Posted on 11/21/2011 3:07:07 PM PST by Steelfish
Newt Gingrich: Child Labor Laws 'Truly Stupid' [Video] By Kim Geiger
November 21, 2011 Promising “extraordinarily radical proposals to fundamentally change the culture of poverty in America,” Newt Gingrich said Friday that he would fire school janitors and pay students to clean schools instead.
Speaking at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the Republican presidential candidate and former speaker of the House challenged laws that prevent children from working certain jobs before their mid-teens.
Gingrich blames “the core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization" for “crippling” children.
“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid,” he said.
”I tried for years to have a very simple model,” he continued. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they’d have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-gingrich-child-labor-20111121,0,6466282.story
If only the MSM vetted Obama by as little as 10% of how they vet GOP frontrunners
Kids having to work? Oh, the huge manatee.
He’s done.
I’m all for it. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Most kids today are so spoiled they turn to drugs and other felonious activities out of sheer boredom. All that energy and (usually) single mom is no where to be seen and supervise. Used to be children were too tired from farm work to get into malevolent deeds.
Nowadays your average white middle class neighborhood is loaded with divorced “soccer moms” where dad has been pushed away through parental alienation tactics and is viewed as merely a wallet to spoil the children as they please.
That’s how it used to work. One of the problems with children/young teenagers is that, unless they can work in a family business, they have to wait for so long before they have responsible work that all their enthusiasm evaporates. Give them a couple of hours (paid) for sweeping the hallways, etc. Kids around the age of 12 or so really want to show what they can do, and with poor kids in particular, you have to get to them before they fall prey to other temptations.
We used to dig snow for the super every winter; we weren’t on the building’s payroll, but we were on his! And it was a great thing all around.
I’m sure he was talking about 17-18yo HS students.
This is just a Janitors for Justice hit piece.
As much as I dislike Newtie I actually agree with him to some extent on this one. Child labor laws went from necessary to ridiculous.
In Japan the students are expected to help keep the school clean.
What does the MSM have against the Japanese Education System?
I am old enough to remember when they let us out of school in the spring to chop cotton and lay the crop by. Then back to school until the fall, when let out to pick the cotton, then back to school for the winter.
It never hurt us to work from dawn to dusk and instilled the work ethic, which served me in good stead for rest of my working life.
12-15 years old, I started mowing lawns, caddying and was carrying doubles at the Country Club at the end. Made for a long day on some days. And some of those Doctors had bags like Rodney Dangerfield in Caddyshack. Started working in the tubs at a local Car Wash to earn money for my first car (which was in the driveway when I was 15 and a half) and never been without a job since. Shoveled snow in the winter and that don’t count cleaning the ponds for hockey.
Kids today wouldn’t be able to do any of those things.
Oh. And I used to walk to school for two miles. Uphill, both ways.
[ I’m all for it. Idle hands are the devil’s workshop. Most kids today are so spoiled they turn to drugs and other felonious activities out of sheer boredom. All that energy and (usually) single mom is no where to be seen and supervise. Used to be children were too tired from farm work to get into malevolent deeds.
Nowadays your average white middle class neighborhood is loaded with divorced “soccer moms” where dad has been pushed away through parental alienation tactics and is viewed as merely a wallet to spoil the children as they please. ]
Grew up on a farm and was expected to work to help out onthe farm, the liberals would have had a coronary with all the stuff that I did involving heavy machinery and “dangerous” working conditions and not having a port-a-potty every 50ft...
Back in the seventies I loaded trucks for North American Van Lines at fourteen.
It was hard work and a good experience.
****“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, in child laws, which are truly stupid,” he said.****
We had a guest woman speaker at the college I went to say the very same thing, way back in 1971.
Same thing here in Thailand.
Sisters and I spent the summers on the farm. Eleven years-old and my uncle says ‘get up on the Massey Ferguson girl and drive her in a straight line’ and I did. Was too little to load the hay on the trailer so he adjusted the labor available.
Best years of my life.
““Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they’d have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”
Excellent for learning and achieving AUTHENTIC self-esteem!
We absolutley need to start an OCCUPY THE MEDIA movement. They need to be locked out, and barred from their offices. They are pure filth and destroying our democracy because NOTHING they do has anything to do with Freedom of Speech, they intrepret it as Freedom to lie.
THIS IS WHAT GINGRICH SAID:
“It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid,” said the former House speaker, according to CNN. “Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they’d begin the process of rising.”
If so then why was he talking about child labor laws being stupid? Those wouldn't apply to 17 or 18 year olds. No, I suspect Newt truly visualized third and fourth and fifth graders spending their nights mopping halls and emptying trash. After their nightly bowl of gruel, of course.
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