A couple of years ago I was watching a session of the Alliance for Self-Directed Education's online conference by unschooling advocate Idzie Desmerais. At some point she dropped a quote into her presentation that I jotted down but didn't think much of at the time:



 




What if your ideas about politics were just your ideas about childhood, extrapolated?



 




I returned to my notes some months later, having spent much of that time immersed in writing the first draft of the book, the quote almost took my breath away. There, right in front of me, was a single sentence that encapsulated so much of what I'd been thinking and writing about.



 




On the surface, it may seem as though these topics are completely unrelated but they are actually intimately connected.



 




We use politics set up systems that support the culture we want to live in.



 




We create systems that make it harder to vote because we don't think everyone should be able to vote - especially if you aren't White, male, or at least middle...