Are School Vouchers Really Empowering Parents?

When you give your children to Caesar for an education, don't be surprised when they bow at Caesar. When we stop relying on God and start relying on government, what we're actually saying is, God is bankrupt and He needs a government bailout. There is no such thing as vouchers without government control. They just simply don't exist. The federal government has zero power authority or even duty to education. Your organization is known worldwide and we certainly appreciate every facet that you do. I do believe in what you're doing because I've seen it in my family. I'm so excited about all the things that Robert, you guys doing with classical conversations. It's been a huge blessing for our family. Grateful for the work of classical conversations. You're a leader and you have been in this movement for a long time. We love classical conversations. I do feel like I have a debt of gratitude to you, your family, all of CC for just the fruit that has come from CC. Appreciate all that you guys do, both through this wonderful podcast and also through classical conversations, which I am convinced is the best education resource out there. Thank you very much for all that you do for the cause of Christ and for our families and for our children really, really appreciate it. - Hey everyone and welcome to another informative podcast at the Refining Redric Podcast. I am here with a special guest, Chris Ann Hall. This is part of our school choice week podcast series. For those who don't know her, she had a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from Blackburn College and her Jewish doctorate from the University of Florida College of Law. She was the US Army Military Intelligence Russian leguinness. Yeah, I can't even say the name. And later worked as a prosecutor for the state of Florida for nearly a decade. She is really part of this kind of Liberty First nonprofit firm, really defending civil rights. Going back to the Constitution, she is a most sought after constitutional speaker. Chris Ann, thank you so much for joining the Refining Redric Podcast today. - Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. - Yeah, so you are a constitutional lawyer. What does that mean? What do you do that a typical lawyer is not doing? - Well, it's more like being a doctor and being a neurosurgeon, right? So I do everything that every other lawyer does. My practice doesn't just do constitutional law. So I also do corporate law. I do contracts. I do immigration law. Constitutional law is a portion of what I do in that nonprofit aspect that we help people retain or defend their natural rights when agents of the government or laws of the government are somehow interfering or trying to supersede their natural rights. - Yeah, so what the founders had in mind with the Constitution and where we are today seems to be diametrically opposed in many aspects of American life. And yeah, what does the Constitution say about the federal government's responsibility in education? - Nothing, which means the federal government has zero power authority or even duty to education. Our Constitution is written not as a list of things that the government can't do, but as a list of things that they can do. And those who drafted and ratified the Constitution were very clear that if what the government wants to do or is trying to do is not on the specific list of things that we've allowed them to do, then they are actually prohibited from doing that. And then the 10th Amendment tells us whatever has not been specifically delegated in an enumerated list we have in the Constitution, to the federal government that power is then reserved with the states and the people. - So how, and a Trump said that he's getting in the Department of Education, which is kind of true, but he's just kind of made different departments now control all of those laws and distributing the funds. Like why hasn't there been any lawsuits or why is the federal government continually allowed to violate the Constitution that we all agreed to operate under? - Well, because people like free stuff. And when you get free stuff, you know, when the government's handing out money and you think the government's giving you money and not realizing that the government's actually stealing the money from you first and then handing it back to you as a gift, that is a very powerful influence. And I actually have online American history classes where I show the history of the Constitution that goes back to the year 1014. That's how our Constitution was developed over 700 years before it ever even landed on this continent. And that history of human nature, human behavior, and government shows us that whenever government hands out free stuff, people don't ask where the free stuff comes from and they don't ask how much it's gonna cost them later. And that's really where we are today. We have been trained into a very fundamental ignorance about the Constitution, about the role and duty of the people, about the role and duty of the states and the very, very limited authority of the federal government deliberately denied truth about that. Even in our textbooks that now we come to expect certain things from government that simply are not constitutionally allowed. So you have two things to overcome. You have to overcome the allure of free money and you have to overcome a misconception at best on what is really the role of government anyway. - Well, we'll definitely be talking about free money here in a minute. In my new book, "Woken Weapon Eyes," chapter three, I start with a quote from Thomas Jefferson, the Virginia statute for establishing religious freedom and I'd like to get your comment on it. He said, "All mighty God have created the mind free that all attempts to influence by temporal punishment or burdens, aka taxation." My words, "Or by civil and in captifications tend only to be get habits of hypocrisy and meanness." Yeah, so what was he saying there? And how do we see that maybe in today's culture in America? - Well, if you're gonna just sort of bottom line that, what Jefferson is really saying is, when we set aside a knowledge and virtue and a dedication to the rights that have been given to us by God and we trade those things for, how do I put this? When we trade those things for things of comfort, right? What ends up happening is we clean closer to the comfort than we do to the rights and then we become hypocrites because we'll demand that our rights on this side be handled but then create a different and opposing consequence in an exact same situation in order to keep the comfort. And I hope that makes sense. So basically what we do is we trade our rights for comfort and that allows us to have a situational morality. Yeah, so we've got these Minnesota Somalian daycare centers that have been getting grants from the United States, the federal government or state governments and that's money to educate the kids 'cause of course kids have got to be educated. Yeah, talk to us about how these kind of government programs in Minnesota have incentivized all this fraud that I think $9 billion that we know of today and probably even more in other states. Oh yeah, well, just don't be operating under any delusion that this is something that is reserved to Minnesota or California or even just what political ideologues would call leftist states. I mean, I live in Florida and that's not a leftist state. There's corruption in every single state. I don't care where you are. Corruption exists when accountability is ignored or decreased and what has happened in our constitutional republic is that through our ignorance, through our apathy, through our seeking the free stuff, we have forgotten that the federal government is limited and defined. So and by the way, we've been intentionally not taught the meaning of true phrases and clauses, the true meaning of phrases and clauses in the constitution. So number one in your question is this, the federal government has no authority to hand money out in the form of welfare or subsidies. That is not a power that has been delegated to the federal government and as a matter of fact, it was a power that was specifically denied to the federal government. The reason that the federal government engages in that, if you just sort of set aside that whole we like free stuff, human nature thing, is that we've allowed our education system to educate us into ignorance about these limitations and allowed our institutions to redefine meanings. So the general welfare clause is what people say, "Oh, well, the government can hand out subsidies and money and fund things because of the general welfare clause." Only that's not what the general welfare clause means. The general welfare is not about welfare money. It's not about the government providing welfare. It's not even for the government to provide comfort. The general welfare clause is a clause that even dates back to the articles of Confederation as an instruction to the federal government that whenever they engage in a duty that's enumerated, like war, peace, negotiation, that sort of thing, treaties, whenever they engaged in truly delegated powers, they must exercise those powers with the understanding that the general application of that exercise of power must be equal among the states. The general welfare clause means that you can't engage in a treaty that benefits one state and debt-traumets another. So any treaty, any foreign trade agreement, anything that happens in the federal realm, must equally benefit the union as a whole, not playing favorites. That's what the general welfare clause means. It has nothing to do with the individual because the federal government was never supposed to have jurisdiction or influencer control over an individual. Any governmental authority that was to happen on the individual was to happen at the state level. So problem number one, the federal government shouldn't be doing this. And when the federal government does this, oversight and accountability is next to impossible. That's how you get corruption. If there's going to be any kind of subsidies or welfare given for people in need, that has to happen at the state and local levels, and at the state and local levels where the people have closer accountability to their government, greater supervision over their government, that corruption is harder to achieve. So does the federal government kind of get around that by giving the money to the states directly and then saying, "Well, what's the states that are allocating the money and we're just providing an equal distribution based on the last census? Is that how they try to get around it?" Well, it's not really even getting around it. They actually extort the power from the states to do that through money. So just like people like free money, states like free money. And so over the years through the miseducation, because most people don't realize that there is a political hierarchy in our constitutional republic. And it's the states that are a higher power over the federal government, not the other way around. The federal government is actually a creation of the states. You can't have a creation more powerful than its creator. So the states are the supervising power over the federal government. And we have been denied that education. Most people don't know if they've been taught, they forget. Or if they know, they haven't forgot, they'll set aside that understanding in order to get the money. And so you hear people say, "I don't have time for all the money." That's really it. So the love of money is the root of all evil. And it's how our states have lost their sovereignty and lost their authority by trading it to the federal government for trinkets, really. Yeah, I like to use an analogy of Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of soup. Yeah, pretty much. In many aspects. So talk to like the federal level, I think most listeners, at least conservatives or Republicans would agree with that. But then we come down to the state level. And of course, each state has different constitutions that have allocated certain powers to it. But do the state stick to their constitutions? Generally speaking, and just because the state constitution allows them to do something, does that still have to comply with natural law? And the ideas that founded our country? Well, that's a pretty big package to unwrap. So let's sort of start from a 30,000-foot view and work our way down. The state constitutions are like the U.S. Constitution. The U.S. Constitution creates the federal government, specifically listing the power and the duties of the federal government. State constitutions do the same thing for the state and local levels. So the state governments and the local governments have no authority to act unless the constitution authorizes them to take to do those acts. People have more control over their state constitutions. And so from a leopolitical aspect, and from my constitutional or public aspect, the states have more more powers that generally reside within their purview in a state constitution. So we would never, well, let me rephrase that, we were never supposed to allow this federal government to engage in the same activities as the states. So education is reserved to the states, police powers reserved to the states, land management reserved to the states, commerce that happens within the state is reserved to the states, and all legal actions that are contained within the state borders are reserved to that state. Now that's not exhaustive list. That's just an example. But as if you can just sort of vision that you have the borders of your state and everything that happens within those borders, that is all governed by the state. The federal government, according to the constitution, has no jurisdiction over anything that happens within those borders of your state, not constitutionally speaking anyway. Remember, we're operating on constitutionally at that level at this point. So the constitution of state limits the state and local governments for their powers. Now, can the states exercise powers that are not granted to it by the constitution? Well, the answer to that is a little bit, I don't mean to be up to sort of tricky, but the reality is that can, but that exercise of power will not be lawful exercise. So when a government exercises power that's not lawful, not authorized by the constitution, it's incumbent upon the people to be a check in balance for that. So what the people tolerate becomes their silent consent to unconstitutional unauthorized power. Now, it doesn't create authority, but it can create the appearance of authority in the sense that the that the state and the local governments will exercise that power without opposition. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I mean, I've volunteered for a lot of nonprofits and different organizations, and I might not be the president or a high offering person, but because I'm a I'm willing to do things and I do things, then it's like I can sometimes operate as an officer of an organization, even though I don't actually have those powers assigned to me just because I'm doing things in the people like like what I'm doing. And so yeah, people's consent to be governed if we can give them a little bit of free stuff and keep them quiet with bread and circus, then they're not going to fight back. And if you can if you can make them fat fat fat people don't tend to rebel because they've they've gotten everything provided to them by the state from a from a historical and cultural and behavioral perspective. It's comforts, right? So people will will tolerate a lot of things to remain comfortable. It's why Thomas Jeffery and Mark. Yeah, that's what I was referring to just to be clear is not like physically fat, but like oh, no, no, no, I get that. But it even physically fat has to do with comfort as well. So what we have as Jefferson remarked in the Declaration of Independence, he said people will suffer evil as long as evil is sufferable, right? Which means that we are a people that are slow to move and thicknecked, right? We don't want to change. We don't want to do anything to overturn the apple card to disrupt things, rock the boat. As long as we can tolerate the conditions in which we live in, it's more comfortable to be tolerable than it's then being thriving and prosperous is worth in discomfort. If that makes sense. Well, yeah, and actually the, I think, BF Skinner, the psychiatrist, psychologist who's a lot of our education is based around the research on animals. And basically, we've been conditioned through our public school system to even tolerate more than maybe we would naturally by behavioral controls where, you know, going against the grain is frowned upon and you're ex-out. outside of community. So we've even got that sort of natural maybe mentality that most people have are not rocking the boat, being exercised through psychological means through K12. So that makes it makes it easy for us to be controlled. Now what now I know like HSLDA right now I think in some other groups are trying to push for a federal recognition of homeschool diplomas because some I guess maybe trying to come end around states that might not be giving homeschoolers diplomas or allowing us to you know be more restrictive. I don't know the actual language of the laws but you know I don't know if you have an opinion on that or not or just something that you haven't considered. I'm not familiar with that to be honest with you I would be kind of surprised to hear that HSLDA has signed on to that because HSLDA has been very firm in their position that the federal government and the government no government should have anything to do with homeschooling. Maybe it's the diploma recognition the problem is that I'm slightly confused by that because I already know the military accepts homeschool diplomas. I'm not sure where the federal government is not accepting homeschool diplomas at this point so I would wonder why we would even need that. And the position has always been at least my experience working with HSLDA and also my understanding both personally as a former homeschool parent my son is now married and I know that we're going to be homeschooling grandchildren when they come along as well but also as a constitutional attorney and a corporate attorney any government permission comes with condition. So we start looking for government to sanction our homeschool diplomas. Government's not going to be happy doing that unless they have control. And so if you're looking for government to sanction homeschool diplomas it'd be the same as looking for the government to fund your homeschool which means funding from the government on your homeschool will require you to meet their standards if you don't meet their standards then they can withdraw their funding. And that's how it works. So even I think we all understand at least on some part that money from government always comes with strings. We just sort of bottom shelf that. The reality is anything that comes from government comes with strings. So whether it's money or permission or approval none of that can come unless the government has control. So I would be more I would be professionally legally and morally opposed to seeking any kind of sanction or permission from the government for homeschool. Yeah and I've looked at the bill too closely to understand quite what they they're doing but it does seem a little sus as the kids like to say these days that we're looking to the federal government that shouldn't be an education at all to now bless the hard work of millions of homeschooling parents such as ourselves. Let me interject for just a second because like I said I am very confused by the fact why we need a bill because the military has been accepting homeschool students for a long time. Public universities that take federal funding except homeschool education. Federal employees employers take homeschool student graduates. So I'm I'm really wondering if the bill is a solution looking for a problem. A solution looking for a problem that's not even necessary so that the control can be exercised or is this just another backdoor ploy to get federal money into homeschooling and exercise the greatest control ever. No H. S. O. D. A. is against that is H. R. 6392 and according to and I don't want to linger on this too much. I'm obviously friends with a lot of people H. S. O. D. A. don't always agree with everything they do and I doubt they always agree with everything that I do. So that's fine. We can still be friends. Yes this is H. S. L. D. A. deals with hundreds of cases each year all of a country in which homeschool graduates are denied employment entry to trade schools and other opportunities based on the runnest claim that they're not high school graduates the homeschool graduation recognition act will eliminate and be good to prevent ongoing misinterpretation and ensure equal treatment for homeschool graduates by clarifying that homeschool graduates meet the definition of high school graduates for federal student aid purposes as H. S. O. D. A. President. There you go. You're Mason. That's it right there. Federal student aid you you found it right there. It's all about the money and you know what you else you read in that bill didn't it say to to clarify right to clarify that homeschool meets the same standards as public school qualifies in the same way. Well how do you make sure that something meets the same standards that is equal to because then I was just saying that equal to homeschool is equal to formal education well you've got to have a checkbox somewhere don't you somebody's got to create that checkbox because there are plenty of people and you and I both know being in the homeschool world there are plenty of parents out there who claim they're homeschooling who are doing nothing at all just because they're bad apples in every world and so now what you're going to have is a situation where we have in law we call bad facts make bad law so the next thing you know somebody's going to say okay well you're giving equal status to a homeschooler whose parents did absolutely nothing to teach their children and just printed out a diploma on a on a printer with the same academic standard and testing that my child had to take in a public school where is that equality and that's where the door opens for government control. It looks like they're trying to fix as right now homeschool students are under some rule that says who are not high school graduates that allow them to get it and they're fixing that language once and for all by removing this discriminatory header and the higher education act so interesting stuff so you've started hitting on the money and the states and the educational rights so you live in Florida Florida kind of was the second big state second red state after Arizona to adopt this universal school choice idea and you know we're going to steal money from Pharaoh and we're going to empower parents and all of these good talking points which I've thoroughly you know dismembered through all sorts of different podcasts and articles and stuff but I don't what's your point what's your point of view I don't know if you agree with me or not but I have it I'm guessing that you maybe sympathize with my point of view. Well it's not really my opinion it's a matter of historical fact it's a matter of legal fact it's a matter of political fact it is undeniable it is indisputable there is no such thing as vouchers without government control they just simply don't exist what happens is that the money that is given and it and you know the whole illusion oh it follows the student and not the school that's an illusion itself and even more dangerous one then if it went to the school and I can explain that later but the reality is just because the government isn't exercising a power doesn't mean they don't have the authority to exercise the power and quite often government will choose not to exercise a power until the people are appropriately addicted to whatever it is they're being given and can't live without it once they get to the point where they can't live without it then the government will start exercising that power incrementally until the people are willing to sell their principles in order to keep the money and we're watching that happen now everything that I warned was going to happen is happening with these vouchers and the sad thing is that the state of Florida even though we have this whole I we actually paved the road for government control of private school before our whole our school choice program started in 2007 right before 2007 the the state government took control of private scholarships going to private schools which allowed the state to audit private schools who take private scholarships all in the guys of we can't let private schools not use money where it's supposed to be used so we invited government into the private realm on private scholarships that's how you get the Florida statute that controls the IDE A, scholarships and the corporate scholarships for special needs. Then in 2007 in Florida, most people don't realize that the Florida legislatures passed a law called the Ethics and Education Act, which required all private schools and government schools, right? So all government schools and all private schools who take these now statutory scholarships that were private scholarships to submit to the Florida Department of Education and Ethics and Education Policy for the school. And the Ethics and Education Policy, and this is for Christian schools, private schools, any private school that takes this corporate money. And now any school that takes these vouchers, they have to have an Ethics and Education policy. The Ethics and Education Policy that has been handed out by the Florida Department of Education says, even to biblical Christian schools, you cannot teach a single source curriculum, meaning you cannot teach the Bible is the source of all truth. You cannot teach creationism, you have to teach evolution as well. You cannot interfere with a child's desire to express them selves in their autonomy, meaning they have to be able to choose their gender. You cannot discriminate based on sexual orientation. And all of this is applied to even Christian schools. And someone would ask, well, how could that be? It's not being enforced. Who knows why the government's not enforcing this? But the fact that they're not enforcing it doesn't negate the fact that the law gives them the power to do it. You just need the right governor, the right attorney general, the right department of education to happen at the right time. Any one of those things. And the next thing you know, hundreds of Christian schools are going to be told, you have to give up this money or you need to fall into line. And one thing that we learned from COVID is another thing that I had been warning because most people say, well, when they start telling me I can't do this, that's when I'll say I won't take this money anymore. But we learned from COVID that the government will say, okay, but now you have to pay back what we've already paid you. So all the people who inadvertently and mistakenly violated the provisions for the COVID employee benefit things that they were handing out, the PPP. They were not only told they can't have more money. They were told they had to pay back the money with fines and interest. So that's part of the problem. When we said that the vouchers follow the parents and not the schools, what the parents are doing is mingling that money with their own finances. Which means now the government has the authority to audit your personal finances to make sure you're spending that money on education and not miss spending it on something else. So all that power actually exists and it's already coming in. I don't know if, I mean most of the homeschool of community watches what goes on around the world. And right now there's a big explosion in the homeschool communities and in the private school communities in the state of Texas because the Texas voucher program works just like the one in Florida has money going to Islamic madrasas, the Muslim schools. So the parents in Texas are outraged that the Muslim education system which is teaching Sharia law because that's their religion. Just like a Christian school would teach biblical covenant law. Parents and the members of the community are outraged that that money is going to the Muslim schools. They are actually now begging the state of Texas to discriminate on where vouchers are paid and to regulate the education associated with vouchers. So the homeschool parents in the community are asking for the government regulation that's going to come and that's going to happen all over the country. Woke and weaponize.com go there right now and get my new book. It outlines the history of American education and why the current public school system can't be reformed. It must be replaced. And this is a well-documented book. Thank you Dr. Benjamin Merkel for writing the forward. And as Sean Ryan said, if you're a parent, read this book. Go to wokenweaponize.com today. Yeah, we in our new book Woke and weaponize Alex Numan, I wrote together. Go look at Sweden. And Sweden took about 19 years from starting school choice to eliminating homeschooling altogether and ripping kids from their parents arms out of airports and airlines when they were trying to flee the country so that they could educate their kids in the way they should go. And I knew and I've been warning as well as that it's not the homeschool kid who's learning that's going to be the issue. It's going to be the Muslims. It's going to be these like Islamic cities that are popping up that now the conservative taxpayers are paying for their G-Hod schools and they're funneling money back to Iran just like the Somali and daycares are funneling money back to the Democrat party and different things. Then we've got CCP, the Communist Party of China through Inter meter Aries actually tried to buy IMG Academy the biggest private school in the world in Florida. And they are buying up schools faster than they can as fast as they can in all of these school choice states so that they can reap these free dollars at the states coming out. So what I is this really we're being told that this is empower parents. It doesn't sound like the reality on the ground is that's what's going to happen. So what are some of those predictions that you've made and have you been surprised at how quickly they're coming to pass because that's almost been my surprise that things that took the Communist and Sweden 20 years to do our Republican legislators are doing in two years. Well let me just say that I have been issuing these warnings now for nearly two decades. So it may appear to be quick but this has been coming through the pipeline now for almost 20 years because I have been I have been warning now what this is 2026 out for 16 years that this that these kinds of things were coming with the vouchers because people have been asking for vouchers for longer than then we've actually had them. And so part of the problem is is that government doesn't give you money because they love you. Government doesn't give you money because they want to empower you. That may be the political rhetoric but the reality is government gives money so they can have power and that's the reality. And nobody can argue otherwise because all of history creates that cell that evident truth. It's an indisputable self evident truth. And the reality is that seizing the language is how people are manipulated and you are right to identify that this is a this is a bipartisan thing. Why? Because government wants power. It's not about the one political party wanting power another political party not wanting power. All political parties are government and all government wants power. I think it was I think it was Thomas Paine who said and and pretty sure was Thomas Paine who said that you should make no mistake. Men want to govern. They may be benevolent governors but they will rule over you. And so what we have to know in an electionary process the same with a monarchial process that every administration brings a new ideology so you can have a benevolent administration who who loves you and wants the best for you but that that administration will hand over power to the next one. And maybe it's not so benevolent but the reality is the power that's handed over never decreases. It always increases. So that's an inescapable truth that you will never have the same ruler all the time and power always expands exponentially which is why our constitutional republic started with government having very limited and defined power. And so what we what we really really have here is a situation where we've been doped. We need school choice. No we don't. We already have school choice. America has school choice. This is not Germany or Sweden yet where you go to prison for trying to homeschool your parents. We don't lack school choice in America. We lack parental priorities because as a self-employed person who you know everybody says oh she's a lawyer she's rich well do your research most lawyers are not rich we are actually the lowest paid profession commensurate to the cost of our education around what you see are the top like one and a half percent who make big money right especially constitutional lawyers so we do all our work for free nobody wants to pay to hear about the constitution right no nobody wants to have the right pay to have a lawyer anyway because that's don't get me started on that propaganda but the reality is we have been duped into believing that the American dream is living in not actually even owning anymore but living in a three-bedroom two- bath house with a two-car garage and three cars in the driveway a flat-screen TV in every room a cell phone in every hand and the eleventh commandment bouschal tab a vacation every year built on debt right so the American dream boils down to the word debt the reality is the American dream is the ability to have independence to live your life and to raise your children according to the dictates of your conscience we have that in America school choice as our legislators define it does not give you more liberty it gives you less liberty and nobody can tell me well what about underprivileged parents you can find in any decade of our history any number of people highly successful people who will tell you I had a single parent who believed in my education who worked hard who sacrificed put me through private school I went to a Christian school where the school gave me scholarships and I got my education that way in America there are innumerable there are innumerable ways to get private scholarships not stuck to government money and people do it all the time not only that I am a Christian I have done a lot of work legal work ministry work I've been a missionary I've represented churches since 2007 the problem with our education system is not that we don't have enough government and education the problem in our education system is that we don't have enough private funding in our education system and if we had churches who had schools that weren't seeking government money if we had business owners who believed in the educational process who gave scholarships without government ties then we would solve this problem as it exists in its places the right way but government is never the right way when you give your children to Caesar for an education don't be surprised when they bow at Caesar amen preach so I agree with you 100% so one of the things that people say well they're actually getting them out of Caesar's footprint because they were pulling them at a public school and now we were able to afford you know private school or home schooling and that's actually getting them farther from Caesar's reach you know you seem to believe that that is a fallacy as as do why so so why do you think that's an inaccurate description about what's going on if you're using Caesar's money Caesar's still educating your children and that also comes down to a misconception that we have in America it based quite interestingly on a truth at the at the foundation of America so the truth at the foundation America is tax dollars belong to the people right that's our money the reality is in our postmodern world tax dollars don't belong to the people they belong to government and if we actually are honest about the way we speak about tax dollars we will see that evidence we refer to tax dollars as government revenue revenue is the product of the holder and is the property of the holder government is fully under this belief that once it is labeled tax dollars it's government money when your public school teachers get a paycheck does it say paid by the people of the state no it comes from the government not only that government tax refunds government giving you money their money anytime you get a tax credit what is that that's not the government letting you keep your money that's the government saying you don't have to pay us what belongs to us so a voucher an educational credit this is all the government saying okay we're entitled to this money but we like this program and we want to keep you happy so we'll let you keep our money it never leaves their possession it never stops being their property they're just allowing you to use it and as long as it is kept legally by the way in the eyes of the law as their property they control it whether it's in your bank account or whether it's in theirs so don't fall under some kind of illusion that the government's doing you a favor by giving you money to leave government school number one that that flies in the face of every logical critical thinking aspect you can government's not going to give you money to escape them government is giving you money to expand their reach into your home and expand their control yeah no a hundred percent i mean whoever pays like it's called public school because the public is funding it like that's why charter schools which are run by private organizations are still public schools so your private school if it's funded by the public is now a public school and that's why i've been trying to explain to people is you're not taking private kids out of public school and putting them into private school you're taking kids that are in private school and putting them into a public school it's it's actually the exact opposite of what they're saying and you're converting your home into government property most people don't realize that when you take this on because there's there's this whole legal principle when you take this on not only will the government exercise control over the education they exercise control over your child so by taking government money you are not only saying i will i will submit to whatever curriculum you want me to have whether they're exercising that power or not it's coming we already know it's coming it's coming in Texas by the demand of the people so you'll take whatever curriculum you have you're also telling the government that they have a fiduciary control over your child they have a financial interest in your child because they're funding your child's education well guess what that means they have a fiduciary interest over the health of your child you take government money you're going to have to submit to whatever the health care demands are of the government and if you don't submit to the health care demands of the government guess what Sweden they're going to come and take your child tell you you're you're neglecting your children's health and and you're engaging in child abuse yeah i mean California already has laws like that around sexual identity and being able to destroy a family rights and so it is coming it's coming to your state i remember when Colorado voted for bush plus eight now it's a deep blue state i mean if you're old enough you will remember California used to be a republican state so don't think that because you like your legislators today that your children and grandchildren are going to like them tomorrow and i really do believe that we're just selling the next generation into yeah into a worse situation than we are today for a temporary financial relief so like as a Christian i want to end on here like your constitutional lawyer and your Christian like what does the bible say about whose responsibility is to educate the children including like funding does god get jealous when we look to other entities to provide for us as as Christians people who believe uh that were his sons and daughters well the bible is very very clear the bible tells us that the children our children are in inheritance from god that means that our children are the greatest treasure next to salvation at least that god has given us and that we will be accountable to god one day about our children and when we stand before god and and god puts in our account the account of our children we're not going to be able to look at god and say well that was the public school who did that or that was the government who did that even if the government establishes some kind of martial law that says your child has to come to public school now i my husband and i talked about this because you never know we know history well enough we never know when something like that might happen and yes our son is now gone and married but we had decided a long time ago that if that ever happened our son would never go it just would not happen um we would die before we let him go into some kind of government custodial care like that. So God is very clear that the parent is the guardian, the owner of the child by inheritance, and God's laws of stewardship then apply to how we raise our children. The Bible says, Seaky first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. God says, Raise your children in the love and admonition of the Lord. And when you do that, these benefits will come to you. So the parents have an Christian parents have an obligation to raise their children in the love and admonition of the Lord to raise them in biblical truth and in stewardship principles. Parents then have a duty of obedience to God to look to God for provision not government because the scripture does not say Seaky first the government and its benefits. It says Seaky first God and his righteousness. And so that's where it comes down to will answer at one day as Christian parents, did we run to Caesar or God? Because the reality is and and I know this comes off harsh. I then people tell me this is harsh. I can't help you if it feels harsh. It's scriptural. The reality is God has made promises to us that he will provide not just for our needs, but for every need over an abundant of what we need as long as we are obedient to his work. Now you can say what you want, but when we stop relying on God and start relying on government, what we're actually saying is God is bankrupt and he needs a government bailout. And I'm not going to stand before God that day in here what that servant from the parable of the talents heard and that I'm a wicked, slothful servant. I want to hear well done, that'll good and faithful servant that day. So everybody has a different measure of faith. Everybody has a different measure of spiritualism and that's between you and God. But for me and my house, we serve God, we don't serve government and we stand with the apostles in Acts 529 and we will obey God over men. Love it. So uh, christenhold.com, I think it's the website. How can people get ahold of you? Do you have any like courses or anything that for students that that people might want to send to really learn what our constitution really is all about? Yes, absolutely. So LibertyFirstSociety.com all spelled out LibertyFirstSociety.com is our online educational platform. We have a homeschool curriculums, we have alacart programs all about American history, the constitution, proper constitutional republic understanding, the things that I created, I created because we homeschooled and I got sick and tired of reevening even the Christian homeschool curriculums that told lies about our constitution, the role of government, what our founders meant for our government, what real history means, and so I wrote them myself. So I actually did a really cool thing this summer is I called it a constitutional deep dive and I did throughout the summer, I published two or three new courses every week where we walked through the constitution itself from the pre from a from a short history through the preamble of the constitution all the way line by line to article seven. And so that is a really amazing resource and one thing that I guarantee to all the people because we have we have all ages of students. One of the things that I really am proud of is that what we do is we bring information at a level that even scholars learn but even six graders understand. And so it's really really great curriculum and what we do is we rely only and I'm pretty sure classical conversations. I mean, that's who you are. Everything that we teach relies on original source documents. So the only time I would ever deviate from an original source document is to show you why what we're doing today is contrary to what we're supposed to be doing. That's awesome. I love it. I'm going to go check it out myself. I hope my listeners go check it out and thank you so much for being on this school choice week series. It's so important that we stand up for our rights and I love didn't it's something that I've said before. Maybe I stole it from you that our God is not bankrupt and he doesn't need a government bailout. So to our listeners, be sure to tune in all week. Go to wokenweaponize.com, pick up my new book that I covered with Alex Newman as we go through the historical context of how government took over of educational system in the United States and how we've all been brainwashed by communist infiltrators. And as I was telling my audience now, don't be woke by be wise. So share today's episode and tune in tomorrow for another exciting episode during the school choice week. God bless. Thank you for listening to Refinning Redrig with Robert Bordance. One more. Make sure to subscribe so you won't miss an episode. You can also follow us on social media to continue the conversation and visit classicalconversations.com/redrig to find out how you can join a local home school community.