I'm a North Carolina parent who had my kids in the public school until last year. We live in rural NC, so my kids' elementary school was a tight knit community of kids. They had a good experience there. The teachers, with a few exceptions, were good at their jobs and cared about the kids. The parental involvement was mediocre (at best). I spent my days either volunteering or substitute teaching at the school, so I had some pretty clear inside knowledge of the way our particular school worked.

Fast forward to middle school... the behavioral problems at that (much larger) body of students was appalling. In the sixth grade, there would be fights breaking out among the students in the middle of class. My son, who was NOT struggling...

"But the drafters of our Constitution understood something fundamental: that the best protection against oppression lies in a government with limits, not the benevolent personality of whoever happens to be in office at the time."

AMEN! And thank you, Laura Hollis, for writing this much needed article!

OMG... they're going to start imposing extra flatulence taxes on my husband pretty soon!! Too bad, when they could instead use him as a lethal weapon...

I'm appalled, Dan, at the blatant and quite ugly racism in many of your comments. Being the prudish woman that I am, I'm somewhat grossed out by your "kneel with her mouth open" comment as well...

But I want to address your assessment of partial birth abortion as murder and illegal. Just to clarify: Partial birth abortion is not the medical name, but is only a procedure medically known as D&E. The outlawing of this particular PROCEDURE came because people found out how ugly the procedure was and the public felt some amount of outrage. Outlawing a procedure such as this, however, does NOT outlaw all third trimester abortions... it only creates the necessity for a new PROCEDURE, or a reversion to the old one.