The English Speaking People's and Statism

Roger’s Rules » Meanwhile, Back in the Fatherland: Here is a great illustration of the difference of the Anglo-Saxon political tradition and Continental Europe and most of the rest of the world: Who owns your children?

In Europe they are the property of the state. In the English Speaking world they are their parents (though we are moving closer to the continental model everyday).

Here is why is matters. A German judge just sent in a swat team to raid a private
German household and take their children into state custody for the simple reason that the parent's are homeschooling their children and the judge is worried that they might escape to the France to continue homeschooling in defiance of the Courts' wishes. Here is part of the judge's decision:

Even though there are no suspicions of any parental care right abuses, besides the prevention of public school attendance, the further withdrawal of the part of parental care rights is considered necessary to help and support the education of the children, to ensure the children’s attendance of a regular school....The children would grow up in a parallel society without having learned to be integrated or to have a dialogue with those who think differently and facing them in the sense of practicing tolerance.

So we can't tolerate homeschooling because it would prevent us from teaching them tolerance. That is the difference between a government that has a people and a people that have a government.