We are beginning to enter a very politically anemic time of the year – the month of August.

History has shown politics to become rather dull during the Dog Days of Summer. Congress takes a break, political campaigns tend to tighten their belts and make fewer appearances, blog traffic takes a nose dive, and “the folks” become more concerned with “back to school” than what’s happening nationally.

Right now we have recently graduated teenagers getting ready to embark on their first taste of adulthood – college. Those institutions of higher learning where they will be receiving a steady diet of liberal indoctrination washed down by the Koolaid flavor of the month.

Those who are getting ready to send their know-it-all college freshmen to the Liberal Indoctrination Centers of America campus of their choice need to be asking themselves some very important questions.

• “Have we prepared our child for the onslaught they are about to face?”

• “Have we instilled enough of our values in our child to do battle with forces that will tempt them down the path of self destruction?”

• “Is my child prepared to stand up for what he/she believes in, in the face of the secular progressive bum rush they are about to encounter?”

• “Does my child have the skills to resist the peer-pressure that is about to tempt them into socialist advocacy?”

Traditionally college is a time of experimentation and rebellion. Back in the 60s when most institutions of higher learning were run by people with more conservative values, the way to rebel was to espouse liberalism. But things have changed. Liberalism would be conformist today, despite the fact that those who protest on campuses say they are fighting the system. The fact is liberalism is the system on college campuses across this nation. The message that is being delivered by the pinheads running Congress is the same message being delivered at the college protest marches of today. So how rebellious is that?

As a conservative parent you must be instilling into your child that in today’s political climate to be a liberal is to be conformist and part of the establishment - especially at college. To be Conservative and/or a Christian is to go against the grain. And if they wish to leave a rebellious mark on their campus in their limited time there, to be openly Conservative and/or Christian is the way to go.

As a Conservative parent, you must begin this fight in their JUNIOR year in high school. When they first begin to look into which college or university they wish to attend. If you have the means it is preferable to seek admissions to private institutions which have a stronger Conservative or religious tradition.

As a Catholic, I would be looking to send my child to an institution which has a strong Saint John Neumann Center or a Catholic university such as Franciscan University of Steubenville or the University of Dayton which has a strong Catholic tradition. That is if I had the means to send my college age child to a private institution.

If a state school is the only way I could do it, I would seriously consider having my child do his/her first 2 years at a branch campus where they live at home rather than staying in a dorm or off campus housing. This would minimize their exposure to extracurricular liberal influences.

If you have a child just beginning high school, it is not too early to start planning for “what’s next”. Here in Ohio we have what they call “Post Secondary Enrollment Option” where a high school student can actually take classes at a branch campus of a state university where they would get both high school AND college credits.

A student just entering high school needs to be educated by their parents that the only way to get ahead of the curve is to have the grades which qualify them for such programs while in high school. This would reduce the number of years of study required after high school to achieve the degree level they are aspiring to for their career of choice. And in turn then reduce the amount of liberal indoctrination your child is exposed to once they leave the nest.

To those who have small children or who are not yet parents but are planning on being parents there is a lesson to be learned as well. A lesson that has gone largely ignored since the 1960s when liberal thinking took over the institutions of higher learning in this country. This is the lesson of being responsible parents.

In my faith marriage is a sacrament and religious vocation which has the goal of raising children in the faith. If you are faithful to those duties, your children are prepared. But let us remember that as Americans we are busy people. We allow ourselves to become politically apathetic, develop political ADHD, over use the electronic babysitters, and succumb to the idea that our needs outweigh those of others in our lives, such as our own children.

This is the reason why children even in this day in age are allowed to roam the streets unmonitored which leads to delinquency and the use of controlled substances by increasingly younger and younger children. A parent conscious of their responsibilities as a parent would know what their children are doing at every moment of the day. Active involvement in your child’s life will head off any negative influences on the streets.

Increasingly we are seeing the secular progressive message creep its way into the classroom. We’ve had high school teachers campaigning for office in class. We’ve had high school teachers engaging partisan politics in the classroom. We have the encroachment of sex education at increasingly lower grade levels even to the fact that a parent was arrested in Massachusetts for raising his objections to his 5 year old coming home with a book entitled “Why Does Heather Have Two Mommies”.

There is only one answer to this. There is only one way to counter it. It is called responsible parenting. If you are unable to be a responsible parent now when your child is young, by the time they get to college, that is if they make it to college, it will be nearly impossible to assist in molding them into responsible citizens. You must start now or the war is lost.

Your child needs to know what responsible citizenship is and it isn’t the public school system that will be teaching it. You need to know what was taught in your child’s classroom daily. You need to ask your child, “What did your teacher teach you today,” so that you can counter any negative influences.

If this seems like a lot of work, it is. But you decided to have the child and you are under obligation to GOD to be certain that they are raised with a values system consistent with your religious teachings. You are under an obligation to your country and your community to raise a child who will enjoy their freedoms as an American within the acceptable boundaries of society. And this job starts before they even enter school.

You have an obligation to meet with your child’s teacher and investigate that teacher. And not just when the school system schedules a “parent – teacher conference” that is little more than a cattle call of parents where they give you the same old song and dance that is all about your child and not about their teaching.

Make no mistake about it, public school teachers are part of the problem and abandoning your child into the quagmire known as public education is irresponsible. This is the reason why we need school choice voucher programs so that we can send our children to schools where they will be taught how to read, write, factor numbers, the history of our nation without modifications, and the value systems that we ourselves believe in.

And that’s the rant.

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