Do parents have a right to control the upbringing of their children, especially when it comes to what their children should be exposed to in terms of sexual practices and intimate relationships?

That question goes to the heart of the battle being played out in school districts and courts across America right now over parental rights and whether parents essentially forfeit those rights when they send their children to a public school. On one side of the debate are those who believe, as the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, that "the child is not the mere creature of the state" and that the right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children is a fundamental liberty interest protected by the U.S. Constitution. On the other side are government officials who not only believe, as the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in Fields V. Palmdale School District PSD (2005), that "[s]chools cannot be expected to accommodate the personal, moral, or religious concerns of every parent," but go so far as to insist that parents' rights do "not extend beyond the threshold of the school door."

A recent incident in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, clearly illustrates this growing tension over whether young people, especially those in the public schools, are wards of the state, to do with as government officials deem appropriate, in defiance of the children's constitutional rights and those of their parents. On two separate occasions this year, students at Memorial Middle School in Fitchburg were administered surveys at school asking overtly intimate and sexually suggestive questions without their parents' knowledge or consent. Students were required to complete the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) at school, a survey that asks questions such as "Have you ever tried to kill yourself?", "Have you ever sniffed glue, or breathed the contents of spray cans, or inhaled any paints?", and "With how many people have you had sexual intercourse?" Older students were also given the Youth Program Survey, which asks true/false questions about a student's beliefs about contraception ("I feel comfortable talking with any partner I have about using a condom") and sexual activity ("I have had oral sex at some point in my life").

"It's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it." - George Carlin

"There's a reason education sucks, and it's the same reason it will never, ever, ever be fixed," said comedian/social commentator George Carlin in 2005. That's because, according to Carlin, "the owners of this country don't want that." And by owners, he's referring to the wealthy who "own everything." Warming to his rant on the American Dream, Carlin continued:

"They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They've got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying - lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else."

If things keep progressing as they have been, however, there won't be much left for the rest of us in terms of wealth, power, or resources. As it now stands, the upper 1 percent of Americans already control 40 percent of the nation's wealth and take in nearly a quarter of the nation's income. Included among these very rich and powerful are mega-corporations such as General Electric that manage to rake in obscene profits while paying little to nothing in taxes. For instance, despite pulling in more than $14 billion in 2010, GE not only paid no taxes, but it also managed to claim more than $3 billion in government tax credits. All the while, more and more Americans are struggling to find jobs, keep jobs, and stop the banks from foreclosing on their homes.

"The minute the FBI begins making recommendations on what should be done with its information, it becomes a Gestapo." - J. Edgar Hoover

The history of the FBI is the history of how America - once a nation that abided by the rule of law and held the government accountable for its actions - has steadily devolved into a police state where laws are unidirectional, intended as a tool for government to control the people and rarely the other way around.

The FBI was established in 1908 (as the Bureau of Investigation) by President Theodore Roosevelt and Attorney General Charles Bonaparte as a small task force assigned to deal with specific domestic crimes, its first being to survey houses of prostitution in anticipation of enforcing the White Slave Traffic Act. Initially quite limited in its abilities to investigate so-called domestic crimes, the FBI slowly expanded in size, scope, and authority over the course of the 20th Century.

"At the time of their adoption, the Bill of Rights represented the high point of a courageous struggle to pass on the relatively new idea that rule of law must forever stand as a check upon governmental power." - Bernard Swartz

On September 17, 1787, the final draft of the Constitution was adopted by members of the Constitutional Convention. It was a momentous occasion in our nation's history - one that we continue to pay tribute to today - and yet it pales in significance to the adoption of the "Bill of Rights." Without those 462 words of the Bill of Rights, there would be little standing between average citizens like you and me and governmental tyranny.