Not in Hawai’i, it seems.

My grandchildren and their friends in the neighborhood and at church love playing school. And they do learn and teach each other a lot. Especially with a nearby parent or grandparent to push in just the right way. Fortunately, we are in the Black Hills. Not in the Fiftieth State.

The Foundation for Economic Education recently published the sad tale of rural families in Hawai’i – on the Big Island itself – who tried to help their children survive and thrive in the triple-threat environment. Triple? At least: the Beer Flu lockdown, the rapid deterioration of American public (government-run theft-funded) schools, and the Woke initiative.

The State took them off to court and tried to levy $55,000 in fines for “operating an unlicensed preschool” since some of their children were under age 5 or 6. And because they were working together (several families) and even got paid (which they paid for) from professional educators. And were incorporated and all sorts of other things that made them more visible to the government thugs.

It seems that in education matters in the 50th State, no good deed goes unpunished. After all, it’s “fah the childrun, don’t yah know.” You wonder if the “men in black” would show up if somebody ratted out a group of kids playing school out on the front porch?

But it isn’t just in education that Hawai’i is one of the more totalitarian of American States. If those kids were instead pretending to have a wedding out on the front lawn, those same State thugs could no doubt find reasons to arrest and charge their parents. Why? Because in Hawai’i, it is illegal for anyone – even a preacher, elder, or other religious leader to marry someone unless they have a license from the State to do so. A license which among other things requires you to meet certain “qualifications” (like “ordination” by a recognized religion and education), and obey all of the State laws – including those about what “marriages” you can be required to officiate over, regardless of religious or moral beliefs.

Now, to us here at The Price of Liberty, there are several similarities here.

First, follow the money. Admittedly, the license and registration fees for marriages (and the officiants) are probably not a major source of income to Hawaiian governments. But every buck sucked out of ordinary people’s pockets into the bank accounts of bureaucrats and politicians? Win!

Second, there is both money and creating and enforcing monopolies and other forms of destroying free markets. For schools, you have the teachers and their powerful unions: every student counts when it comes to sucking up taxpayer money via state and local funding. And the school certification requirements ensure that professional teachers have full employment, and the colleges have a steady stream of suckers paying tuition and fees to get their permission slips to teach the little monsters. While also being indoctrinated into the latest and maximum Wokeness. For the wedding business? Yeah, all those “professional” religious leaders: “pastors” and “bishops” and “spiritual leaders.”

And of course: control. You can’t escape the propaganda and indoctrination which government-run, tax-funded schools dish out if you can’t afford an alternative. And as for churches and synagogues and mosques? Well, they aren’t going to risk getting the State down on them because they don’t have a properly-licensed guy (or gal) on staff. And the State goons have every power to come inspect at any time to enforce State law. (And how long before even the Sunday schools and Bible classes are determined to be “illegal, unlicensed” daycare centers and schools.

Just these three areas are enough to discredit the State and local governments about any neutrality or compelling interest. As is so often the case, “protecting children” from a few bad actors is an excuse to crack down on all.

And especially on pushing whatever Woke, politically-correct fad is on the front burner now. There is not just gold in those laws, there is raw power. What more could political parasites want?