The Decline and Fall of Private Education
Chuck Norris is right on the mark in this article about the battle for education in the United States. On the other hand, the advance of the homosexual agenda in America including the recognition of homosexual marriage in a number of states, may eventually force the flight of people of faith from the government schools to private education. Let’s pray for the triumph of school choice. Liberty is always the best.
Chuck Norris is a world famous martial artist, action film hero, political commentator, and humanitarian who is deeply involved in the renewing of American culture.
By Chuck Norris
The report explains that during the 2007 and 2008 legislative sessions, 44 states introduced school-choice legislation. And in 2008, choices for private school were enacted into law or expanded in Arizona, Utah, Georgia, Florida, Louisiana and Pennsylvania. Today 14 states and the District of Columbia offer voucher or education tax-credit programs that aid parents with sending their children to private schools. But that may be short-lived.
Despite the growing public preference for private education, Congress recently canceled the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, which was created in 2004 to offer students from low-income families in the nation’s capital an opportunity to join the voucher educational community. The law provided $14 million in scholarships to help pay for tuition at private schools of their choosing. But no longer.
So its cancellation is not a result of costing too much, because it’s half the price of public schooling. And it’s not because of inferior quality, because the kids enrolled in the program were scoring higher than students in regular schools. There’s only one reason Congress canceled it, and it comes down to this: federal control and educational indoctrination.
Of course, government officials won’t admit to a blatant usurpation of our rights, but they will say their educational reform is seeking to help your children. They will say it is necessary to establish common educational standards. They will say that we need to leave education to the experts and not to parents. And I fear that too many of us simply will give in to the whims of the nanny state.
As I wrote in my new best-selling book, “Black Belt Patriotism: How to Reawaken America“: “The reason that government is cracking down on private instruction has more to do with suppressing alternative education than assuring educational standards. The rationale is quite simple, though rarely if ever stated: control future generations and you control the future. So rather than letting parents be the primary educators of their children — either directly or by educating their children in the private schools of their choice — (government) want(s) to deny parental rights, establish an educational monopoly run by the state, and limit private education options. It is so simple any socialist can understand it. As Joseph Stalin once stated, ‘Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.'” (Get a free chapter of my book at http://www.ChuckNorrisNewBook.com.)
What’s amazing, too, is how hypocritical it is for Congress to make this decision. The Heritage Foundation’s report also conveys that 44 percent of current United States senators and 36 percent of current members of the U.S. House of Representatives have “at one time sent their children to private schools.” While the foundation found that 11 percent of American students attend private schools, 20 percent of the members of the 111th Congress attended private high schools. And they want to remove the voucher option for private school education?
While the members of President Barack Obama’s administration profess to have education as a top priority, they did nothing in March when Congress chose to discontinue the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Why? Because they all are in cahoots to not only choose our medical care for us, own the mortgage insurance and finance businesses, and place caps on corporate earnings but also control our educational choices for our children.
Our Founders’ educational philosophy seems to me to be the charter of a true American system of education. But as we know, our nation’s public schools, especially our nation’s colleges and universities, are the seedbeds of politically correct and leftist indoctrination. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is. It’s a travesty that we have come to the point that we have to protect our children from the public school systems by looking to alternative methods.
If you have a good public school, congratulations. Stay active in the PTA, and attend school board meetings to keep it that way. For many parents, the only responsible choice is to send their children to private, parochial or Christian schools or to home-school their children. My wife and I home-school our 8-year-old twins.
What I also think is good about private schools is the students’ wearing uniforms. Just like in my KICKSTART martial arts program for kids in Texas schools, uniforms in private schools give students a sense of pride and empowerment. They increase the atmosphere of respect. And uniforms make economic class more of a nonissue, making rich and poor students indistinguishable — not to mention the fact that uniforms do away with young people’s style of wearing their jeans down to their knees and showing their butt cracks!
Parents deserve educational choices; choice is what this country was founded upon. Government’s controlling and monopolizing education is just another avenue for usurping power and control on the slippery slope to socialism. And it’s unbecoming for our republic, whose Founders created a system of freedom, choice and minimal government intervention.
Is it merely coincidental that the private choice of home schooling was outlawed by the Soviet state in 1919, by Hitler and Nazi Germany in 1938, and by Communist China in 1949?
Is America next?
Prayer–America’s Hope
This article is being sent out early because today is the 58th Annual National Day of Prayer.
I ask you to make special prayer today for a nation-changing revival in the United States. We are in a very precarious state as a nation. Morally, we are floundering by turning away from God’s commandments and principles. Economically, we have debauched our currency, enslaved ourselves to debt and fiscal irresponsibility, and are heading quickly toward the misery of fascism/socialism. Militarily, we are beginning to disarm ourselves in a violent, unpredictable world, while accepting and rewarding those who desire to kill us. We are abandoning our friends and encouraging our enemies. There really is:
1. No political solution that can save us
2. No human being or political party that can deliver us.
3. No hope for the future without God’s intervention in our national life.
The wisest and most important thing we can do today is to humble our hearts, and seek the face of the God of the Universe for national repentance, healing, reconciliation, rebirth, and spiritual and moral renewal.
All across the United States families will be praying, churches will be gathering, and thousands of special events will be used to turn our attention toward God. I will be in Washington DC with our son Ryan for a prayer service in the Cannon Building in the morning, and a city-wide prayer gathering in the afternoon and evening on the west steps of the US Capitol Building.
If you can’t be here, you can be somewhere lifting up this nation in prayer. Please visit the National Day of Prayer website to encourage your heart and find out how you can participate. As you pray, remember Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Proclamation of a National Day of Fasting & Prayer whose words are as true today as when they were spoken some one hundred and forty-six years ago:
“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown.”
“But we have forgotten God.”
“We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! “
“It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”
The Call 2 Fall
Another important day of prayer is being planned just sixty days from now on Sunday, July 5, 2009. Thousands of churches will be inviting their people to get down on their knees the day after Independence Day to affirm our dependence on Almighty God. It’s called the “Call 2 Fall.”
I am working with a group of national spiritual leaders on this second vital prayer thrust. Here’s the vision:
“The headlines of any given day reveal the depth and breadth of the cultural and political challenges facing America. The threats to our nation and the threats in our nation are real.”
“While Americans are dying on foreign fields of battle to defend the ideals of freedom, pastors are jailed here at home for exercising their freedom of speech in defense of the unborn. While the courts continue on the march to redefine marriage, the state of the American family appears to grow weaker under the cultural and social pressures. And whether responding to this evidence or simply seizing an opportunity, commentators have gleefully pronounced the “Decline and Fall of Christian America.”
“From a human perspective the future does not look promising. It is becoming evident that there are no political solutions to what our nation is facing today. But that could mean we are at the point of our greatest hope. If we as Christians will take responsibility for the state of the Church and the nation, and then follow God’s prescription for real change – there is hope.”
“The Family Research Council is joining with other Christian ministries in issuing a nationwide “Call to Fall” on our knees before the Lord on July 5th, 2009, urging a day of humility and repentance for America. We are asking pastors and churches to engage in a singular act of corporate humility, taking at a minimum 3 to 5 minutes during the Sunday morning worship for the entire congregation to fall to their knees, calling upon God to forgive our sins and heal our land (Joel 2).”
“The ‘Call to Fall’ is nothing new for America. When the First Continental Congress called for a day of public humiliation, fasting, and prayer, throughout the Colonies on July 20th, 1775, James Warren wrote Samuel Adams saying,
‘Three millions of people on their knees at once, supplicating the aid of Heaven, is a striking circumstance, and a very singular one in America. May the blessings of Heaven follow in answer to our prayers…’
“That is what we are praying for – a unified effort that crosses all denominational, cultural, and ethnic barriers among God’s people that will hopefully result in God’s hand of judgment being stayed and in His blessings being renewed on our lives and on our land.”
Please visit www.Call2Fall.com to sign the Declaration and to answer the “Call to Fall.” Here is the Declaration:
I will answer God’s call to fall on my knees in humility and seek His face in repentance, so that He might forgive my sins and heal our land.
Thanks for praying today, and for joining us on our knees Sunday, July 5.May God hear us from heaven and revive America for his glory (2 Chronicles 7:14).
A Disastrous First Hundred Days
“You will know them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16)
On September 8, 2008 I shared with you one hundred reasons I would not vote for Barack Obama. That article brought wide-spread response from around the world–some of it very critical of my views.
I had studied the career of then Senator Obama for nearly two years and and concluded he was a radical, ambitious far left politician who would lead America away from its Christian moorings. I warned you to look past the warm smile, soaring eloquence, and big crowds and take a measure of the man’s true worldview, values and beliefs.
In my heart, I hoped and prayed that I was wrong. Though Barack Obama appeared to be a committed secular liberal (with a smile), I hoped at the least, that he would be somewhat restrained like Bill Clinton and govern from the center-left. Because he was our first elected African American president, I wanted him to succeed by doing what is right for our nation.
Now his first one hundred days are history–and they have been disastrous. Yes, disaster , meaning “an unforeseen mischance bringing with it destruction of life or property or utter defeat” (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary). Barack Obama’s leadership has been far worse than even I imagined–denigrating faith and our Christian heritage, undermining the family values we hold dear, devastating the economy with Big Government centralized control, weakening and slashing our military forces, and cozying up to tyrants and terrorists–all at a warp speed pace that has been astonishing to behold. He has certainly not let a “good crisis go to waste.”
There’s no more need to wonder about Barack Obama. It was Jesus who said “You will know them by their fruits.” The fruits of his first one hundred days in office reveal that Barack Obama is the most anti-Christian president in the history of the United States. If you voted for him, it’s time to take off the rose-colored glasses, repent of your lack of judgment, and join the cause of real American restoration. We have sinned–put our trust in wrong things and poor leaders–and could face a disastrous or terminal societal judgment if we proceed down our current path.
When I ran for public office in 2006, I based my campaign on the three biblical and historically American values that brought incredible blessing to our nation for the past two-hundred and thirty-three years. They are faith, family and freedom. How can I honestly say that Barack Obama is an anti-Christ leader? Because in these three vital areas, the vast majority of the bills he’s signed and policies he’s promoted since January 20th have been strongly anti-faith, anti-family, and anti-freedom. Here’s the record.
Anti-Faith
Our new president calls himself a Christian and knows how to use religious language in certain settings. I will not profess to judge his heart. Only God knows whether he has saving faith or not. But as Jimmy Carter before him, Barack Obama does not possess a Christian worldview that guides his decision-making and governmental policies. In worldview, Obama is a secularist. That is why he has stated that “we are not a Christian nation.” He does not want us to be a Christian-based society. He believes we are bigoted, narrow, intolerant and backward. He wants us to be a secular nation with secular values. His demand to cover up the Christian symbols at Notre Dame University before giving the commencement address was the clearest evidence of his disrespect for our faith foundations.
Barack Obama does not want us to be one nation under God. He wants us to become a secular and spiritually diverse nation under men (Big Government). Under his watch, Christianity will shrink and be persecuted, and atheism will grow. That’s the “real change” he offers. Is that what you want?
Anti-Family
On April 28, 2009, Focus on the Family chronicled for us just a few of the Obama Administration anti-family policies of the first one hundred days. Barack Obama has:
- Signed an executive order allowing taxpayer funding to go to international groups that promote or provide abortions. The “Mexico City Policy,” as it’s known, also was rescinded by President Bill Clinton and then reinstated by President George W. Bush.
- Opened the door for more human embryos to be destroyed for unethical stem-cell research despite science showing that adult stem cells provide cures; to date, embryonic stem cells have not.
- Begun the process of rescinding the Bush health care provider conscience regulations. This move comes at a time when the U.S. is experiencing a shortage of practicing physicians, a drop one senator described as reaching “crisis proportions.” Making it easier for hospitals and medical schools to discriminate against physicians based on their moral or religious beliefs will only drive more of them out of the profession.
- Lifted a seven-year ban on taxpayer funding of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which is linked to forced abortion programs.
- Nominated Hillary Clinton as secretary of State. Clinton is an ardent pro-abortion politician who recently accepted Planned Parenthood’s Margaret Sanger award. During her acceptance speech, Clinton praised the eugenicist Sanger as a great Americans.
- Nominated Kathleen Sebelius as secretary of Health and Human Services. She has accepted campaign contributions from notorious late-term abortionist George Tiller and welcomed him into the governor’s mansion. Sebelius is one of the most pro-abortion governors in the country.
- Nominated Dawn Johnsen, former legal director of NARAL Pro-Choice America, to head the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. Johnsen has called motherhood “involuntary servitude” and has said that restrictions on abortion make women nothing more than “fetal containers.”
- Attacked charitable giving by proposing a reduced tax deduction for gifts to nonprofits. If it becomes law, it will have a major impact on faith-based ministry giving and other nonprofits.
- Signed a bill that kills the District of Columbia’s successful school-choice program. The program benefits low-income families by providing private-school scholarships. Approximately 3,500 students have benefited from this program.
- Nominated David Hamilton to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hamilton has been a board member for the ACLU and a fundraiser for ACORN. He has ordered the Indiana legislature to end its historic practice of beginning each session with a prayer, and has written an opinion in opposition to abortion clinics providing information to women about alternatives.
- Appointed Ellen Moran to a major communications post at the White House. Moran is the former executive director of the pro-abortion EMILY’s List.
- Nominated David Ogden, Tom Perrelli, Elena Kagan and Harold Koh to top Department of Justice and State Department posts. Ogden has been a legal advocate for pornography producers; Perelli helped lead the legal fight to remove the feeding tube from Terri Schiavo; Kagan supported denying military recruiters access to law schools; and Koh strongly advocates mixing foreign law into important U.S. constitutional debates.
- Expressed support for hate-crimes legislation and will sign if it reaches his desk. The House will vote on the measure April 29. The legislation creates a special class of crime based on the victim’s sexual orientation. Those accused of “inducing” a federal hate crime could be held responsible for the actions of another person. For example, pastors preaching against homosexuality could be charged with a crime if someone listening committed a “hate crime” against a gay individual.
- Ordered a legal review of hiring-and-firing standards instituted by faith-based groups that receive federal funding.
- Released a Department of Homeland Security “watch list” that included pro-life Americans.
Barack Obama is the most anti-life president in history. He even favors infanticide. Think about that. He doesn’t mind medical professionals killing eight-month old “accidentally born” babies as a result of botched abortions. That type of thinking is Nazi-like. He is also stridently pro-homosexual and trans-sexual rights. When homosexual marriage is legal in enough states, the open persecution of pastors and Bible-believing churches could begin under this president. It would be cloaked in the language of tolerance and being anti-discriminatory–but it would send parents who object in the schools and pastors who condemn homosexuality from the pulpits to jail. This is the next wave of anti-Christ persecution.
Anti-Freedom
The biblical concept of freedom is greatly under attack by the current administration. For hundreds of years, true liberty has meant freedom from sin, strong moral foundations, self-government, limited civil government, low taxation, good stewardship of resources, and little debt (which is slavery). Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty (2 Corinthians 3:17). As Barack Obama speeds up the purging of Christianity from our culture, freedom is evaporating on every side.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich gives this sober assessment of the Barack Obama’s assault on freedom in a recent Newt Gingrich Letter:
“At home, in everything from his economic policy to his energy policy to his just-announced science policy, President Obama has successfully moved the country from a traditional American model of entrepreneurship and private initiative to a European model of regulation and government control. Abroad, he has succeeded in his apparent goal to be the un-George W. Bush; replacing aggressive, if sometimes flawed, American leadership with a humbled, weakened America on the world stage.”
“The Obama record in the first 100 days includes three instances of spectacular political impunity:
Under the guise of “economic stimulus” he was able to pass a $787 billion gift for his liberal special interest base. And he did it so quickly that no member of Congress was able to read it before they voted.After campaigning on a pledge to end earmarks, he signed an appropriations bill loaded with 8,000 earmarks – and paid no political penalty.President Obama has kept congressional Democrats marching with him in lockstep. House Democrats tow the party line an amazing 94 percent of the time and Senate Democrats vote Democratic 91 percent of the time.”
“In these first 100 days, the Obama Administration has achieved two historic bureaucratic power grabs:
President Obama has transformed the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) into giant engines of unsupervised spending. Together, they’ve spent the equivalent of the entire federal budget for 2007, without having to disclose where the money went.”
“Just two weeks ago, the President presided over an unprecedented bureaucratic power grab when his Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled that greenhouse gases pose a threat to public health. This seemingly innocuous decision opens the door to wholesale regulation of American life by government. The threat is so great that politicians and activists are using the specter of an out-of-control EPA to force Congress to pass a $1 trillion to $2 trillion energy tax in the form of cap-and-trade legislation.”
“The Obama 100 days record also includes remarkable weakness and self-delusion overseas:
In an attempt to overcome anti-Americanism abroad by agreeing with it, President Obama has gone on a global apology tour, labeling America as “arrogant, dismissive and derisive” in front of foreign audiences. President Obama has unleashed a domestic war over the meaning of guilt by caving in to the anti-American left and leaving the door open to prosecuting Bush Administration officials over the interrogation of terrorists who plotted to kill Americans.”
“But all these successful expansions of government at home and retractions of American leadership abroad are merely a prelude to President Obama’s looming crowning achievement: His 2010 budget which remakes our health care system, remakes our energy system, raises taxes and forecasts an amazing $9 trillion increase in the national debt. As I write this, Democrats in Congress are fashioning a deal to pass the budget’s provisions on health care by preventing Republicans and moderate Democrats from having a voice in the debate.”
“Think about that. The Obama-Reid-Pelosi political machine is going to pass legislation that fundamentally affects every single American – as well as 17 percent of our economy – by cutting the elected representatives of half of all Americans out of the process. If they succeed, the budget will be President Obama’s most enduring – and devastating – accomplishment.”
Faith, family & freedom are now under the greatest attack since the founding of the United States. A fearful one-day hundred day anti-Christ, anti-morality, anti-free enterprise tidal wave has been unleashed on America through the presidency of Barack Obama.
In the 1940s Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer tried to awaken the German Church out of its slumber and vigorously oppose the policies of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis. He gave his life fighting for the freedom of Germany and the entire world. Many German Christians never saw the forest for the trees.
I pray that your eyes will be opened. A disastrous first one hundred days of the Obama Administration threatens the future of our children, grandchildren, and the world as a whole. We need to pray, fast, get involved, work for revival in the Church and reformation in our culture, and vote for a desperately needed change of direction in 2010 and 2012.
May God turn disaster into deliverance.
“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sins, and heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14).