I hope you never thought life was easier on the outside

I am on the outside, it is true.

For most of my time I have found lovely, inspiring people out here! Yes, some are bonkers. (I keep the real wackos close to my heart for later.) But bonkers, certainly. Religious inspired, some. Philosophical anti-authority types, plenty.

We have a touch of the Romantic wild child spirit permeating this family, also true, so I've made sure my tribe know Blake was a key part of that movement and as mad as a bag of badgers. But he had a few things to say that we should discuss! (As in, when he talked about 'free love', was he advocating that only for miserable men?)

Anyway, we are out here, living in contested terrain. We are fragmented. Home educating for different reasons. As different as you can imagine. In truth, a list of types doesn't do us any justice - apart from give a brief respite, allowing the beseiged author to find another coping strategy to deal with the rest of the badgers in the same sack.

But the problem with fragmented citizens is that we are not easily herded. To be picked off by any large organisation with an agenda, those large organisations need to find a common hook. A single rallying point we disparate crew all might agree upon. Freedom! Money! The right to bear arms! (Although, as Squirrel points out, you cannot take a bear's arms without there being trouble.)

Edu-business is one global operation that needs home educators to cohere around a single point. Aided by government, they force one idea of education. To get a good education, you must buy it! (And you can read a lorry-load of stuff in this blog about those attempts.)

But here's another organisation who often comes to herd us all, rallying around that flag of freedom. The Homeschool Legal Defence Association (HSLDA).*

HSLDA? Thanks, but No Thanks.

That is the polite Grit form. Others might use more vulgar language, like Fuck off, nutjobs.

Remember, themes come in pairs. Freedom to be unpredictable brings confinement and regulation. The HSLDA, by its very presence, will help herd us on that path to registered home education.

Once we're all rebranded as home-schooling, then it's easy: in will step the twin globs of Capita and Pearson to solve the problem of how to secure your 'good education'.

Please, can we all stay diverse, oppositional, fragmented, and frankly badger-like, clawing each other's faces off in our own home-made sack of shit?

And for those of you on the inside of the society - maybe unaware of what a mine-field it is out here - HSLDA is an American organisation that is known ... hang on, here's the Wikipedia entry, which does just as well.

'...criticized, from both inside and outside the larger homeschooling movement, for its ties to the Christian Right and its advocacy for various conservative political and religious causes, some of which are unrelated to homeschooling. For example, HSLDA opposes same-sex marriage, claiming that it represents "an attack on parental rights." '

And that's just the start. Nutjobs.

*Edited, for discretion. (This post really should be titled the People's Front of Judea)