Let's start with in school prayer.
I was forced for years to stand up and pray to a bath towel with stars and stripes all over it every morning in a group. I had to pray as well to an imaginary sky deity too. I was gaslighted into a belief that we were one nation, under sky god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
In the educational system, I never really managed to fully understand what liberty meant, but as an adult, I have a pretty good idea and I'm almost 100% sure that it only works if you ignore things like being systematically forced to pray to a dish rag until you become a zealot who becomes offended that someone might call it a bath towel or a dish rag.
Public schools have a tremendous amount to do to compensate for the short comings of children being raised in a country where we're taught to strive for more. To want better. To improve. To anyone like myself who went looking for liberty and justice for all... and left, when I return on visits, I see a country more and more dominated by people lacking simple human values. I can't diagnose the problem, but it greatly disheartens me. I am sad that the country I remember from a different millennium doesn't exist anymore.
We were never perfect. There were always people like yourself who are willing to pay for your religion and beliefs to be forced on my children, but cry out in anger when someone else's beliefs are being forced on other children. And before you claim this isn't true, nationalism and patriotism is a religion or a cult, or whatever else you want to call it. I also take great offense by anyone who supports a two party government. And this means anyone who supports team sports of any kind. I absolutely hate schools who teach out children that we need to make ourselves feel better by dominating other people. I have no problems with kids playing a game. I do take tremendous offense that we teach children that they are better than other children because their school is better than someone else's.
American toxically forces division on the people. We have been and probably always will be forced to believe that every aspect of life is polarized. You're with us or against us. You're part of the solution or part of the problem. etc... We will be forced to choose team red or team blue. We can't like some Chinese people because 1.4 billion people are evil and horrible because we don't like a few people running the country.
American schools exist for no other reason than to teach hate.
See what I did there. I made a statement to be persuasive and to catch your attention. If I were a true American, I would let it stand. But unfortunately, I prefer to have morals and ethics.
American schools are far from perfect. And as an honest to goodness American and as your patriotic duty, you should demand that your taxes be spent to teach children perspectives you don't agree with. This is how we improve. This is how we mature. This is how we build our future. Where I live, in Norway, my civil liberties were severely violated. I was born Jewish and thankfully I've been recovering from that for some time, but my children were forced by the government to attend church and were forced to take many years of religious studies which often were "The jews believe this, the muslims believe this, but WE believe this". And at home, I would teach my children that faith is good, blind faith is wrong. That their grandmother needed religion. I tough them that they have their own choice to make. They can choose to believe in what they're learning at school, they can choose to believe what I believe, or they can choose to walk their own path.
If you don't like what is being taught in the school, this is why we have dinner tables. We can teach our children what we believe at home. We can take the time to raise them. When their friends come over for dinner, we can even share our values with them. This is absolutely our rights.
So, as long as there's forced prayer to nappies on a stick, school sports, etc... and civilized people like myself are forced to pay taxes to support that, you should give a little back. People are being forced to pay taxes to have your horrible beliefs forced children's throats, you can pay a few bucks to let someone else's horrible beliefs forced on other children as well.
