Republican State House leader Vince Candelora has a gift for summarizing in a few pithy sentences legislative attempts to solve problems majority Democrats in Connecticut‘s General Assembly have made.
Objecting to the “final” version of a bill many homeschooling parents in Connecticut find unnecessarily intrusive and needlessly
complex, Candelora said the bill “really misses the mark, if we are concerned
about children falling through the cracks who are being abused,” the precipitant
cause of the now revised homeschooling bill favored by Democrats. “That’s what
our focus should be. [The bill drafted by Democrats is] an attempt to regulate
homeschooling, and that’s not our issue. Our issue is when children are in DFC [Connecticut
Department of Children and Families] custody or a report of DFC abuse or
neglect [has been made], how are those children monitored? The focus [of the
present adjusted homeschooling bill], is registering homeschooled children. [The
bill] is the first step to regulate homeschooling. The next is curriculum
review, and that is where families start to object.”
To anyone who supposes that the revised homeschooling bill has
set the feet of Connecticut’s Democrat controlled General Assembly on a
“slippery slope” that could lead to further intrusive home schooling
restrictions, state House majority leader Matt Ritter announced, intemperately:
“The term ‘slippery slope’ is the laziest intellectual argument that has ever
existed in mankind, because it can be used for anything. I hate it. I hate it,
so I don’t want to hear about slippery slopes.”
Ritter did not share with reporters his detestation of the
expression “the camel’s nose in the tent,” as in “the present watered down homeschooling
bill is the camel’s nose in the tent.” We all know that once the camel’s nose
is in the tent, the rest of the beast will follow, displacing the tent
dwellers. That would seem to be the import of the following passage in a
Hartford paper: “Both Ritter and House Majority leader Jason Rojas of East
Hartford said it is possible that there could be changes [to the proposed bill]
in the future.
“’There will have to be a new hearing, a new bill, elections,”
said Ritter.
If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again – but only after
the upcoming election have been concluded. It is extremely important to
Democrat leaders in Connecticut that incumbent majority Democrats should not lose
office by slipping on slippery slopes.
Noah Webster, born in West Hartford and known as the
"Father of American Scholarship and Education" – the man was
immensely prolific; a modern bibliography of his works spans 655 pages -- reminds
us that power politics may trump Constitutional restraints. We should be doubly
wary of ambitious politicians who appear to be actuated by noble intentions:
"It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard
the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern
well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean
to be masters."
Webster was largely homeschooled by his mother before
enrolling at Yale at 16 years of age. Recruited
by Alexander Hamilton as editor of The Federalist, he moved to New York but
quickly moved back to Connecticut upon graduation. Apart from Yale, he was
educated by tutors, later writing that a liberal arts education
"disqualifies a man for business.” A public school teacher in Glastonbury,
he was a lifelong critic of public education. His own elementary school
teachers, he thought, were the "dregs of humanity." Their
instruction, he later complained, mainly concerned religion.
And Webster was unabashedly patriotic: “America sees the
absurdities—she observes the kingdoms of Europe, disturbed by wrangling
sectaries, or their commerce, population, and improvements of every kind
cramped and retarded, because the human mind like the body is fettered 'and
bound fast by the chords of policy and superstition': She laughs at their folly
and shuns their errors: She founds her empire upon the idea of universal
toleration: She admits all religions into her bosom; She secures the sacred
rights of every individual; and (astonishing absurdity to Europeans!) she sees a
thousand discordant opinions live in the strictest harmony ... it will finally
raise her to a pitch of greatness and luster, before which the glory of ancient
Greece and Rome shall dwindle to a point, and the splendor of modern Empires
fade into obscurity.”
As we approach the country’s founding celebration on July 4,
2026, it may be instructive to turn on its head the wrong question – What do we
think of the founders? -- and ask the right question – What would the founders
think of us?
Is Europe still absurd? May we say with assurance that we in
the United States observe scrupulously the rights of every individual? Are gerrymandered Democrats in Connecticut’s
General Assembly who outnumber Republicans willing to allow an open government
that includes the opposition party in the general decision making process? Is
democracy by political caucus democratic? When we celebrate the
semiquincentennial of the United States’ founding on July 4, 2026, will we
remember the opening words of the Declaration of Independence we are
celebrating: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
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