The Homeschooling Candidate?

Some homeschoolers are endorsing Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas Governor, for our 2008 President. They are supporting him because:

“Mike Huckabee, as governor, was the first to appoint a homeschooler to the Arkansas State Board of Education, and to our knowledge the first to do so in any state. He is adamantly opposed to the United NationsConvention on the Rights of the Child and is committed to stopping the erosion of parental rights. He is pro-life. He supports traditional marriage. He believes that the Internal Revenue Service should be abolished and replaced with the Fair Tax–a move that we strongly support because it would greatly benefit homeschooling families.”

Many of these are indeed strong points, along with some of the other things they pointed out such as his strong belief in Yeshua (Yeshua means salvation in Hebrew, which is who and what Jesus is), securing our borders and more.

While it is good that he supports homeschooling and appointed a homeschooler to the Board of Education, I wonder why some of the homeschool laws remain unchanged. I checked two sites for the law-one here and the other one here. In summary, parents have to notify the local school superintendent every year, have to take the same tests at the same time as the public school students do or they will be considered truant, and any student under disciplinary action or unexcused absences will not be allowed to homeschool unless the superintendent allows it, the semester ends or the student has been expelled. As long as you do all these things, he supports the right to homeschool. That does not seem very supportive to me.

If he is President, will he push to have these laws nationwide for homeschooling? Is this really what homeshoolers want?

The Fair Tax issue is also problematic, and has been also referred to as a consumption tax or value added tax (V.A.T.). It will not simplify the existing tax code, nor is it any guarantee that the 16th Amendment will be repealed. Furthermore:

“Although the FairTax would eliminate the filing of all individual tax returns, the FairTax turns every business into a tax collector. Every small service business and every Internet business that does not currently collect state sales taxes will have to collect taxes for the federal government. Every doctor will now have to charge sales tax on his services.
…

The national retail sales tax rate under the FairTax plan is 23 percent. That is on top of state sales taxes that are currently collected by forty-five states. That is on top of the sales tax that many cities and counties also collect. That is on top of the special taxes that exist on hotel rooms in most areas of the country. I suppose that a national retail sales tax would also apply to gasoline. There is no mention of the federal gas tax anywhere in the Fair Tax Act of 2005. No list of taxes that are supposed to be eliminated under the FairTax includes the federal gas tax. Does this mean that there will be an additional 23 percent tax on each gallon of gasoline?”

Not to mention that the Fair Tax will make it easier to raise taxes, besides collecting taxes on stamps, package mailing services and other postal goods. I don’t see how this is helpful to any family, homeschooling or not.

I also found this comment from him curious:

“I come from a state where 86 percent of the elected officials are Democrats,” Huckabee says. “I didn’t try to be a Republican governor.”

If he didn’t try (or want)? to be a Republican governor, why position yourself as a Republican candidate now? This article says he is most like Bill Clinton, as far as charisma and public speaking. That is an odious comparison to most conservatives, supposedly the market he is after.

He was a Baptist pastor and the youngest president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention. He always wanted to run for public office but “fell into ministry instead”. So he was not called by God to be in ministry, he just “fell into it?”

He consistently raised taxes as governor, so we can certainly expect more of that. You can look here to get a rundown of where he stands on various issues, and here to see some of his quotes on education. Here is his stance on creation:

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.” To me it’s pretty simple, a person either believes that God created this process or believes that it was an accident and that it just happened all on its own.

Q: Do you believe literally it was done in six days and it occurred 6,000 years ago?

A: I believe there is a God who was active in the creation process. Now, how did he do it, and when did he do it, and how long did he take? I don’t honestly know, and I don’t think knowing that would make me a better or a worse president.”

That answer really is not that different from John McCain’s stand. The issue for Mike Huckabee is that he is being touted as a true conservative who believes in God, yet he isn’t sure that what God says is true. It’s a puzzlement.

Before endorsing any candidate, we should make sure we truly understand where they are on issues-not by looking at what they or someone else says about them, but by looking into their records and then seeing if we agree with what they believe.

(P.S.)-My apologies for the bolded two paragraphs. I tried numerous times to get them unbolded, but WordPress refused ).

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