Sweden Home-School Ban: A Harbinger Of Things To Come?

By: Shannon Bell
Source: RightPundits.Com
July 18, 2010

A Sweden homeschool ban, which will begin next year, brings into question whether or not a government geared toward statism such as ours might try something like that here. Sweden’s Liberal Party passed a 1500 page education bill which bans homeschooling on grounds of religious or philosophical reasons. Essentially the only two reasons a parent would have to homeshcool their children.

The Swedish government argues that public schools offer a “comprehensive and objective” education and that homeschooling isn’t necessary. The problem is it’s not a question of necessity most of the time; it’s a question of choice.

A Washington Times story says that some homeschooling families in Sweden are already planning on leaving the Socialist country to maintain their freedom to educate their children how they see fit. The real problem lies in the fact that in Europe there aren’t a lot of safe havens. One family in the article plans on moving to the UK.

Here in the states it’s quite different and I suspect a ban on homeschooling would be a lot harder to implement. The right to homeschool your children here would be protected under the first amendment, simply because one of the choices given as a reason for homeschooling is on religious grounds. The Sweden homeschooling ban will take affect because socialist countries like those in Europe do not have a Constitution like ours based on the inalienable rights of man.

In socialist countries like Sweden, all rights are given and guaranteed by government, including the right to an education. Their reasoning for passing the law, that their public education system is “comprehensive and objective”, is in their mind perfectly reasonable.

The only way for a socialist leaning Administration, like the one we find ourselves with, and far left government could institute a law like the Sweden homeschool ban would be for them to completely subvert our rights guaranteed by the first amendment. Something they’ve proven they’re not afraid to do.