” My mother was a home extension agent who moved to rural eastern North Carolina in 1950 to teach poor women how to plan meals and cook them as economically as possible, how to raise children, and in general how to keep house.”
“I am not a big fan of the government telling me what I can and cannot eat,...”
So,you don’t particularly like the government telling you what you can and cannot eat,but you have no problem with the government telling “poor women” not only how to plan meals and cook them,but also how to raise children and keep house. As if poverty precludes the knowledge of how to do those things. And.. it’s okay for the poor to suffer the indignity of the government interference and condescension.
But... you wouldn’t like it yourself...would you like the government agents to come in and tell you how to raise your children or keep your house? I think not based on your comments here.
“We would be money ahead to remove extension agents from rose gardens and put them back in kitchens and nurseries.”
Perhaps I am too much of an optimist and I will grant you that. Furthermore, I think that most liberals are elitists. I do believe that a good number of folks will try to do right of they know how to do it. Ignorance is the best tool that liberals have.
It is a given that the electorate of the USA is not going to let folks starve if there is any alternative.
The liberal alternative is to give the poor a fish; the conservative alternative is to teach the poor to fish.
While there is some quick merit in a “Root pig or starve” take, the American public will not stand for “Root pig or starve and let your kids starve too”.