RobertNashville

Good question...personally I haven't heard his name mentioned very often but that could change. What I know of him I like but I really don't know all that much about him...that said, I think he is at least worth taking a look at (assuming he is even interested).

I don't know how to answer the religious issue because I don't know what religion you are talking about. I'm not a follower of the straight path so of course I would not follow an Islamic religious course of instruction.  However, I'm having a difficult time imagining that the religious differences you have with any of the common faiths represented in the U.S. is quite that extreme. As to the LEA question it's moot in my case...as I indicated to DaveTN in an earlier post, homeschooling was not yet in play then in any significant way.

In 2012 it would have been okay with me too...but no longer.   Slightly better than the liberal/socialist candidate on the other half of the ticket is no longer good enough for me especially if they are dead wrong on those couple of issues on which I will not compromise.

I'm not looking for a unicorn...I'm not looking for perfection because no one can or will be perfect but I refuse to believe that there are no honest men/women in the world...people of strong character with a strong moral compass  who are/could run for public office.  If there truly aren't any more with those qualifications then all the political and philosophical things we passionately argue and converse about here...all the campaign contributions...all the hours spend working for and supporting a candidate are a complete and utter wast of time. If your assertion is correct then the only logical thing for any of us to do is to disengage and shore up our own lives for the pain that is coming.   I'm not looking for perfection but I will not punch the voting button for candidates that don't meet certain of my expectations...there aren't many issues that are so important to me that I won't vote for someone (even if they are great on everything else) but there are a couple of those issues and I will NOT vote for such candidates who take the wrong position on one or any of those few issues.

I don't know what tenants of your faith is so specific or unusual that none of the church based systems can work for you...or why you can't still use them but teach to your own specific personal beliefs?? But, that sort of brings me to my next point...   As I was reading your post it occurred to me that regardless of whether a curriculum is "dictated" by the local school district or not, I don't believe they can keep you from ALSO teaching the truth and the facts as you know them to be true.  Then, from Tennessee Home Education I found information that seems to suggest doing exactly that and they say that the LEA cannot dictate curriculum "Registering with the LEA is free. The LEA cannot dictate curriculum, can't require you to have them approve it, doesn't provide curriculum, can't inspect your home or your child's schoolwork, and probably won't give you much help in homeschooling at all. Your child will be required to be tested in 5th, 7th & 9th grades" SOURCE: http://tnhomeed.com/Start.html   I'm not saying your understanding of the law is wrong - I truly don't know but at the very least I'd check out this group (if you haven't already) and/or an attorney who is familiar with the laws in TN regarding home schooling.

Where; because I don't see them either in office or running for office.

The movie is good but frankly, the real Captain Phillips bears a lot of the responsibility for what happened to his ship as I understand the facts.

The "bathwater" is the public school system and it's contaminated beyond cleaning.   These anecdotal incidents have gone fare beyond infrequent odd happenings - they are happening everywhere and all the time. This past December a high school senior in Georgia was suspended for a year for...gasp...hugging a teacher...he won't graduate this spring...he won't qualify for the sports scholarship he was going to receive all because he hugged a teacher.  Georgia is trying to pass a law that will require, under penalty of law for non-compliance, parents to inform the school district if there are firearms in the home when then enroll their children or if they buy any firearms after that while the child is in school. Why the hell does ANYBODY need to know if I or anyone else has firearms in my home just because I have children in a public school?  Are they going to start dictating what books I can read next???  Then there is the recent crap (and all the prior crap coming from the Feds) such as what started this thread in the first place! If that kind of crap can happen in Georgia there is absolutely no reason to think it can't happen in Tennessee or anywhere else and what is being dictated by the government and the teacher's unions and the rest of the cesspool of liberal thought is happening in Tennessee because Tennessee schools can't escape it.   Have you looked at what has been and is being taught to students who were/are in the education tract in college today or what is being required by administrations and state and federal governments?  Everyone wants to think that THEIR school system is different but it isn't different...the system is corrupt and beyond repair...it needs to be abolished and the government needs to stop taxing people to support it.  Then, if individual parents want to come together with other parents and have a school where their children attend without Washigton or Nashville telling them what and how they must teach then fine...that's the only kind of public school that should exist.   If you or anyone else wants to keep their kids in the public school system ...if they think that's what's best that's fine...it's their choice.

If we would have those leaders "then"...why can't we find them now. If real leaders and real statesmen who loved the country, our history, and what it right would step up to the plate maybe we wouldn't have to have a complete breakdown in society that IS coming.

In my child-rearing years, there was no "home school" movement. While the seeds of the modern movement began in the early 60's it wasn't really widespread, especially in my area, until the mid 80's.   My involvement with home schooling had been on the periphery...though my family and their young children; through families at church/other friends and their experiences and seeing the product of their efforts as well as seeing the "other side" by interacting daily with the product of our wonderful public school system.   For the benefit of everyone else here; I'm not saying that good parenting can't make a real difference in their children's lives. Certainly; it's the parents and not the building/place that is most important.  But I know of no one who can spend nearly as much time counteracting the garbage their children are fed in public schools where they spend hours every day being indoctrinated by a corrupt, politically correct system that is devoid of morals or ethics and filled with teaching that is hostile to the concepts, beliefs, and truths most of use here cling to. Not to mention the music, TV and video games that are competing for parents' time with their children. 

I didn't say they were inexpensive; I said the people can generally afford to pay for what's important to them.  Of course, if we weren't all being robbed to pay for the worthless public school system families would have more disposal income to spend for their own children's education.   I simply don't accept your assertion that home schooling isn't an option; it's working and working extremely well for thousands of TN families.  But...I guess if you don't want to home school or can't afford private schools and you want a school devoid of any religious thoughts, moral principles and filled with socialistic, America-hating rhetoric then the public schools are a great place for that! ;)

If you want to ignore what's going on in the public schools that's fine.   However, anyone who can be aware of what is happening in public schools, even here in Tennessee and not recognize the problem is simply choosing not to know. You don't get kids being expelled for playing with airguns ON THEIR OWN PROPERTY or 5 year old children being branded criminal sex offenders unless the is something VERY systemically wrong with the whole rotten system.

Turbo Tax and all other tax prep software (as will most human preparers) will ask a LOT of questions because the answers will dictate what actually does need to be reported. One of the advantages of using the software or a good preparer is that they will ask the right questions! :)

It's too late tonight for me to start looking up statistics but... Given just how I've seen society change in the past 50 or so years Our prison population (even taking specific drug related crimes out of the equation) The general lack of rational thought/critical thinking or even basic skills of many of the younger people I encounter I suspect there are plenty of actual statistics that would show that a majority of public school graduates don't even have a basic grasp or appreciation of history, literature, mathematics, science, critical thinking ability or little if any moral compass to guide them. Of course, I've also seen a general "dumbing down" of expectations and standards so depending on what standards are used, perhaps statistics won't support what I have observed personally. :shrug:

Exactly, "homeschooled children have parents that take a very active role in their child's education" which is as it should be.   The schools are the problem or at the very least, the center of the problem and are beyond salvation given their current state of existence. Not a week goes by that something outlandish doesn't happen in the public school system and I don't just mean NYC or LA or Clevaland ...a child expelled for making his pop tart look like a gun or:   "A 16-year-old student called a "good kid" by her principal will be tried as an adult on two felony charges after conducting what her classmates called "a science project gone bad '   "6-year old Hunter Yelton kissed classmate and get charged with sexual harassment"   "The mother of 8-year-old Jordan Bennett said her son was only playing with his friend at Harmony Community School in St. Cloud.  She fears his one-day suspension, which was handed down Friday [9/27/2013], wrongly labels Jordan as a violent person.  There was nothing in his hand.  He used his thumb and index finger, Bonnie Bennett told a local TV station.  It was a game.  He made no threatening advances or threats to harm anyone.  No words were said.  They took a child that has never been in trouble before and went to the extreme, the mother continued.  A child that has no history of violence is now classified as a violent offender."   "The arrests of several students who unwittingly and accidentally violated school weapon policies has some Georgian lawmakers saying "zero tolerance" makes zero sense.  A Cobb County high school senior was charged with the felony of bringing weapons into a school zone after police found fishing knives in a tackle box in his car.  Cody Chitwood, a 17-year-old student at Lassiter High School and avid fisherman, turned himself in and was released on $1,000 bond. The alleged offense occurred on private property, well away from their school."   "Like thousands of others in Hampton Roads, Khalid Caraballo plays with airsoft guns.  Caraballo and his friend Aidan were suspended because they shot two other friends who were with them while playing with the guns as they waited for the school bus.  The two seventh graders say they never went to the bus stop; they fired the airsoft guns while on Caraballo's private property.  Aidan's father, Tim Clark, told WAVY.com what happened next lacks commons sense.  The children were suspended for possession, handling and use of a firearm."   The above are just a fraction of available examples; I could fill pages with such. Even worse, the above has nothing to do with the so-called "history" and "science" and social engineering children are being taught today. Certainly; parents who care can have a significant impact and undo some of the damage but not all of it...not nearly all of it.   As harsh as it sounds, I rally don't care and can't help kids who have parents who don't care and use school as a day care center.  It's not mine or any other person's responsibility to provide daycare for the children of parents who don't care. That sucks for those children; it really does...but parking them in public schools aren't going to help them because if they learn much of anything it will just be how to be good little slaves with minds that have had every original thought forced out of their brains.   The discussion I see centering around public schools is uncannily similar to discussions about Congress - most people like their Congressman but think most of the others should go which is part of the reason why so many incumbents get re-elected...most people think that the kind of idiocy we see in the public schools on an almost weekly basis can't/isn't happening in their school; that's it's just other schools in other states or other counties where children are being indoctrinated into the welfare state-America is bad mindset and where  five year old children are labeled as sex offenders for holding hands with another child. The entire system is corrupt...good teachers, and there are good teachers and administrators, don't have a chance in Hell of changing anything or making a difference against a system that forces them to comply.   It's time to get out of the mindset that we need government run public schools...they need to go or at the very least, parents who care need to stop using them so that at least their children have a significant chance of being functioning, moral, literate adults.

I would suggest that any "conservative" that still would consider Rubio "conservative" has a very broad definition of conservatism! I'm not looking for a perfect candidate but there are some issues that are simply too important to overlook and issues I will not overlook...wanting to give 20 million criminals amnesty is one of them.  However, amnesty for illegals in only one of his problems (or should be) for conservatives not the least of which is that he flat out lied about his real convictions to get the support of Tea Party folks and then showed his true colors quickly after getting elected. We have plenty of liars in politics already...we don't need any more.

Decades of history suggests you arr incorrect; not only are they not "left behind"; they are ahead of their "public school" counterparts academically (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/nov/30/testing-proves-success-of-grads/ ). Moreover, put two side by side and talk to them for 5 minutes and you'' have no trouble picking out the far better educated and well rounded of the two and it will be the one that was home schooled. It's "public education" (or at the very least, public education that isn't 100% controlled and funded directly by the parents with children in them) which should be outlawed.

There are plenty of private schools around, including those that hold to no particular religions faith...aside from that, HOME SCHOOLING. And no, just because you have to teach per their instructions is NOT the same as them sitting in their classrooms and inundated with their garbage...you can still teach them the TRUTH as well as the "facts" dictated by the State. Teaching as the State dictates is teaching them to pass tests...real TEACHING is about teaching them how to be functioning, literate, critical thinking adults. As I said above, parents have to be willing to make the sacrifice...leaving your children to the public school system is tantamount to just turning them over completely to the government. Most of us can afford what me make a priority. Leave your kids to the public centers of introdoctranation and you get idiocy like this: http://www.mississippigunnews.com/missouri-bill-turns-parents-who-own-guns-into-criminals/  

JayC and Chuckshoes...when you guys start agreeing with me I start to get nervous.  :panic:

I've asked it over and over again on this and other forms; why in the world any parent allow his children to be in the public school system today? Get your children out of the public schools; do what you have to do, sell your house, sell your car Sell some guns whatever it takes - if you love your children get them out of the public schools. It's too late to try and change them (the schools), all you can do now is get your kids away from them.

I really don't see that any of it matters. As long as we have a federal reserve continuing to pump completely worthless money into the economy and perhaps even having melted down and sold all the gold is supposed to have in safekeeping and an administration that continues to spend 45% more than it receives in taxes; this economy is going to have no choice but to collapse in on itself. Once that happens, tax rates and about 95% of the rest of the things we worry about going to be non issues - we'll all just be trying to survive.

That's all well and good but what exactly are you going to do about it? I'm sick to death of political correctness. I'm disgusted that people know so little about history. I hate that our public school system is nothing more than indoctrination centers for the next wave of socialism. But I long-ago reconciled myself for the simple fact that I can only control "me". I can't stop the world from engaging in political correctness nor can I horsefeed people correct historical facts or control how the public school system is run. I can control myself and I can support organizations that fight against this stupidity. Other than that I'm at a loss for what else I can do.

Again, I'm not in any way suggesting that the civil war should engender these feelings; I'm only recognizing that it does engender them. 

Exactly correct.   Rubio is dead to any true conservative as well he should be.

Because I've been involved enough, long enough and had had enough person to person conversations with enough legislators to have a pretty good sense of what is and what isn't possible with the current makeup.   This horrid parking lot bill passed last year should be a clear indication that these people have NO intention of actually restoring our full 2A rights. Anyway, if you think I'm wrong then call your State Senator and State Representative and get them to introduce the bill...assuming you can even get them to do so see how far it gets.