Yup, I think so too, hence my objection. And it’s so easy to convince people this is all okay using the “don’t you care about the children??” manipulative argument 😕
Yup, I think so too, hence my objection. And it’s so easy to convince people this is all okay using the “don’t you care about the children??” manipulative argument 😕
Really? Can you look a 6 year old girl in the eyes and tell her it’s better if she goes hungry? The government shouldn’t help her at all. She ought to go begging to the church for help. I don’t mind paying taxes to feed hungry children. But that’s just me 🙄
School lunches totally suck. It’s not like they’re getting good meals.
Really? There were other comments saying we should flat out not feed them but I don’t have time too inclination to look for them.
SYFY
MamaApprovedBooks4Kids
5 hrs ago
Hunger is a great motivator as well...also teaches gratefulness. I don't want kids to go hungry, but no way the gov't should be feeding them. Isn't that what our local churches are for?
CathyRN
6 hrs ago
During the depression most kids went to school without shoes and I’m sure many of them were hungry. But they learned the basics of education that allowed them to pursue a better future.
Now we’re feeding their stomachs while starving their minds.
Certainly but i was still paying for others to NOT feed their own. It shouldn't be a gov charity! Gov NEVER GIVES CHARITY. Ppl give. Organizations give to gain...something!
That isn’t what I said 🙄 Please don’t twist my words and interpret them to mean something different from what I wrote. Just because I’m not in favor of this particular solution doesn’t mean I want kids to starve. It’s not a binary choice between schools feeding kids and them not getting fed at all.
There are kids who are homeless too. And need clothes and medical care. What about building dormitories for homeless children and a store so they can get free clothes? And attach a medical center to the school while you’re at it too.
Your rection is exactly what I’m talking about—creeping government control is justified by appealing to people’s emotions and accusing people of being uncaring if they are not on board with expanding government services. Schools are not the only way to get children fed. And government is usually the most wasteful and least efficient way of getting anything done. I don’t want to pay more taxes for this not because I don’t want children to eat, but because I want to minimize government involvement in all of our lives. There is far too much waste, bureaucracy and ultimately less freedom once the government starts to put its tentacles into any aspect of life. For all the taxes we pay, we should have zero societal problems by now, but it seems like the more we pay, the more problems we have.
Btw. When child labor laws were passed, many people felt that the government should not intervene in their children’s lives. Parents wanted their very young children to work 10-12 hours in the mines and factories to help support them.
Of course they thought that, children contributed income to the household and they had to find a way to replace that somehow 😕 The idea was good but as always with the government, implementation was flawed. I wonder how many children subsequently went hungry because their income was suddenly missing from the household? A transition period to allow households to adjust m, or some other way to ease into it, would have been a better idea, but I am sure the people patting themselves on the back for “saving the children” didn’t ever consider that.
OMG 😳 please look at some of those pictures (search child labor) of children in mines and factories.
BTW wouldn’t the churches have fed the hungry children? Surely they wouldn’t let children starve. People say we don’t need government lunches because wonderful church people will feed them. Those 7 year-old children forced to work 10+ hours, 6 days a week, couldn’t have possibly have gone hungry with so many good samaritans in nearby churches to help them.
A society that doesn’t protect and provide for its children doesn’t have (or deserve) much of a future.
What does that have to do with what I said?? Did I say I thought they should be working like that? Why is it that you just react emotionally to those pictures (which I do as well, they’re heartbreaking) but refuse to acknowledge the reality of people’s lives that their children contributed to household income? Stating that truth does not mean I think child labor was a *good* thing. How do you think the parents made up for that income once it was taken away, I ask you again? Maybe the churches did feed them. But then again, do you think churches were equipped to handle a sudden massive influx of hungry people that weren’t there before?? I’m sure they weren’t. You can’t just wave a magic wand and suddenly find a way to provide for large numbers of hungry people. I’m sorry, that’s just completely unrealistic. That’s why I said a transition period would’ve been helpful. This idea of sudden revolutionary change is never not fraught with all kinds of unintended consequences, because no one ever thinks that far ahead since they’re too busy crowing about how wonderful they are for supposedly solving a problem. The virtue signaling and emotion-driven decisions that have not been well thought out inevitably carry with them all kinds of issues downstream that sometimes can be as bad as or worse than the initial problem.
“ That’s why I said a transition period would’ve been helpful” My “emotions” would kept me from allowing any child to enter a factory or mine to work ever again. There would have been no transition period. I thank God for that.
I guess the short in-a-nutshell summary is, your statement simply confirms that you have zero cares about what happens to the children and their families once the children are banned from working, as long as *you* can feel good about *yourself*. It’s not actually about *their* well-being at all.
That’s a harsh statement, but I guess I see the same in you -that you could care less about children. Many died or were permanently injured in factories or mines. Obviously, the children and families survived just fine. How many of those dads used the kid’s money for alcohol? That was a big problem. Just because the kid earned the money doesn’t mean it was used for the family.
Also, my viewpoint has nothing to do with my “feeling good about myself” and everything to do with stopping the exploitation of children. I’m ending any further dialogue on this topic with you. There are other things we can discuss someday, but this conversation must stop now. Thank you in advance for not replying again.
You have no idea what you would or would not have done had you lived in those times. We all like to believe we’d have acted in a certain way but society helps shape our expectations and our perceptions. There’s no guarantee and you certainly have no way to prove that. It’s just speculation.
And it’s great that you see yourself as disallowing them from working in those conditions but again, what good is that if the child ends up starving? My objection is not to banning child labor of this sort but as usual, the government and the do-gooders have NO plan or provision for the consequences of their decrees. It’s all about preening over their virtuous actions and not bothering their heads about what negative effects might ensue even from a positive action. It’s about appearances and not reality. It’s always about telling themselves and the world what good people they are, regardless of the real life outcomes and downstream effects.
I agree with you that for as many taxes as we pay, we should have zero societal problems. However, please tell me your better solution for feeding hungry school children? I think government intervention is absolutely essential in some areas. One of them is in school lunches for poor children. I think it’s terribly cruel that some people here feel kids do better in school when they’re hungry. These are children -not adults. Although, I don’t think that the schools need to provide 2 or 3 meals a day for them.
Non profits? Churches as mentioned above? A combination of different approaches? Don’t we pay politicians and policy makers big money to come up with these kinds of solutions? Why is it up to me to do that? All I know is, since the government declared a so-called “war on poverty” things have only gotten worse even though we spend more money than ever.
Let me turn the question around to you—why do *you* believe government is the best way to help people? From what I have seen in my life, it’s usually the least effective means of solving any problem.
I also challenge how many children are actually “hungry.” How is that even determined? Do they ask kids? What is the basis for deciding this? And why can’t we just feed the ones who really are hungry instead of allowing those who are perfectly capable of providing meals to their children to freeload off of everyone else if they choose to? That’s my problem with all of these government programs, they use exorbitant amounts of money and only end up helping a small proportion of those in real need. I hear people say “oh well I would rather have the programs available even if some don’t need it and at least some in need will also be helped.” But that is totally ignoring the concept of opportunity cost. Despite what some people seem to think, funds are not unlimited. If we use part of our money to help people who don’t actually need it, then less money is available for people who truly do. I am not okay with that. I’m also not okay with financially supporting a cumbersome and inefficient bureaucracy to distribute the funds and services to needy people.
Don’t feel obligated to respond, if you don’t want to take the time. It’s been a very interesting discussion that would be far easier in person than typing out long replies 😕 I am in the middle of a very busy week and I am not sure if I will be able to continue the exchange, as interesting and thought provoking as it’s been. 😕
The government is bloated and there is a lot of corruption. I do believe we, as a society, need to provide for those children that are truly in need.
Anyhow, I have the impression that you’re against any government involvement or intervention to help others suffering in life. I’m for basic safety nets. We aren’t getting anywhere in our conversations since our perspectives about life annd helping others are so different.
I believe life was much worse for many before government intervention. We would probably still have child labor, slavery, poor & dangerous working conditions, pregnant women going without prenatal care and more without government intervention. I’m not saying the government is run by perfect people or that there isn’t a lot of fraud, waste and abuse. I’m comparing life today for poor people compared to life in the 1800’s and early 1900’s.
Thank you for engaging with me. I’ve learned a lot from seeing your viewpoint. 🙂 Hope you have a good day.
I appreciate that. Thank you also and have a good day.
A few more thoughts since I have a minute. We do clearly have different world views. I’m not against any government involvement but I believe it should be a last resort and have safeguards in place to keep it from expanding too much. There were good reforms a century or so ago but now government is overly involved and getting more so all the time. I’ve seen the creeping interventionism across the decades and the overreach. Government is generally the worst option for solving problems. And so it should be used sparingly and judiciously. Which I absolutely do not think is the case nowadays and it hasn’t been so for a while.
I also think people are worse off in many ways now than several decades ago, despite the increased government programs. The cost of government makes it more difficult for people to live on smaller incomes. There are so many taxes and fees beyond income taxes that poorer families struggle more than they have in a long time. And it becomes a vicious circle that keeps poor people living in poverty instead of giving them opportunities to get out. It’s like with the Department of Education. We used to be top ranked in education but the more the government has gotten involved, the worse outcomes have gotten. More government does not equal better conditions. And a lot of the improvements you cited either have negatives to offset them (free prenatal care often means government coercion for shots and other interventions that aren’t necessary or beneficial—look at infant and maternal mortality rates in the US, “Despite spending two and half times more per person on health than the OECD average, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. increased from 12 to 14 deaths per 100,000 live births from 1990 to 2015, putting the United States at 46th in the world.” from the Wilson Center website). Or they weren’t all due to government intervention but other factors—education by nonprofits, cultural changes such as hygiene practices, and so on.
Yup, I think so too, hence my objection. And it’s so easy to convince people this is all okay using the “don’t you care about the children??” manipulative argument 😕
Really? Can you look a 6 year old girl in the eyes and tell her it’s better if she goes hungry? The government shouldn’t help her at all. She ought to go begging to the church for help. I don’t mind paying taxes to feed hungry children. But that’s just me 🙄
School lunches totally suck. It’s not like they’re getting good meals.
No one said don’t feed kids. The DoE is failing and expanding a failure is more failure. The DoE system is broken. That’s the point.
Really? There were other comments saying we should flat out not feed them but I don’t have time too inclination to look for them.
SYFY
MamaApprovedBooks4Kids
5 hrs ago
Hunger is a great motivator as well...also teaches gratefulness. I don't want kids to go hungry, but no way the gov't should be feeding them. Isn't that what our local churches are for?
CathyRN
6 hrs ago
During the depression most kids went to school without shoes and I’m sure many of them were hungry. But they learned the basics of education that allowed them to pursue a better future.
Now we’re feeding their stomachs while starving their minds.
Parents are getting welfare and food to feed plus free meals at school! Hooray parents can sell the food or cards for drugs and sex.
Some parents are the working poor. Not all poor parents are on welfare.
Certainly but i was still paying for others to NOT feed their own. It shouldn't be a gov charity! Gov NEVER GIVES CHARITY. Ppl give. Organizations give to gain...something!
That isn’t what I said 🙄 Please don’t twist my words and interpret them to mean something different from what I wrote. Just because I’m not in favor of this particular solution doesn’t mean I want kids to starve. It’s not a binary choice between schools feeding kids and them not getting fed at all.
There are kids who are homeless too. And need clothes and medical care. What about building dormitories for homeless children and a store so they can get free clothes? And attach a medical center to the school while you’re at it too.
Your rection is exactly what I’m talking about—creeping government control is justified by appealing to people’s emotions and accusing people of being uncaring if they are not on board with expanding government services. Schools are not the only way to get children fed. And government is usually the most wasteful and least efficient way of getting anything done. I don’t want to pay more taxes for this not because I don’t want children to eat, but because I want to minimize government involvement in all of our lives. There is far too much waste, bureaucracy and ultimately less freedom once the government starts to put its tentacles into any aspect of life. For all the taxes we pay, we should have zero societal problems by now, but it seems like the more we pay, the more problems we have.
Btw. When child labor laws were passed, many people felt that the government should not intervene in their children’s lives. Parents wanted their very young children to work 10-12 hours in the mines and factories to help support them.
Of course they thought that, children contributed income to the household and they had to find a way to replace that somehow 😕 The idea was good but as always with the government, implementation was flawed. I wonder how many children subsequently went hungry because their income was suddenly missing from the household? A transition period to allow households to adjust m, or some other way to ease into it, would have been a better idea, but I am sure the people patting themselves on the back for “saving the children” didn’t ever consider that.
OMG 😳 please look at some of those pictures (search child labor) of children in mines and factories.
BTW wouldn’t the churches have fed the hungry children? Surely they wouldn’t let children starve. People say we don’t need government lunches because wonderful church people will feed them. Those 7 year-old children forced to work 10+ hours, 6 days a week, couldn’t have possibly have gone hungry with so many good samaritans in nearby churches to help them.
A society that doesn’t protect and provide for its children doesn’t have (or deserve) much of a future.
What does that have to do with what I said?? Did I say I thought they should be working like that? Why is it that you just react emotionally to those pictures (which I do as well, they’re heartbreaking) but refuse to acknowledge the reality of people’s lives that their children contributed to household income? Stating that truth does not mean I think child labor was a *good* thing. How do you think the parents made up for that income once it was taken away, I ask you again? Maybe the churches did feed them. But then again, do you think churches were equipped to handle a sudden massive influx of hungry people that weren’t there before?? I’m sure they weren’t. You can’t just wave a magic wand and suddenly find a way to provide for large numbers of hungry people. I’m sorry, that’s just completely unrealistic. That’s why I said a transition period would’ve been helpful. This idea of sudden revolutionary change is never not fraught with all kinds of unintended consequences, because no one ever thinks that far ahead since they’re too busy crowing about how wonderful they are for supposedly solving a problem. The virtue signaling and emotion-driven decisions that have not been well thought out inevitably carry with them all kinds of issues downstream that sometimes can be as bad as or worse than the initial problem.
“ That’s why I said a transition period would’ve been helpful” My “emotions” would kept me from allowing any child to enter a factory or mine to work ever again. There would have been no transition period. I thank God for that.
I guess the short in-a-nutshell summary is, your statement simply confirms that you have zero cares about what happens to the children and their families once the children are banned from working, as long as *you* can feel good about *yourself*. It’s not actually about *their* well-being at all.
That’s a harsh statement, but I guess I see the same in you -that you could care less about children. Many died or were permanently injured in factories or mines. Obviously, the children and families survived just fine. How many of those dads used the kid’s money for alcohol? That was a big problem. Just because the kid earned the money doesn’t mean it was used for the family.
Also, my viewpoint has nothing to do with my “feeling good about myself” and everything to do with stopping the exploitation of children. I’m ending any further dialogue on this topic with you. There are other things we can discuss someday, but this conversation must stop now. Thank you in advance for not replying again.
You have no idea what you would or would not have done had you lived in those times. We all like to believe we’d have acted in a certain way but society helps shape our expectations and our perceptions. There’s no guarantee and you certainly have no way to prove that. It’s just speculation.
And it’s great that you see yourself as disallowing them from working in those conditions but again, what good is that if the child ends up starving? My objection is not to banning child labor of this sort but as usual, the government and the do-gooders have NO plan or provision for the consequences of their decrees. It’s all about preening over their virtuous actions and not bothering their heads about what negative effects might ensue even from a positive action. It’s about appearances and not reality. It’s always about telling themselves and the world what good people they are, regardless of the real life outcomes and downstream effects.
I agree with you that for as many taxes as we pay, we should have zero societal problems. However, please tell me your better solution for feeding hungry school children? I think government intervention is absolutely essential in some areas. One of them is in school lunches for poor children. I think it’s terribly cruel that some people here feel kids do better in school when they’re hungry. These are children -not adults. Although, I don’t think that the schools need to provide 2 or 3 meals a day for them.
Non profits? Churches as mentioned above? A combination of different approaches? Don’t we pay politicians and policy makers big money to come up with these kinds of solutions? Why is it up to me to do that? All I know is, since the government declared a so-called “war on poverty” things have only gotten worse even though we spend more money than ever.
Let me turn the question around to you—why do *you* believe government is the best way to help people? From what I have seen in my life, it’s usually the least effective means of solving any problem.
I also challenge how many children are actually “hungry.” How is that even determined? Do they ask kids? What is the basis for deciding this? And why can’t we just feed the ones who really are hungry instead of allowing those who are perfectly capable of providing meals to their children to freeload off of everyone else if they choose to? That’s my problem with all of these government programs, they use exorbitant amounts of money and only end up helping a small proportion of those in real need. I hear people say “oh well I would rather have the programs available even if some don’t need it and at least some in need will also be helped.” But that is totally ignoring the concept of opportunity cost. Despite what some people seem to think, funds are not unlimited. If we use part of our money to help people who don’t actually need it, then less money is available for people who truly do. I am not okay with that. I’m also not okay with financially supporting a cumbersome and inefficient bureaucracy to distribute the funds and services to needy people.
Don’t feel obligated to respond, if you don’t want to take the time. It’s been a very interesting discussion that would be far easier in person than typing out long replies 😕 I am in the middle of a very busy week and I am not sure if I will be able to continue the exchange, as interesting and thought provoking as it’s been. 😕
The government is bloated and there is a lot of corruption. I do believe we, as a society, need to provide for those children that are truly in need.
Anyhow, I have the impression that you’re against any government involvement or intervention to help others suffering in life. I’m for basic safety nets. We aren’t getting anywhere in our conversations since our perspectives about life annd helping others are so different.
I believe life was much worse for many before government intervention. We would probably still have child labor, slavery, poor & dangerous working conditions, pregnant women going without prenatal care and more without government intervention. I’m not saying the government is run by perfect people or that there isn’t a lot of fraud, waste and abuse. I’m comparing life today for poor people compared to life in the 1800’s and early 1900’s.
Thank you for engaging with me. I’ve learned a lot from seeing your viewpoint. 🙂 Hope you have a good day.
I appreciate that. Thank you also and have a good day.
A few more thoughts since I have a minute. We do clearly have different world views. I’m not against any government involvement but I believe it should be a last resort and have safeguards in place to keep it from expanding too much. There were good reforms a century or so ago but now government is overly involved and getting more so all the time. I’ve seen the creeping interventionism across the decades and the overreach. Government is generally the worst option for solving problems. And so it should be used sparingly and judiciously. Which I absolutely do not think is the case nowadays and it hasn’t been so for a while.
I also think people are worse off in many ways now than several decades ago, despite the increased government programs. The cost of government makes it more difficult for people to live on smaller incomes. There are so many taxes and fees beyond income taxes that poorer families struggle more than they have in a long time. And it becomes a vicious circle that keeps poor people living in poverty instead of giving them opportunities to get out. It’s like with the Department of Education. We used to be top ranked in education but the more the government has gotten involved, the worse outcomes have gotten. More government does not equal better conditions. And a lot of the improvements you cited either have negatives to offset them (free prenatal care often means government coercion for shots and other interventions that aren’t necessary or beneficial—look at infant and maternal mortality rates in the US, “Despite spending two and half times more per person on health than the OECD average, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. increased from 12 to 14 deaths per 100,000 live births from 1990 to 2015, putting the United States at 46th in the world.” from the Wilson Center website). Or they weren’t all due to government intervention but other factors—education by nonprofits, cultural changes such as hygiene practices, and so on.
❤️❤️❤️