THE LARGEST LOBBY EVER
OK, this is only tangentially related to home education, but the idea seemed so silly that I couldn’t resist. First a couple of quotes:
The PTA and other organizations are hoping to make it so with unprecedented efforts to turn parents into lobbyists.
About 65 million parents live in homes with children younger than 18 — enough to rival the clout of the 35-million-member AARP if they can be activated on a large scale. Several non-partisan groups, in an effort to do that, are highlighting issues with broad appeal. Such issues include childhood obesity, Internet safety and school funding.
…”We’ve never mobilized parents just as parents before,” she says
Parents as a lobbying group. Brilliant! The sheer bulk will dominate politics forever.
I’ve got a better idea. How’ bout a lobbying group comprised of people with a heartbeat? That’d be 300 million Americans. The membership t-shirt is even already designed. I was going to suggest people with a brain, but then I didn’t want to exclude PR flacks.
Seriously, this group will never fly. Even a subset of g-school parents can’t agree on what the important issues are. Obesity? Prayer in schools? Diversity in the same? How ’bout the 3Rs? Now include the home educators and private school parents. Increased funding for schools? No way! Way! The group would implode in a day.
7 Responses to “THE LARGEST LOBBY EVER”
 Comment by Chad Boudreau May 31st, 2005 at 1:17 pm |
Personally, what amuses me the most is that parents are upset about childhood obesity…and then letting those kids sit infront of the TV, playing video games, or surfing the internet. When I was younger, my next door neighbor became “obese”. Every time he was outside with his friends and they would start to run around sporadically, or wrestle, or even play tag, the mother would come out and admonish her son. She was frightened that her son would get hurt, which I can understand. Although, the only way to actually keep kids from getting hurt is to tie them up in a padded room…but then, I’m sure they would still find a way. But anyways, eventually I went and talked with the kids father, who had let the mother take over all aspects of parenting. He put a stop to it, the boy was allowed to run around, play tag, be crazy on the trampoline, wrestle with his friends…you know, all the things commonly seen as being part of the experience of growing up. Within 3 months he was no longer fat. His diet did not change, just the fact that he ran around. So do we need parental lobby groups to combat childhood obesity? Do we need strange new methods of telling parents what their child is getting for lunch at school (go to CNN.com, in the education section…very strange)? NO! just boot their sorry behinds outside with a couple of friends! Now, I need to say that I am preaching to the choir. I’ve yet to meet a homeschooling family with obese children who (that!) weren’t the result of a genetic, or hormonal, dissorder. Hrm…Do I smell some good possibilities for PR and/or propaganda coming on? Or are my observations, being local, not a truthful depiction of the homeschooling community? |
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Comment by Chad Boudreau May 31st, 2005 at 1:19 pm |
I have a question, why could I not post the above with the word bi z are?? |
 Comment by Daryl May 31st, 2005 at 1:23 pm |
We get comment spammed and dot b.i.z. companies were one of the guilty parties. I banned them. Unfortunately, the software isn’t smart enough to figure out that those three letters used inside a word are fine. I haven’t been hit with a bad attack in a good long time. Maybe I should revisit the list. |
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Comment by Daryl May 31st, 2005 at 1:35 pm |
“biz” and “debe” are now allowed. |
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Comment by Chad Boudreau May 31st, 2005 at 5:16 pm |
Couldn’t you make the filter look for DOT B I Z ? |
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Comment by Daryl Cobranchi May 31st, 2005 at 5:30 pm |
Nope. |
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Comment by Chad Boudreau June 1st, 2005 at 11:08 am |
perhaps you should form a lobby of bloggers. Better tools and more power! |