By Marlene McMillan
August 8, 2023
Whether the civil government puts the money in your front pocket, your back pocket, direct deposit, or you have to take the check to the bank – it is still government money. He who pays controls. This is an immutable law of the universe. You cannot take government money without getting government control. As soon as your “private” school accepts its very first penny of government money, it becomes a government school. Oh yes, the “Private School” sign may still be out front, but it is “Private in name only.”
The current Education Grants are clever, but so is deceit. Government funding of private education is a way to destroy private education and get the parents to beg for the money. People who are totally opposed to Obamacare because they understand the lack of competition and government regulation that comes with a single-funding source are the same people who are somehow deceived by clever voucher schemes. Vouchers and all their re-labelings, including Grants, are nothing more than a massive single-payer system for education. Why is it good for education but bad for healthcare?
We are told these Grants are fair because they include everyone. If they include everyone, that means there is no means of escape. It will result in totalitarian education – something we are very close to already with Common Core Standards being adopted by Christian curriculum suppliers and the SAT being aligned with them already.
The use of the term “Grant” is very creative since the difference between a loan and a grant is that you don’t have to pay the grant back. The reality is you don’t have to pay with money – you just will pay with your future. The price is incalculable. What will it cost future generations to get out from under government dependency? The real question should be: Will they ever have the will, the courage, or be able to undo generations of conditioning to government dependency? “People who live in Liberty think differently than people who live in bondage.”™ Now that generations have been raised on the Dialectic Process, their ability to think like people who live in Liberty has been educated out of them, making them more vulnerable to tyranny than ever before.
He who pays controls. God pays for His children’s education. Parents pay for their children’s education. The civil government pays for the government’s children. When you accept voucher/Grant/tax credits, you accept the premise that children belong to the civil government. We tend to worship our providers. When parents seek vouchers, their children are being taught that the parent (or the parent’s god) is incapable of providing, but the god called “government” is capable.
If it is wrong in premise, it is wrong in result.™ People used to cite the G.I. Bill as proof that you can take government money without government control. Granted, these controls did not come overnight, but now the root has taken hold, the tree has grown, and the fruit is irrefutable. Seminaries, Christian Colleges, and Private institutions of learning that accept the G.I. Bill come under massive federal regulations that would not apply to them otherwise. Some would argue that it is for the greater good. (One major difference that must be noted is that the veteran earned the benefit as a result of his/her service, and it is thus not a handout to everyone.) The only way for vouchers to be “fair” would be that everyone would be eligible, making them even more pervasive than food stamps and putting the last bastions of middle class, and even upper class citizens (subjects), on the welfare rolls and officially made government dependents.
Think about the statement, “Education dollars should follow the child to the school of parent’s choice…” and understand that this means, “Civil government regulation should follow the child to the school of parent’s choice.” Parents and children will never have freedom, let alone Liberty, as long as they are government dependents.
“Public schools will not significantly improve without competition.” This sounds so good until you realize it is a ploy to capture the naïve, innocent, and misguided into lobbying for their own enslavement. Think about this: Is the civil government going to fund their own competition? NO! They are going to fund what is currently their privately-funded competition to get rid of them and assure that they are no longer able to offer meaningful competition. The civil government will give up the label on the sign in order to control the substance, including not just curriculum content, but method. They will even allow the children to be “homeschooled” as long as the parents are teaching what the civil government wants taught in the way civil government wants it taught.
Totalitarianism wins once the masses accept that the only source of education funding is the civil government. The tragedy of the Voucher debate is that all the private money, time and effort expended by private organizations promoting vouchers could have been put to far better use. That time, money, and effort could have been spent on 1) educating the masses as to the harm caused by government education, 2) teaching the parents how to teach their own children, 3) giving parents a vision for true private education, and 4) providing help to parents wanting to start group homeschools and other creative alternatives.
Had the time, money, and effort spent on promoting vouchers been spent in these ways, then Liberty could have been secured for the next generation. Instead, these well-meaning organizations have contributed to the conditioning of parents to become more dependent upon the civil government. In making it more socially acceptable to do so, these very organizations that cry freedom and choice are, in reality, stealing the freedom of the parents, the future Liberty of their children, and the will of the people to have Liberty of Conscience.
Benjamin Franklin said, “He who would exchange essential liberty for temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.” Pro School Choice organizations are promoting the exchange of essential Liberty for temporary financial safety and, in the end, are a threat to the essential Liberty of our Nation, especially that of the very children they claim to advocate for.
Who could have ever imagined that we would now have “conservatives” lobbying for totalitarianism? How is promoting more government dependency an activity worthy of the label “freedom”? How did promoting entitlements to the middle class become a Conservative cause?
Now that the masses have been conditioned to want what seems best for the immediate without regard to the long-term consequences, how can they even understand the price of Liberty? There is still hope. It requires a Third Great Awakening. It would mean massive repentance and a return to acceptance of the Principles of Liberty. Otherwise, beware of what you want. You may get it. Psalm 106:15, “He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.”
If your goal is not Liberty, you get tyranny by default. The goals of fairness, educational competition, and free education for all sound good, but they will not lead you to Liberty. Once you have accepted a premise based on deceit, even though you may not know that it is a lie, the consequences of that deceit are inescapable. What will be the fruit of these entitlements in the lives of future generations?
Accepting the deceit is bad enough, but promoting it puts you in a position of great accountability. While many voucher supporters may mean well, others are serial promoters who have found a cause for which they can raise money and make a living for themselves. We are told that when something doesn’t smell right, we are to follow the money. Often it leads to promoters who simply look for a cause. What is in it for someone who raises private money to promote the redistribution of government money to others?
Redistribution of taxes by the civil government in the form of vouchers or grants ensures control of education by the civil government. At first, participation will be voluntary, but eventually, there will be no way to stay in business without taking the voucher. Private schools that do not want money or intervention from the civil government will be required to accept these vouchers or grants. That is not Liberty.
Homeschools will be required to use these vouchers or grants for curriculum with content and methodology controlled by the civil government. Thus, homeschools and private schools will be fed to the wolves while promoters’ pocketbooks are lined under the guise of looking out for you. That is not Liberty, but it is the end of educational competition.
Entitlements and Liberty are opposing goals. To have Liberty, you have to have Liberty of Conscience, which is greater than freedom of thought. To have freedom of thought, you have to have the opportunity and ability to learn from sources of your own choosing. To have educational Liberty, you have to pay for that education yourself. The goal of statist education is to raise loyalists to the State. The goal of private education is to teach what the parent wants their child to be taught. As soon as all education is funded by the civil government, Liberty of Conscience is gone. When you pay for your own education, you fund your own Liberty. When you accept government funding in any form, you are agreeing to restriction of opportunity, limited thought, Political Correctness, and inevitably tyranny.
Private business funded by the civil government may be privately owned, but they answer to a myriad of regulations and controls. The fact that they agreed to those regulations “voluntarily” in order to get the contract means they agreed to the terms. In exchange for a benefit, they made an agreement.
Statists use the language of class warfare to make you think you are not getting your fair share. They tell you that funding for education must be equal. Why? Who said? Can you legislate equality? When did equality become a goal? Equality does not just mean that the lower performing will be raised up, it means the high performing must be shackled. Government programs assuring equality are inherently flawed because they commit injustice and violate God-given rights under the guise of fairness.
Admittedly, the language of this article is strong. Political Correctness has taught us to prefer ideas that bring us comfort, not truth. I love you enough to tell you the truth. What you do with that truth is up to you.
Marlene McMillan, D. Min., wrote her doctoral dissertation on the subject “The Church/State implications of Tuition Tax Credits and Vouchers.” She is available for public forum presentations and Town Hall Debates on the subject of Vouchers and civil government regulation of private education as well as Common Core, Continuous Education Reform, and topics relating to the development of a Biblical Worldview.
Dr. Marlene’s ability to clearly present the principles (that the opposition may prefer to keep clouded) and to explain in easy-to-understand language where violation of those principles will lead has caused her to be placed on the Do-not-debate list of some major organizations.
Want a lively, high-attendance program for your group? Sponsor a Town Hall Debate on Vouchers and School Choice, Social Justice, Education is Inherently Religious or other Liberty topics and have Dr. Marlene present an uncompromising apology for Liberty. Warning! Some of your members might reject Vouchers, Tuition Tax-Credits or Educational Grants as the solution by the end of such an event.
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