(copied from your post farther up):

Actually, looked at the right way, these protocols represent a victory for individual liberty over the interference of the state. Like all liberty, it is subject to abuse, but one must assume that most parents are not idiots, have the best interests of their children in mind, and would strive to educate them properly. I still say the people [Steve] used as examples were exceptions.

All parents say they have 'the best interests of their children in mind', including the ones whose kids die because the parents' religion forbids medical treament (there was a case in Philly a few years ago that made everyone's skin crawl), and the parents at Jonestown (ask Dan) or Waco.

The assumption that everyone is a blithering knucklehead that has to be forced to do the right thing--except of course the proper state authorities, who are beyond reproach--is a particularly liberal point of view.

The assumption that everyone is a blithering knucklehead is derived from a lifetime of observation, and is common among those few of us - of all political stripes - who aren't blithering knuckleheads ourselves. You're a Heinleinian with the proper appreciation of Mark Twain; you know this instinctively. Granted, one approach commonly ascribed to 'liberals' is to legislate a compulsorily level playing field. The assumption that everyone is inherently good and society is self-directed toward improvement without the guidance of legislation is a distinctly Jeffersonian notion that has yet to prove itself. John Adams didn't trust it and neither do I.

If laissez faire education is the answer - as it would be in the best of all libertarian worlds - what do you do with what Scrooge called 'the surplus population' who, for whatever reason, are rendered unproductive to society and themselves by a lack of even the most basic knowledge? To be completely callous about it, it's a matter of trash removal. Which costs more: reducing the amount generated, or cleaning up the superfund sites?

(from your post directly above)

Sure, some kids are getting their heads filled with dreck in home schools. But then a lot of kids are getting their heads filled with dreck in public schools too. It is arguable whether teaching creationism is any more harmful or useless than teaching kids that their own nation, heritage, values, and political system deserve contempt.

Apples and oranges, Tom. The real dichotomy, as Steve cogently remarked, is closed- vs open-mindedness. Is it mere coincidence that the latter once was known as a 'liberal education'?

BTW, I bet if Coyote were political, he would have been a raving libertarian.

Coyote is the Original Anarchist: he created politics.

Fox