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This is an excerpt from a speech given by Kevin Swanson, the executive director of the Colorado Home School Association, at a banquet that was part of Homeschool Day at the state Capitol.
April 8, 2005

In Patrick Henry's Footsteps

by Kevin Swanson

One-hundred and twenty years ago, when Laura Ingalls Wilder walked into her one-room schoolhouse, there were no police officers in the hallways, and not a single arrest made the entire school year. A police officer in Colorado Springs recently told me that he makes an arrest a day at a high school in that city.

One-hundred years ago, there were barely 3-4 percent of children born without fathers. Today, that rate has grown to 35 percent. One-hundred years ago, 24-year-old men had no idea what transsexuals were. Today, 6-year-olds know what transsexuals are. We saw one at the restaurant the other day.

Two-hundred years ago, our forefathers went to war over 67 cents of taxation.. The federal government taxed the average citizen $1 in 1787. Today, each citizen pays $6,000 a year in federal taxes, an increase of 9000 percent adjusted for inflation. The government takes almost 50 percent of our income in taxes, whereas in 1913, that number was just under 10 percent.

Our nation has changed profoundly. And the worst part of it is that most people have no idea what they live in. We have perfectly patterned our lives after the Benjamin Franklin quote, "Either you'll be governed by God, or by God you'll be governed."

The agenda of the left is plain. They want 70 percent of children born without fathers – 35 percent is not good enough. They want 75 percent of our income taken in taxes, not just 50 percent. They are not satisfied with 50 percent of marriages ending in divorce. Let's make that 80 percent!

But, thank God, there are 30,000 homeschool moms and dads in Colorado who have turned to a burgeoning government and said, "NO!" Thank God, there are some who see the battle as the destruction of the family by means of a government that would control and displace the family.

The Pilgrims of a previous century saw the danger of a government that wanted to control the church. They boarded a ship and sailed to America.

There are roughly as many Pilgrims in this room today as there were Pilgrims on the Mayflower. The Pilgrims today have boarded a ship and taken their families away from government institutions that are hell-bent on destroying the family.

Can we turn the tide with a mere 2 million pilgrims that have pulled out of the harbor? I think so. It has been done before. It can be done again.

Two million strong in this country are willing to say: "Maybe Karl Marx was wrong on his 10th plank ... Free Public Education for all. Maybe Rousseau, the father of the modern statist, humanist world, the father of the modern godless state, the man who envisioned a world without family, a world without parents, maybe he was wrong."

Of course, 2 million students are a mere drop in the bucket compared to 60 million public-schooled students.

"They tell us, sir, that we are weak, unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week ... or next year ... will it be when we are totally disarmed ... and when a guard is stationed in every house ... to check on your vaccinations ... and your standardized tests?

"Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Two millions of people armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.

"Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battle alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery.

"It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace peace, but there is no peace. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentleman wish? What would they have? Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death."