Posted on 06/27/2010 4:34:55 PM PDT by USALiberty
The Labor Department is sharply increasing the penalties against employers who illegally use child workers.
Anyone illegally employing 12-and 13-year-olds will now face a penalty of $6,000 for each violation. The maximum fine previously was $900.
(Excerpt) Read more at palmbeachpost.com ...
That established the idea that the government -- and not parents -- should have the final say in what happens with children.
If a FAMILY decides that a child should earn income -- rather than spend his/her days sitting listening to the Marxist indoctrination available in GOVERNMENT schools -- why should ANYONE be able to interfere? Wages earned via child labor fed a lot of people and lifted many families out of poverty in the days before the "poor" were expected to become wards of the state!
People who have the means should not send their children to work. But why should the government take away the LIBERTY of families who need a means to survive without the "help" of the communist bureaucrats?
This is another reason why Westerners are becoming soft, lazy and vulnerable.
Of all the misguided liberal policies, though, I would say the laws against child labor are the most innocuous.
is it illegal for a kid to deliver newspapers??
is it illegal for a kid to earn summer money cutting grass??
is it illegal for a kid to make a few bucks shoveling snow??
Is it illegal to have your kids do home chores, i.e., taking out the trash, doing dishes, walking the dog, etc.??
What is child labor and what is not??
This isnt aimed at “evil corporations”...it’s aimed at family businesses...
You nailed it. All of the stuff kids did a generation ago are now forbidden. Coupled with the minimum wage law, and you’re going to have kids with no applicable job skills.
There hasn’t been child labor in this country since 1938. Would you say that the Greatest Generation, or the one that fought the Korean War, were slackers that were “soft, lazy and vulnerable”?
Perhaps there are other reasons that you can identify that results in these attributes you claim belong to the West. Computer games? Too much television? Too much sugar and high-fructose corn syrup? Children who no longer work on family farms, or in family businesses, on weekdays and in summertimes? Laws demanding infant inoculation against childhood diseases? Mandatory school attendance? Office and service jobs, as opposed to factory, production and farming?
It’s got nothing to do with being politically correct. Your argument doesn’t really have enough evidence supporting it to be anything more than a superstition. “Sic hoc ergo propter hoc” is termed a logical fallacy because you are not taking other factors into your proposition.
Of course, you haven’t proven your statement that “Westerners are becoming soft, lazy and vulnerable.” That’s the place to begin convincing your readers. Not everyone is going to agree with that statement - and you are assuming is a given.
All these activities are still open and available for kids and families - if the kids want to do them. Children are still able to labor on family farms, although there are categories of “hazardous work” (working with timber skids, driving heavy farm equipment) that they cannot do til 18.
Here’s some info about it:
http://www.stopchildlabor.org/USchildlabor/fact1.htm
Just because you *don’t* see as many children working this way doesn’t mean they legally *can’t*.
where and what kind of child labor goes on in the US?? What is their target?
...but no problem hauling them off in a commie wagon at 7:30 AM in the morning for their full morning and afternoons taken up with indoctrination.
And then when they get off...no job allowed...so off to join the gang.
Monty Burns voice: Yes, Child Labor Day, one of my favorite holidays.
My gut feeling is most of the child labor laws are for the protection of the children.
I would probably guess the government if more interested in one of two things: one finding family business that are using the kids as income tax write offs by decaring they have paid the kids for their work and are declaring it as expenses when in reality the kid didn’t do any work, and the kid did not in reality receive any money from said parents. Two, our government does not want parents that would work their kids at the cost of their education and physical welfare, or basically the government does not allow us turning our kids into slave labor, or for selling our kids for money to others for slave labor. The fine print probably bares this out.
You still haven’t proven that it’s the placement of child labour laws that began this downhill trend you have identified.
You stated: “[Child labor laws] established the idea that the government — and not parents — should have the final say in what happens with children.” Why wouldn’t that have been the compulsory education laws passed in Massachusetts in 1647? Those laws gave the Colony government the right to remove children from their parents if they didn’t attend school.
You have an issue with Child Labor Laws? You have every right to hold it. However, you still have not convinced me that it is because of the advent and enforcement of Federal child labor laws that all the dire things that you point to occurred. Can you show a cause-and-effect between Child Labor Laws and Roosevelt, Truman, unions and other government programs such as the G.I.Bill? What states had the highest records of child labor before it was eradicated? What did those children do? If you believe that child labor is directly connected to the rise of Liberalism or unions, what do you believe to be the connection, and why?
Yours is a fairly common litany of why America is not what it used to be. But many people have laid the change on a whole variety of things - from fluoridation of the water, to women entering the workforce and feminism, to the easy availability or contraception, to the end of the draft, to the rise of the exurbs, to ... well, you get the picture.
There are lots of reasons to which people attribute the “decline of America.” There are just as many people that argue America is not in decline.
I am far more curious as to why you would pick *this* issue - child labor laws - as the precipitating reason for the decline you perceive, as opposed to any other. Does it have personal import for you?
My favorite local Chinese restaurant is a family run operation. The kids often sit at a back table doing homework or chop vegetables for Dad, the cook. I guess the prices may go up if the feds come in when the vegetables are being chopped.
Child labor laws are aimed at preventing kids from being taught about small business, from which the goal of tax collection is considerably more difficult than against larger corporations, which employ people specifically to do that.
Also, not being able to teach a young worker means having to employ a cheap older worker —an illegal alien who can be counted on to need social services, training, and many other things.
When kids learn from their parents, this is enemy action against The State.
People here are talking about “paper boys” —RIDICULOUS! They’re stuck in a time-warp.
Now, “paper boys” are illegal aliens delivering papers in battered pickups, usually at around 4 am.
ILLEGAL ALIENS: ENEMY OF KIDS. KID JOBS NOW DONE BY ILLEGALS:
1. Gardeners
2. Paper boys
3. McDonald’s
4. Movie Theater
5. Farm
OTHERS?
See? When you have millions of illegals, this displaces very young people, denying them chances to learn some of life’s most precious lessons.
6. Babysitters
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