Lori wrote:

>Last year, while reading Johnny Tremaine and also reading about the Boston Tea Party he made comments about the "taxation without representation" and he thought in some ways that described our situation. We have to pay taxes but we don't have the right to the services our taxes pay for. He sees problems with our education system and even our form of government that I never questioned when I was a child and he is only nine.

Lori, I�m coming to admire your son more and more, even though I�ve never met him!

I do think there is an inherent dynamics to the homeschooling situation that causes homeschooled kids to question the legitimacy of authority, even if that�s not what the parents intend at all.

One reason that I�m not bothered by the evangelical homeschoolers, even though I strongly disagree with them on numerous points (starting with evolution), is that I suspect that some day it is going to dawn on a lot of their kids that if it is okay to question the authority of the public schools, the government, etc., then just maybe you should also consider questioning the authority of the church, the Bible, etc. also. I suspect there may be more anarchists-atheists being bred by evangelical homeschoolers than their parents realize.

There is sometimes an irresistible tide in the affairs of humanity, and I think your son, and a lot of other kids nowadays, are riding that tide.

Of course, I�ve already admitted to being a bit of a starry-eyed optimist, but sometimes optimists turn out to be right.

All the best,

Dave