Some people say that the so-called culture war is a figment of the conservative imagination. Wrong, wrong, wrong! Read this extract from a bulletin from the frontline of that war. Then read Rod Dreher’s entire piece. It is heartbreaking on two levels – first because it tells the story of helpless victims of crazy ideologues; second because it tells a story of intelligent people being corrupted wholesale by that same crazy “progressivist” ideology.

This morning, for the first time – it has been around for awhile – I watched a video which shows the appalling fulfilment of Allan Bloom’s terrible prophesy of nearly 40 years ago about the future of  American generations. We are now two generations on and this is what America and – God help us – the rest of the West following in its tracks, has left us with.

Now read this extract from Dreher’s snapshot report from the frontline. If you can take any more then read his full reflection.

 I read this op-ed piece from today’s New York Times, in which Katherine Stewart says that people like us — parents who have chosen to withdraw their kids from public schooling, or not to send them there in the first place — are Jesus-crazed racists who hate democracy, or at best useful idiots of said villains. It is liberal crackpottery at its purest. Andrew T. Walker responds:

Most public school parents I know see public schools as as place for their child’s learning, to know one’s neighbor, and to celebrate milestones whether through football games or proms.

In a parallel universe where pluralism and diversity are actual liberal values, this author [Steward] would prize and herald the virtues of school choice as part and parcel of ordered liberty. But not if you see public schooling primarily as a vehicle for social change. The whole op-ed is a shocking revelation of the moral imagination of modern-day progressives — bring your child before the state to receive the requisite social values or else the whole system is being undermined.

Confession: My child attends a classical Christian school. More confession: We chose this for our child because we believe that what public schools value as true, good, and beautiful do not align with what we believe is true, good, and beautiful. It’s a conflict of visions, and in America, we’re blessed to have options.

We teach our child about diversity and seek to live it out. We also want our child to have an education foundation that prioritizes our Christian faith, while also seeing its relevance to modern society’s deepest, metaphysical questions. That’s our personal conviction arrived at by prayer, study, and conscience. Others are free to disagree.

But this is a conclusion that people like Stewart cannot handle, because she cannot cast alternative models of education in any affirmative vision. She can’t conceive of a Christian education model, for example, that is pro-culture, deliberately non-fundamentalist, and one that seeks to nurture and incubate the pillars that propped up a free society — among them human dignity.

Read the whole thing. Then read David French’s response to Stewart, focusing on her demonizing the term “government schools” as a dog whistle. Excerpt:

Why do libertarians and Christians intentionally increasingly use the term “government schools” to describe public education? First, because it’s true. Public schools are government schools. Second, because it’s clarifying. Too many Americans are stuck in a time warp, believing that the local school is somehow “their” school. They don’t understand that public education is increasingly centralized — teaching a uniform curriculum, teaching a particular, secular set of values, and following priorities set in Washington, not by their local school board. The phrase is helpful for breaking through idealism and getting parents to analyze and understand the gritty reality of modern public education. The phrase works.

And so it must be squashed. And there’s no better way to discredit any modern idea than by tying it to a Confederate past. It’s certainly easier than addressing the core of the fundamental idea — that it’s better for America if more parents enjoy the educational choices that wealthy progressives take for granted.

Wealthy Americans have enormous educational advantages. They can afford private-school tuition (and many do just that). They can afford homes in the best school districts. They can employ private tutors and create the most lavish and interactive home-schooling experience. The rest of America? They’re typically reduced to no choice at all. There’s the mediocre public school in the moderately priced neighborhood or the dreadful school in the cheapest district. That’s it. There is nothing else.