Posted on 07/23/2011 7:16:40 PM PDT by Coleus
Although their milk chocolate bars have gone the way of others, I still find Hershey’s dark chocolate quite enjoyable. Everbody’s milk chocolate is now so bad I have to spit it out, as well as many dark chocolate bars.
Kids need jobs, too.
I picked fruit for 4 years, starting in 3rd grade.
Kids these days are weak.
Kids need jobs, too.
I picked fruit for 4 years, starting in 3rd grade.
Kids these days are weak.
Between 8 and 14 I worked summers on my grandfather’s chicken farm. It was nasty, dirty work for which I was paid in fishing tackle. I learned to work and to fish. Finally got enough tackle to sell fish and quit the chicken business. Back to selling fish in retirement.
Gave up on Hershey years ago.
IMHO...
If one’s Church goes left-wing and starts supporting international labor / left-wing / workers of the world / unions, then it’s time to get your Church to stop, or find a new Church.
While it is true that there are poor, it is up to Christians and Churches to help them. Very often Christians think that “government” has to help the poor. Or big “evil” corporations have to be “forced” to help the poor. The Bible in no way directs Christians to support groups such as unions or “movements” which purport to “do good”, any more than it directs Christians to support corporations who say they “do good”.
The Christian must always take great care, when supporting or joining any group or corporation, to find out whether they would be supporting an organization which institutionally goes against God’s Word. Unions, in that they seek to every worker to be paid the same - regardless of the differing productivity of the individual worker - seek to redistribute income from more productive workers to less productive workers.
Private property rights are inherent to Christian doctrine - far be it from a Christian to tell another person that they have earned “too much” and must “give away” some of their wealth. Everyone labors and reaps the fruit of their own labor; how much they reap is God’s will. Wealth redistribution - where a person claims that they know better how to distribute wealth than it has been distributed by the outcome of everyone’s labor - is contradictory to a belief that all happens according to God’s will.
Wealth redistrubution amounts to forcefully taking someone else’s wealth or income, which breaks the 8th commandment. If a group I belong to institutionally advocates breaking the 8th commandment, then I must separate myself and my household from that group.
There are two sides to this coin, of course. A Christian certainly can shop for labor and try to purchase it at a low price. If I own a candy business, I certainly can try to keep my labor costs low enough to make a profit. I will find out that if I am greedy and try to lower such labor cost too much, I will wind up with substandard work and will undoubtedly wind up paying the same or more in the long run than if I had paid a bit more for more skilled and productive workers. Such is common sense, and one only has to glance at the book of Proverbs to find that God wishes us to be wise. Of course, if the Christian hires someone who is in a desparate situation, and negotiatiates so strongly with them that they agree to work for such a low pay that they can’t afford sustenance, tithing and saving at least something after that, then they would be negotiating too harshly, as they would have not fruits of their labor at all. We remember Scripture:
Deuteronomy 24
14 Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land within thy gates:
15 At his day thou shalt give him his hire, neither shall the sun go down upon it; for he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it: lest he cry against thee unto the LORD, and it be sin unto thee.
Are we to join or support a group to force such a company that oppresses it’s workers to enjoin it to stop such oppression ? There is no command to join such a group in Scripture - and we must be absolutely sure that such group is abiding by Scripture completely. And there is only one organization that we really should be looking to in terms of abiding by Scripture - the Church. We simply should not have anything to do with such a company or such a person which conducts business in a sinful way. There is sin in the world, and the Bible commands us to separate ourselves from sin:
2 Corinthians 6
14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness?
15 And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel?
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
Of course, the Christian can always go into business themselves, operating within Scriptural guidelines, and compete with sinful businesses, thereby offering a choice that glorifies and pleases God.
Beer threads bring out the "Beer Snobs", fast food threads bring out the "Burger Snobs", coffee threads...
Now, chocolate snobs!
One thing about growing up poor... I still enjoy and appreciate it all. Even the cheap stuff. (Sometimes, ESPECIALLY the cheap stuff!)
Who knew that growing up as a "poor kid" would be a blessing.
What has changed is that Hershey’s no longer uses cocoa butter in their chocolate. Cocoa butter is the fat extracted from the processing of the cacao bean. It’s common knowledge in the food world that “fat equals flavor”, and cocoa butter provides that. However, it’s expensive. SO...in order to cut costs, Hershey’s stopped using it and replaced it with some sort of compound (I have no idea what) in their chocolate.
If you sample a bar of Hershey’s and then a bar of Nestle’s, you can taste the difference. Nestle’s still uses cocoa butter.
(Granted, they’re run by a huge euro-weenie corporation based in Switzerland, but it’s good chocolate.)
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