is that what this is all about?  The author is finding a connection between something bad in Russia and something he considers to be bad in America, namely “anti-LGBTQ?”

Because one of the core fundamentals of the home schooling movement is that the state doesn’t have the right to deliver moral absolutes to children.  Only parents have that sole domain.  And I’m willing to bet that we’ve put our finger on the root of the issue with the author.

This isn’t about Russia, or American home schooling, or any ridiculous connection between them.  This is about who has the domain of moral instruction for children.

Read it again and tell me I’m wrong.

Prior: Home Schooling Fight In Massachusetts