Yes, it is. The state has a legitimate and obvious interest in ensuring that its citizenry be well-educated. Thomas Jefferson was an early and effective advocate of the proposition.
.... the same state that once taught through segregation that blacks were inferior, the same state that today teaches children how to put condoms on bananas, the state may NOT legitimately direct the education of children against the wishes of their parents or judge the direction by parents of their children's education.
You're trying to change the subject, I see. One can certainly object to the examples you cite, without having to surrender the main point, which is that the state has a definite and legitimate interest in ensuring an educated populace.
Don't care much for the musings of Thomas Jefferson, a man who cut up the Bible and put it back together according to his own prejudices and biases.
And wrote the Declaration of Independence, and was a driving force behind the Bill of Rights, and so on. Really ... you seem bound and determined to throw out the baby with the bathwater, don't you?
This ain't one of them, and anyone who thinks it is is an authoritarian statist.
OK, I've had it with you. You seemed reasonable at first, but now you're spiraling down into whackadoodlery. Have a nice day.
“Yes, it is. The state has a legitimate and obvious interest in ensuring that its citizenry be well-educated. Thomas Jefferson was an early and effective advocate of the proposition.”
You're making an assertion without any evidence. Your citation of Mr. Jefferson means little, is little more than an illegitimate appeal to authority, unless you're telling me that he was some sort of infallible guide, in which case, I assume that you also reject the Bible as commonly received, and only accept the Bible as produced by Mr. Jefferson?
“You're trying to change the subject, I see. One can certainly object to the examples you cite, without having to surrender the main point, which is that the state has a definite and legitimate interest in ensuring an educated populace.”
No, I'm not changing the subject. I'm providing examples that show that the state is unfit, incompetent, both practically and morally to “ensur[e] an educated populace.”
“And wrote the Declaration of Independence, and was a driving force behind the Bill of Rights, and so on. Really ... you seem bound and determined to throw out the baby with the bathwater, don't you?”
Although he took the largest role in writing the Declaration, he wasn't alone in writing it - or approving of it - and thus, his judgment was tempered by the judgment of many others. His private musings didn't benefit from that tempering. As for the Bill or Rights, I'd thought that others had greater roles to play, including George Mason. But even so, the same applies - these were group efforts, and his judgment was tempered by the judgment of others.
“OK, I've had it with you. You seemed reasonable at first, but now you're spiraling down into whackadoodlery. Have a nice day.”
LOL. You tell yourself that if it makes you feel better.
sitetest
>>Yes, it is. The state has a legitimate and obvious interest in ensuring that its citizenry be well-educated.
I disagree. The state has an interest in the populace having a pretense of education. It desires a malleable, permanently adolescent polity. You assume the ideal case, in which the state is a guardian of liberty. But it hasn’t been one in quite some time.
Despite the democratic dogma to the contrary, most people are not educable in the true sense. True education exists in a handful of places, but there is much training going under the name of education. For the few who desire a true education, it is necessary to “homeschool” oneself.