Have you heard about "Patrick Henry College" and/or Michael Farris?

[Up2Late]

If not, you should. This is one of the guys who is quietly screwing up this country.

Patrick Henry College. founded in the year 2000 is "...the first university in America for Christian home-schooled children and even though PHC has only 160 Graduates, it Graduates make up the highest percentage of current White House interns (7.0%).

Michael Farris, the PHC Founder and current President is dangerously delusional, to the point that he should probably be thought of as a Cult Leader, if he isn't already.

If you have the time, you should hear this interview from yesterday's Fresh Air w/Terry Gross. She did a good job asking this guy what most of his Fundamentalist Rules and Rhetoric meant, but since their are so many crazy contradictory Rules, your head may explode if you try to understand the way this guy thinks.

Patrick Henry College's Michael Farris

(runtime 41:29)
Listen to this story...(at link)

Fresh Air from WHYY, May 24, 2006 · Michael Farris is the co-founder
of Home School Legal Defense Association and the president of Patrick Henry College,
the first university in America for Christian home-schooled children.
The school, located in Purcellville, Va., grooms its students for leadership.

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5427797>

[Virginia Dare]

1. Oh yes, it is right in my backyard...

here in Virginia, basically it is a factory for turning out right-wing fundie nutjobs. Nice, eh?

[LeftyMom]

2. He's an asshole exploiting the HSing community for financial gain

HSLDA creates fear that state governments are undermining homeschooling laws, then uses that fear to get people to join in the hope that HSLDA will provide them with legal protection should they need it. However HSLDA often undermines homeschooling laws by attempting to speak for the whole community rather than the small percentage of fundamentalist school-at-home types who constitute thier base and by undermining efforts by state homeschooling organizations who know the local legal climate better and generally are more inclusive in terms of religion, politics and teaching methodology.

So yeah, Michael Farris can kiss this homeschooling mother's ass.

[October]

3. Thanks, LeftyMom -- I'm another liberal homeschooler mom

I'm sick to death of being bashed by Bill Maher, Jimmy Kimmel and others who assume only fundamentalists homeschool.

We're doing it for myriad reasons -- mostly because both of my children are pursuing performing arts -- but there are academic reasons, too.

[LeftyMom]

4. As I try to remind people around here

Fundies were late to homeschooling. They didn't start HSing in significant numbers until the 80's when a change in tax law closed a lot of small church schools. The modern resurgence of homeschooling was well established by that point, Holt's Growing Without Schooling magazine was nearly a decade old, many states had changed thier laws to allow homeschooling and others had court cases in process. They showed up, created parallel fundamentalist homeschooling networks (there's a reason most states have two homeschooling organizations, one Christian and one inclusive) and then revised history to declare that since they did not interact with non-fundamentalist homeschoolers that they did not exist and the whole movement was about them. The media bought into it because self-aggrandizing big haired fundamentalists teaching 8 kids about Jayzus 'round the kitchen table to protect them from sex ed and tolerance of gay people makes for a more sensational story than a mix of back-to-the-landers, academics and just plain normal people teaching thier kids at the pace that suits them best. :shrug:

[Alcibiades]

5. Only 16 profs

of whom, according to the show, five were forced to resign for heresy.

I listened to the show. Farris sounds like an academic, but he's got his facts all wrong, as in his false conflict between "tolerance" and "liberty." To make the two seem incompatible, he has to go back to the regime of William and Mary! I particularly liked the part wherein he declared all of academia to be liberal, citing as proof a study by a prof at Northwestern! He also badly bungles Thomas Jefferson, citing him when its convenient without noting at all the clear distinction between Jefferson's creationist deism and what fundies believe. He also praises an "orthodox" definition of christianity while praising the founding generation, without noting that this generation was heterodox in its own context and probably would be heterodox in his context.

Thankfully, his school is minuscule, and I hope it continues to be an intellectual backwater for many years to come. I also pray that the rapture comes and sweeps these self-righteous zealots up to heaven posthaste, so that we don't have to listen to their prattle any longer.

[Up2Late]

7. Exactly, I'm glad you pointed out those contradictions. As a victim...

...of the Indiana Public Schools, who was never taught any of what you just sited, I knew what he was saying was wrong, but would have to go back and actually learn those things for the first time to know what was actually the truth.

What I found most outrageous was, if you listen carefully to what he actually said, trying to ignore the nice, calm tone of voice he used to say it, his bigotry slips out in little chunks of RW spin and propaganda.

I wrote down some of the worst like:

Speaking of the current "climate" on Collage campuses, he called it "Coercive Utopianism"

And the "...current FAD of Tolerance"

And that his schools philosophy of "Liberty, not Tolerance"

Like I said, you have to listen closely to catch these very scary nuggets of bigotry due of the calm, soothing way his slips them into his speech.

[Alcibiades]

11. Coercive Utopianism

"Coercive Utopianism"--that's funny, I had thought that was what the war in Iraq was all about.

It's as though Patrick Henry is a kind of Bizzarro world, where taxation to provide social services to the poor is coercive and utopian but a massive invasion to impose a "democratic" puppet regime on Iraq is not.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. How bizarre. I learned of this for the first time at lunch today.

I homeschool and my parents asked me if I'd heard about it. Clearly I'm an advocate for choice in educational options, but this college gives me the heebies.

How do I go about starting a college to groom homeschooled liberal secular politicians?

[Up2Late]

8. Probably just do the exact opposite of what this guy did, except the Feds

...would probably raid your campus and accuse you of being a Communist, in today's America, if you did do the polar opposite.:(

[Up2Late]

9. kick n/t

:kick:

[Up2Late]

10. kick n/t

:kick: