Keep Your Filthy Hands Away from My Family

  There seems to be a trend, when people come out of the wood work and attempt to change the status quo, of "discrediting" that person in attempt to inhibit or block their work.  Perhaps some of the most insidious examples of this are people who use their life story as an example and a catalyst for change.
  "This happened to me." 
A trend I am seeing, in silencing the voices of homeschoolers or former homeschoolers who have suffered educational neglect and potentially other more serious consequences of isolation and total parental control over every aspect of their lives, is that of using one's siblings to discredit the other sibling.

Stacy McDonald used Hillary McFarland's sister as a method of making Hillary's groundbreaking book seem like the dramatic rendition of a "vivid imagination."  Interestingly enough, her book and blog sparked a fire that is still setting free quiverfull daughters like me. 
As noted in Quivering Daughters not all homeschooling families are quiverfull and patriarchal, but patriarchal and quiverfull homes will most likely be homeschool homes as well.

See, the problem with using siblings (like Josh Powell's sibling) to discredit potential laws and books written in the face of the "homeschooling produces excellent results every time" and "no abuse here" and "homeschooled girls are so great because they are victorian" is that it tears apart families and makes the point about "she-said-she-said" and not: This is a serious issue that cannot continue.  This needs to be addressed and dealt with.

Children being homeschooled have no rights. 
Daughters under strongly religious families are repeatedly beat down into caricatures of what their families think was best about the past, crippled with sub-standard educations and stunted mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Sons are forced to become "entrepreneurs" instead of "wage slaves chained to desks" and bound to a life of poverty with their futures stolen.

I am angry and I am scared.

See, I have multiple younger siblings still living at home, which is the main reason for my anonymity.  I want to protect them and their way of life, even while I try to dismantle it from the outside.  I know that my parents have been reported for educational neglect (by others and neighbors), but the state they live in has not decided to do anything about it.  I have not lived there in over 3 years, or been allowed to see any siblings under the age of 18.  I get only small glimpses from my older brother or my oldest younger brother when he calls me.

IF I WERE TO SPEAK OUT using my own name, how many of my younger siblings could come foreward and say that I was lying? 
Many of them were not spanked like my older brother was, mostly because my parents no longer had the time to individually deal with offenses.  "Creative punishments" like chores, or enforced hugging, or writing verses were used more, or periods of verbal berating. 
Many of them are males, and therefore will not receive the same kind of spiritual abuse I did, being told that God would not speak to me because I was a child (meaning I had a living father) and a woman.
The younger children have no idea what our father did because it is a "hush hush" family secret so that no one knows that he has no integrity.
 Thats the thing about sin, if you hide all of yours and dont let anyone tell, you look perfect. 

They could easily say that I was "being overly dramatic" about leaving the RP and what happened to the former ministry there.
In fact, many people would back them up on that point.  I was dramatic as a child, singing made-up opera songs at the top of my lungs to get attention.
I also was a "perennial liar" because I would often attempt to tweak the truth or get out of a punishment by inventing white lies or using "deception" as my mom would call it often.  "Not telling the WHOLE truth is deception, and therefore a lie and a sin."  SO, if I got the whole house cleaned, but spent some time on the computer as well; telling her that I worked all afternoon is a deception, a sin, and a LIE.  See, I am not to be believed. 

Anyone who knows my name could get my older brother (who still is a fundamentalist patriarch in beliefs) to "discredit" loads of things that are my empirical evidence, based on his empirical evidence.

But guess what: KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS AWAY FROM MY FAMILY!
HSLDA, and the McDonalds, and anyone else who feels like using sibling against sibling in order to keep their money-making, influential empires intact.
I am here to break down your system, and my family is not a pawn in your game.
When I do break out of my anonymity, I will not allow you to use them against me.
And for those who have already done so (specifically those mentioned above): For Shame.

Shame, shame, shame upon you and your name and legacy.
Your hands are tainted with the shame to which you stoop.
Your legacy is smeared by the abuse you defend and allow to continue.
You have no credibility, so you hurt that of those who do, using the few people who might be able to damage them.  And you use a family to do it.  You are not defenders of the family, but wreckers.

Shame.

People over _______.

  I have a new core doctrine for myself.  I grew up with an extremely rigid set of beliefs, and having something solid, something black-and-white that I can claim as a personal core belief has been very good for me as a person.

This doctrine is: People over ALL.
People over money, people over religion, people over social status, people over problems, people over disagreements, people over feuds, people over politics, people over pain, people over misunderstandings, and people over _____ (insert word).

Basically, this ties into my traumatic experience with being cut off from my family for my religious beliefs.  Unless I agreed 100% and walked lock-step with my father in all of his doctrine and religious pursuits, I was not welcome in my family, and I am considered a "prodigal daughter."
HOWEVER, my caveat to this is that people (especially and specifically those who are abusers) do not get to be raised over things like safety, common sense, personal boundaries, and personal mental health.  I will not allow my father to come visit me because even though he is a person, he has not earned the right to my trust and my heart.  He lost those with his actions and will not get them ever again.
  I will, though, support his right to life, liberty, his personal property (not my siblings persons, they are not his property), and his ability to pursue personal happiness in being religious.  I will not support his attempts to prosyletize if other people dont want him around because I support other people's right to not want to be bothered over his desire to convert.

I participated in an even with my community college yesterday MLK day and we went around the room with questions written on paper about a gamut of current issues.  My question was: Is your freedom worth someone else's pain?  Your money?  You place (in society/church/whatever)?
  Is your freedom to own guns without checks or mandatory locks or any "government snooping" worth the death of kids by accidental shooting from their siblings, the Newton shooting, or other shootings that will happen after this is posted?
  Is your freedom to run a business your own personal way more important that labor laws or pollution ordinances or the rights of your workers to humane treatment, "nominal" working hours, and a living wage?
  Is your freedom to pay yourself millions of dollars as a CEO and bonuses (and then hide it in offshore accounts) more important than the well being of people who are STARVING because government assistance doesnt feed them adequately?

I think people, and the welfare of these people, should come before the things that can be put aside.
Leading up to this is my firm belief that America should be a bigger welfare state.  My Comparative Government professor talked a little bit about Germany having a pretty capitalist economy but with a solid welfare state that provides not only working comp, but years of maternity and paternity leave, as well as health care for everyone, and education for everyone up to college!

This level of advances people-care could happen in America if people were less focused on greed and personal gain and more focused on bettering the lives of EVERYONE they can.
People over all.