Free Talk Live

Two leaders in the European home education movement, a father from Sweden and a German mother, drew tears from the audience as they told a packed conference room about life in exile and the heart-rending decision to flee abroad. While each of their stories was unique, both parents were forced to escape from their homelands due to relentless government persecution when they refused to stop homeschooling.

STOCKHOLM, March 12, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The government of Sweden is taking a hard line against homeschoolers, proposing a bill that will only allow home education under “extraordinary circumstances,” reports the Home School Legal Defense Association. The bill is expected to pass in the Swedish parliament, following a review by the Supreme Administrative Court, and will allow for homeschooling families to face criminal charges.

New Jersey is trying to make life just a little harder for parents of home schooled children.

A US judge has granted ­political asylum to a German family who said they had fled the country to avoid persecution for home schooling their children.

In the first reported case of its kind, Tennessee immigration judge Lawrence Burman ruled that the family of seven have a legitimate fear of prosecution for their beliefs. Germany requires parents to enrol[sic] their children in school in most cases and has levied fines against those who ­educate their children at home.

PARIS -- Governments around the world expelled Syrian ambassadors and diplomats Tuesday, an unusual, coordinated blow to Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime following a gruesome massacre that the United Nations said involved close-range shootings of scores of children and parents in their homes. The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and the Netherlands took action Tuesday against Syrian diplomats. Britain's foreign secretary said the countries involved in Tuesday's expulsions would also push for tougher sanctions against Syria.

A Los Angeles judge has ordered that 60 pounds of pot confiscated by the California Highway Patrol during an arrest be returned to the defendant.

Two Norview High School teachers were placed on paid administrative leave this week after a parent complained that they distributed classroom materials that gave advice on how to deal with police if stopped.

The materials - a one-page handout and a video distributed and aired in a 12th-grade government class - are sponsored by two organizations, one a nonprofit that supports legalization of marijuana and one that calls itself a "decentralized anarchist collective."

Jury nullification, a legal concept that dates back to 17th century England, remains perfectly lawful in the United States, according to a ruling by a federal judge last month.
U.S. District Court Judge Kimba Wood said 80-year-old Julian Heicklin, who was arrested by FBI agents for passing out pamphlets marked "Jury Info" from an organization known as the Fully Informed Jury Association to an undercover agent, was within his legal rights under law to do so. Prosecutors had argued that Heicklin was in violation of U.S. law, which prohibits influencing jurors through written communication.

There are few philosophers whose very name provokes more violent responses than Karl Marx. His stern face, framed by a mass of gray hair, symbolizes for many Americans the costly battles of the 20th century: battles against communism, socialism, and authoritarianism fought in defense of democracy and free-market capitalism. As successive generations of Americans waged those fights, the philosophical disputes at the core of the conflicts embedded themselves into the American soul.