Please, sir. Can I ‘ave some more?
Let’s face it. Kids are a drain on our society. What good are they? They just take up space, eat all the food, breathe all the air, and contribute nothing of value to society.
Well, comrades, this is a problem that the GOP plans to fix. No more handouts for these little crumbsnatching welfare queens. The Missouri GOP (Jane Cunningham, to be precise) is leading the way by trying, like, actually trying to repeal child labor laws.
Enter SB222, a bill that would result in (among other things)1:
- children under the age of 14 no longer being limited in being able to work;
- children being able to work during the school term without a permit;
- 16-year-old children being able to work in hotels and motels without restriction on hours;
- the removal of restrictions on employing 16 year olds and requirements regarding obtaining certification and permits for children to work;
- the elimination of authority of the Director of the Division of Labor Standards to oversee employers of children;
- the removal of an evidentiary presumption that any child under the age of 16 present at a place where labor is employed is employed there.
Here is the bill’s official summary:
SB 222 – This act modifies the child labor laws. It eliminates the prohibition on employment of children under age fourteen. Restrictions on the number of hours and restrictions on when a child may work during the day are also removed. It also repeals the requirement that a child ages fourteen or fifteen obtain a work certificate or work permit in order to be employed. Children under sixteen will also be allowed to work in any capacity in a motel, resort or hotel where sleeping accommodations are furnished. It also removes the authority of the director of the Division of Labor Standards to inspect employers who employ children and to require them to keep certain records for children they employ. It also repeals the presumption that the presence of a child in a workplace is evidence of employment.
So, what — I ask you — the fuck? Well obviously, given that the GOP and Teabillies think that teachers are living the good life and barely working, and when they do deign to work, they do such a shitty job anyway, so why not just put kids to work? Yank ’em out of school, slap a miner’s cap on their head, and toss them down a well. They are freeloaders and we’re sick of ’em.
Here’s a BBC report from 2006 about worldwide child labor issues:
The GOP is employing an “all hands on deck” assault on this country. It’s fucking bananas.
You can bet your sweet ass that the repeal of minimum wage laws is next on the list.
Oh, and by the way? I think we have our answer to the eternal question: “Where are the jobs, Mr. Boehner?”
And, the race to the bottom continues.
1 The Alternet piece was published almost a month ago, and I only heard about it because a reader tipped me off. That’s what I’m finding so incredible right now. There is SO MUCH FUCKING CRAZY GOING ON that I can’t even keep up. I need a nap.
(H/T Lauren!)
[via Alternet]
[cross-posted here at ABLC]
General Stuck
Just think of how much we’ll save on smaller mineshafts.
Bet you dint think a that, didja ABL?
dr. bloor
Who needs Maria when you can hire her 11 year old daughter for half the money?
Odie Hugh Manatee
What a great way to increase the number of workers without creating a single job for the unemployed. If she pulls this one off then maybe we will see our jobs that were sent overseas to sweatshops and poor countries start to return so the companies can grab a piece of the cheap labor!
That’s the Republican party of today folks. They want everyone to work for shit wages and until we do they are going to do everything they can to make it happen. There’s nothing like being unemployed and finding out that you have to compete against cheap child labor to get a job.
Fuck the Republican party and fuck the stupid people who vote for them.
Phyllis
She must want some cheap(er) labor to clean her house. Remindes me of the somewhat elderly lady who came to see me years ago to apply to be a foster parent. When I said to her how lovely it was that she wanted to take in foster children, she replied “Well, I need some help. I have a garden, and it’s gettin’ too much for me keep up by myself.”
MattR
To steal from Bill Maher, Republicans prove that just when you though you’ve reached the bottom of the barrel, you can always turn over the barrell to find worse crap underneath.
I assume that children who are sixteen and under are currently prohibited from working in hotels or motels in any fashion. That makes perfect sense. It is just the one part that I had not heard of before. I do remember getting a work permit at age 14 so I could go work in a newstand putting together the Sunday papers at 6 am on Saturday and Sunday mornings, which now that I think about it might explain why I am so happy to see them go the way of the dinosaur.
Catzmaw
My fifteen year old uncle was killed in a mine accident around 1913. It was his fault because he forgot to duck his head when the carload of coal he was riding (so he could keep the coal from popping out as it jostled from side to side) went under an overhang. Stupid kid. Probably thinking of some girl or wondering what it would be like to go to school instead of working in the dark in a filthy, dust-covered mine. Maybe he was too tall for the job. They should have hired a short 12 year old. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
My family never even got compensation for his loss. I’m sure the boss told my grandparents that it doesn’t do to reward stupid, and getting one’s head knocked off for failing to duck … that’s just stupid. Amiright?!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@General Stuck:
Now if they can only get infants to pull mine carts.
Galt’s Nirvana!
JC
What.The.Hell.
Is this for real? This can’t really be for real, can it?
I guess it really is true. The fight for good, rational policies, is never really over. Each generation must re-fight, and re-stand, for rights that we thought were settled decades earlier – if not centuries earlier, where even the Magna Carta comes into question.
General Stuck
It won’t be long till they propose bringing back witch burning on a pilot program. Something made Newt’s pecker wander off the baby jeevus reservation.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Funny how you take a right turn at Galt’s Gulch, and all of a sudden there it is in all its glory: Galt’s Coal Mine.
The Dangerman
@dr. bloor:
I’m surprised they haven’t gone after the minimum wage.
Mark S.
If children aren’t allowed to work in coal mines, only criminal children will work in coal mines.
Chuck Butcher
Well it is the State of Misery and maybe they can get their ex-pat Rush to say something witty about it. You do know that the tooth brush was invented in Misery – it is obvious since anywhere else it would have been called a teeth brush.
heh
gnomedad
Because this is clearly what the voters wanted in November. The people have spoken!
Violet
The bad outcomes of this law would really only affect brown people, so of course Republicans are for it. Rich, white children can get nice jobs at Daddy’s investment bank during the summer. Bonus if they get to start those at age 14.
maody
it’s the new Poopiecans Population Control™
WyldPirate
For fuck’s sake. The Rethugs are wanting to take us back to the mother-humping Medieval Ages.
Maybe that is something Obama can work on as a “reasonable compromise, with the reasonable opposition” since he likes shitting on labor unions. Except when he doesn’t.
And yeah, Obots, i went there…..and I heard you’re earlier horseshit about “they should be grateful to have jobs”. Tell that to the teachers that are going to come out on the short end of this labor-busting movement in more than a few places.
MattR
Now, now. Let’s be fair here. They were nice enough to explicitly ban children under 16 from working in mines and quarries. Sixteen year olds, otoh, can DIA
FM.Violet
From the bill summary:
Sounds like underage prostitution is being legalized.
El Cid
In the old milltown South, your whole family was hired, and your kids got to grow up working in the mill, and when it was a good job with a good year’s sales, the parents could make enough money to buy enough food from the company store to not only feed the children every day but even sometimes feed themselves an amount equivalent to replace the calories they burned the prior day. It was great. Because if you didn’t like it, you could always go back to scratching produce out of dirt from your sharecropped lot.
Stan of the Sawgrass
the Red South is now the “workshop of them-ocracy.” Expect howls of outrage from ‘real Repubs’, then watch several bills pop up around the country that say the same thing, but kinder and more gently. You damn kids get off my lawn when you’re done mowing– here’s your nickel.
Republicans– we’re building a bridge to the nineteenth century.
El Cid
@MattR: At least the kids wouldn’t be around when Dad was killed by a mine collapse or explosion caused by
lax regulation and regulators and owners who don’t care about murdering workersunpredictable accidents.JC
Wyldpirate,
Come on – EVERY COMMENT of yours does not have to be about Obama. It just doesn’t.
Does there have to be the same fight every time? Can’t you simply ask for a thread a week, where it can be debated, where Obama has messed up, rather than in every post at Balloon Juice? It’s a fruitful topic, and I think a lot can be had, and it would always – ALWAYS – be an entertaining thread of comments.
Also, I have my own list on Obama mistakes (always willing to ‘compromise’ with Rethugs, continuing rendition policies, Guantanamo legal limbo, etc), but come on, enough already, right?
Omnes Omnibus
@WyldPirate: Actually, I am going to go with a simple “Fuck you, WyldPirate.” I think that covers what I wanted to convey.
Bill in Chicago
Yes, throw them down the well. At least they’ll be doing something productive in the service of their Galtian overlords, instead of wasting all their time listening to Snoopy Snoopy Poop Dogg.
reason.com/blog/2011/03/08/god-bless-alan-simpson-the-ene
MattR
@JC: @Omnes Omnibus: The juxtaposition of these two comments is art.
Catzmaw
Now you’re talking, El Cid. Dad had a lot of stories about the company store, about how the mine owners loved the miners so much they gave them “special” money which could only be used IN the company store. Course, they did have to pay their expenses with that money, too. It was expensive being a mine owner. Employees were SO profligate with things like lanterns, picks and shovels, and headlamps.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@JC:
Yes it does. WyldChyld lives to slag on Obama.
Quit trying to mellow Wyld’s harsh!
Cermet
These motherfucking asswipes would shame the robber barons of old – peak oil is coming soon and the shit will hit the fan in the next five years and these animals are aligning sides to fight their war so they can collect from both sides – monsters
Trakker
I’m going to guess that a large number of “Show-Me”s, right and left, will roll their eyes and assume she’s insane, but the fact that this would even cross her mind is scary, and for her to write it up in a bill and proudly submit it shows just how low some on the right have regressed.
“Republicans, proudly building a 19th century America to compete in a 21st century world!”
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@MattR:
But if we don’t have the young’uns working in the mines, how will we ever find the lost Chankara stones?
beltane
@Violet: Forced childbirth and underage prostitution are part and parcel of the Ghoulish Old Perverts plan for America. Maybe Megan McArdle will write a column explaining how buying children to service the needs of the nobility will be an economic winner while Bobo will tell us how this will restore the manly virtues of the Roman Republic.
MattR
@Catzmaw: Admit it. You had a whole room in your house filled with lanterns, picks and shovels, and headlamps. And if you were a good child, some days your father would let you into that room for a few magical minutes as long as you promised to never touch his precious bounty.
Angry Black Lady
obots are so played out. it’s all about ozombies.
get with it, pyrate dood.
Stefan
Insane. These people have gone absolutely fucking insane.
Mark S.
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ:
Nice one!
Angry Black Lady
also, i propose a name change from “firebaggers” to “firelickers.” we have to mix shit up around here. it’s getting boring.
beltane
Jane Cunnigham sounds like she must be a vampire or a witch. Since medieval is back in style, can’t we perform “tests” on her to see if this is the case? Would she float if dumped into the Mississippi? Would she suffer burns if laid down on a bed of hot coals? These are the questions which must be asked when dealing with this type of person.
Davis X. Machina
It’s all about Freedom™.
The Freedom™ to earn, to build job skills right on the job. Right now, the kids aren’t really Free™, so the Free™ Market isn’t really Free™. But this law will change all that.
(Freedom™ and Free™ are registered trademarks of the Republican National Committee. All rights reserved. Used with permission.)
(I know it’s a repetitive joke, and not a very good one. I’ll stop using it when they stop being dickheads.)
JC
It actually might not be a bad idea, to have a weekly Balloon Juice ‘official’ ‘how has Obama failed you now?’ thread, at a time conducive to Wyldpirate’s participation. I go back and forth on where I should, shouldn’t be making more of a stink about what Obama is/is not doing.
It would be an interesting weekly thread, run to 1000 comments, and possibly, I’d learn something.
But then we can ‘Obama bashing free’ threads, the rest of the time (unless some issue is obviously a ‘WTF Obama?’).
But, even with the issues I mentioned above – around Guantanamo and a basic respect of human rights that Obama reversed course on, from his campaign rhetoric – the republicans and the democrats both respect basic rights less. Obama tried to make things better, and was rebuffed, by a bipartisan Congress.
So who’s really at fault?
El Cid
@Catzmaw: Not to mention the little parasites have to quit working to go ‘sleep’ or ‘use the bathroom’ or ‘go to the doctor’.
If you read all those inspirational books by Napoleon Hill about how incredibly super-heroic the magnate Carnegie was, you’d see those majestic business demi-gods didn’t let such nonsense hold them back.
kdaug
Serious question: Does this include sex workers?
Omnes Omnibus
@Davis X. Machina:
You could have just said you won’t stop using it.
JC
It actually might not be a bad idea, to have a weekly Balloon Juice ‘official’ ‘how has Obama failed you now?’ thread, at a time conducive to Wyldpirate’s participation. I myself go back and forth on where I should, shouldn’t be making more of a stink about what Obama is/is not doing.
It would be an interesting weekly thread, run to 1000 comments, and possibly, I’d learn something.
But then we can ‘Obama bashing free’ threads, the rest of the time (unless some issue is obviously a ‘WTF Obama?’).
But, even with the issues I mentioned above – around Guantanamo and a basic respect of human rights that Obama reversed course on, from his campaign rhetoric – the republicans and the democrats both respect basic rights less. Obama tried to make things better, and was rebuffed, by a bipartisan Congress.
So who’s really at fault?
Angry Black Lady
obama.
next question.
kdaug
@Violet: Beat me by a mile. I should read the damn comments before posting.
Omnes Omnibus
@JC: Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy bear some responsibility.
Angry Black Lady
never gonna happen. they don’t know how to stop.
Kristin
These people have lost their damn minds!
When they have destroyed the economy be ensuring that everyone but the top 1% is uneducated and unskilled, they’ll still be screaming that it’s the liberals’ fault for too much entitlement spending.
BombIranForChrist
If children don’t like child labor, they should grow faster, in line with market principles.
Bill in Chicago
Of course, you’re absolutely right that the minimum wage is next. My take is that our Galtian overlords are beginning to feel some genuine remorse about all the outsourcing they’ve been doing (after all, they were misled! foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115624,00.html). So they are pursuing the obvious solution . . . creating the conditions by which they can pay American workers the exact same amount that they are paying Chinese peasants right now. Thus, no need to outsource anything. PROBLEM SOLVED!
Citizen_X
I can only quote Get Your War On: “Fuck! FUCK!!! Motherfuckin’ fuckers fucking up every fuckin’ thing they can get their fuckin’ hands on! Fuckin’ FUCKITY FUCK!!!”
Brachiator
Here’s a little something about child labor in the glory days of Orange County, California:
Mike in NC
@The Dangerman:
Guarantee you they will before the last snowflake has melted. Then it’ll be a return to Prohibition, because that was the right thing to do but they didn’t do it ‘correctly’ or ‘efficiently’ the first time around.
Read today that SC is looking at enacting an anti-immigrant bill based on what they did in Arizona.
JC
Feel free to delete 44. Got a black screen when I tried to edit, and then a duplicate post. Apologies
El Cid
Fundies go nuts — I mean, have a particular eruption of nutty behavior — because another evangelical says that non-believers aren’t going to be sent to roast in the eternal hellfire so that they understand God’s unending love for all of us via Jesus.
Without a vengeful, bitter, murderous God perched at any moment to drop his adorants into lakes of magic fire, it will be much more difficult for all sorts of homophobic patriarchal fundamentalists to resist all the lurid temptations for wild carnal satisfaction that they repress into the dark, hidden, often abusive paths that they choose.
Via Roger Ebert’s twitterizationing.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
fuck, if we are going to put children to work, make em run for congress. seriously how much money do lobbyists waste having to appeal to the sophisticated adult vices our current crop of middle age and older legislators? kids vices are simple, and cheap, and they can be guided in their development of new vices into ones that are still relatively cheap.
with all the cash saved on lobbyist hand outs, some of our poor and down trodden corporations and small businesses can actually afford some of their statutory tax liability, that is bi-winning.
and who better to sit on school boards, than actual children? they spend as much time in the class room as the teachers, and won’t be bullied by some “educator” trying to pull rank by asking if the people making the proposal have been in a class room recently. and if we empower students by letting them sit on school boards, they will weed out all the bad teachers, another bi-winning idea.
while we are at it, why not children as pundits and op-ed writers? who is going to care more about a tuesday column? bobo? or some precociously ahead of grade level 13 year old, who has a chip on her shoulder from missing the cut for the spelling bee championship on teevee? i think she nails every single column.
Bob L
I am pretty darn convinced now that Obama deliberately threw the 2010 election so he could get a Republican Congress and vote in Obama’s dream of making children work in coal mines. Obama, Walker, really two sides of the same coin.
Jane Cunningham (R-Cruella) is just a secret Obamabot.
El Cid
@Bill in Chicago: Not to mention all those OSHA and EPA thugs out there trying to hold back American capitalism so that Al Gore and Nancy Pelosi can finally let the UN take over and impose a one world soshullist economy.
Dennis SGMM
It’s obvious to me that indentured servitude is very business friendly. The Missouri bill fits very neatly with this. Should someone die and still be in debt then it’s only natural to indenture their children to pay it off. I’m surprised that the GOP has so far missed this necessary change to make the US more globally competitive.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Someone is REALLY anxious to get THE CHILDREN in the workplace, alone, unattended and without any government busybodies asking nosy questions like “Why is everyone naked?”:
Yeah, a hotel staffed by underaged employees = Republican Wet Dream.
Kristin
How does becoming a 3rd world country relate to American Exceptionalism? That’s what I would like to know.
El Cid
@Dennis SGMM: What you’re really afraid of in getting your big government hands off of indentured servitude is that the Deep South would finally have a chance to come back in the national economy with the sort of agricultural production and poultry and meat processing that Yankees will never understand, because it’s about freedom.
Dennis SGMM
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Them poor people don’t need no help because their kids are all whores!
jimmiraybob
@Stefan:
And don’t forget that it is the Missouri Republican – Tea Party coalition that is fighting against puppies too.
Yevgraf (fka Michael)
OT – Peter King was disappointed by the reaction of the Muslim community in Brooklyn to 9/11. They acted like IRA supporting congressmen in the 70s and 80s…
Calouste
@Stan of the Sawgrass:
The GOP: The party like it’s 1899.
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
Real quick-I know this law is batshit and all, but it won’t actually change anything right? Federal child labor laws cover all this stuff as well, as far as I know. Or did I miss something?
MattMinus
@kdaug:
I would guess it doesn’t include sex workers, drug dealers, contract killers, or any of the other professions that are already illegal for adults.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Kristin:
we still have the guns, the bombs, the 43% of the military spending.
i think this is proof that the kock brothers, and whomever their peers are, smoke weed…
i can picture them getting stoned and asking each other how far they think they will be allowed to push it. mandatory drug testing for all large political donors, and people who fund lobbying groups and think tanks.
Calouste
@Kristin:
Going from a world power to a steaming pile of dung is pretty exceptional.
Dennis SGMM
@El Cid: @El Cid: ‘
Well of course people gotta’ have a place to sleep and food to eat. On the other hand, if you’re the one renting ’em their shacks and selling ’em their food at the company store then it’s all gravy. The South will rise again!
Gina
Finally! If I get divorced, I can just put the kids to work and not have to fight for child support. Win!
joeyess
Everybody needs to call this twatwaffle.
El Cid
@Kristin:
It would be quite exceptional if the richest economy ever to have existed in human history managed to achieve full metal 3rd world status through happily electing and re-electing the sorts of leaders who in South America used to come in after the coup.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Calouste:
Qing dynasty China already did that. We’re trying to break their speed record, so there is that, I suppose.
patrick II
It seems to me that some of the provisions of this law directly conflict with federal child labor laws which are authorized by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938.
Federal Child Labor Provisions
Particularly regarding children under the age of 14.
So, is Missouri going to assert states rights, secede from the union, or am I just misreading federal law?
Tehanu
@El Cid: What do you mean, “after” the coup? We ARE after the coup — the one the Supremes foisted on us in 2000. Anybody who thinks the result of that election was legit is living in a dream world.
El Cid
@Dennis SGMM:
Why? Can’t they learn a bit of self-discipline?
I’m sure that David Brooks could write in a column how a hypothetical couple could work 24 hours a day without food and water in their jobs as a successful CEO and an oncologist because when they were kids their parents took them to the fine art museum / bowling alleys that used to be so common back then, and there was a poster in there about hard work hanging just above the salad bar.
Ija
Why bother giving out the name of the bill’s sponsor? Everything is Obama’s fault anyway, right? He wasn’t sufficiently deferential to unions, therefore Republicans decided to abolish child labor laws. QED.
It’s amazing how threads about the worst offenses of GOP can get turned into how Obama is doing us wrong. It’s like the Republicans can’t ever lose. No matter what they do, some of the blame will stick to Obama anyway.
El Cid
@Tehanu: I’m not disagreeing, but even so, we still had enough idiots to have elected him with just a few more votes here and there.
The fact that we have elections with these maniacs that are close enough to steal so easily is a shock and a shame in and of itself.
Rather than being separated by a few thousand or tens of thousands of votes, if we were sane it would be no one but the ultra-crazy pre-modern Talibano-monarchist deregulatory anti-rationality freaks comprising the 27%ers voting for the right.
sherifffruitfly
Maybe we can go back to the days of merry old England! I’ve been practicing my “‘scuse me guv’na! Coul’ you spare a crus’ o’ bread?” speech!
HBuellA
Let’s see -they have declared war on the teachers, the state workers, the college students, the Muslims and the children. Looks like they are aiming for the infants next.
These are some really sick MFers. Don’t have to say more except let’s get them out of office by voting against them in every election.
J. Michael Neal
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: So did the Romans, but they had help from actual barbarians.
quaint irene
And don’t forget chimney sweeps. Those little ten-year old’s really are able to get through all those cracks and crevices.
^^^^^^^^^^
I love how this bill is couched in terms of protecting the parents right to choose whether their kid works or not. Well, news flash. There are some pretty shitty parents out there, who either are happy to exploit their own children, or are indifferent to somebody else exploiting them.
^^^^^^
Again, a wonderful example of the GOP’s concern for a child while it’s in the womb. Once he’s out-fuck him!
scav
Well, child labor would solve the problem of what to do with the little twits after there are no public schools to send them to. I mean, they ARE post-birthchannel snowflakes so it’s not like they matter or anything.
opie_jeanne
@Chuck Butcher: Because most other places the denizens have more than one tooth in their heads.
BGinCHI
Fucking kids, why don’t they work?
Kristin
@Calouste:
Touche.
Calouste
@J. Michael Neal:
The Americans have help from barbarians as well. Of course with the Romans, the barbarians were on the outside.
Mike in NC
@quaint irene:
Reminds me of that scene in “Schindler’s List”, where Schindler convinced some Nazi goon that he needed kids working in his factory because their small hands could fit inside shell casings.
scav
@BGinCHI: heh.
Omnes Omnibus
@MattMinus: Oh, then I guess it’s all okay.
celticdragonchick
@beltane:
I am going to shamelessly borrow that one for future use.
piratedan
well this is simply the next logical step towards giving a fetus full legislative rights, excepting drinking age and operating a motor vehicle. Then we’ll take away votes from women since they are nothing more than incubators for the innocents since they can’t be trusted to protect fetal rights.
J. Michael Neal
@Calouste: Alaric would destroy what passes for barbarians in this country. We’ve gone soft.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Wingnut senator Crapo (R(eprehensible)-Insane Idahoan) is on with O’Donnell saying that all we need to do is lower taxes and that will expand the tax base so the government will be rolling in clover in no time!
These assholes like cuts so much I wish they would slash their wrists.
Maude
This goes well with DeMint’s right to work in all 50 states. And it also would mean that McCain was right, Apple would manufacture in the US.
Catzmaw
@Yevgraf (fka Michael):
But the distinction is that the IRA didn’t target America. At least that’s how King explains it. Dontch’yall understand? It’s VERY significant that the IRA only blew up people and places overseas. Maybe you’re not into nuance …
JITC
The moronic politician who proposed this justifies it by saying that child labor laws impose restrictions on “parental authority.” She says that parents are smart enough to make their own rules for their own kids on what jobs they can and can’t handle and the government should butt out.
Yeah. Right. Because child labor exploitation was the fault of parents, not greedy businesses. Because before these laws were in effect there were all sorts of parents grounding kids for working 18 hour days in mines.
clawback
@The Dangerman:
Except they’re already going after the minimum wage in Missouri.
alwhite
Look, this is very simple but you people don’t seem to be getting it. There will be plenty of jobs once we agree to third world wages and standards. Of course that means 2 adults can’t make enough to support a whole family. Since you are so thick I’ll state the obvious: that means you will need your kids working for the extra couple of bucks a week they will bring home.
Thank God for Republicans who are forward thinking enough to clear the way for the brave new world ahead!
scav
Actually, thinking more about it, doesn’t this meld together all sorts of their social goals? More than just the we don’t need no stinking schools aspect, but if the parents can pimp out their kids, they don’t need no stinking retirement plans so long as they pop out (c’est a dire, don’t abort) a good number of the little 401Kids.
Ruckus
@Citizen_X:
How do I really feel?
El Cid
@quaint irene: Yet another problem with the ‘family labor system’ I mentioned above was that a lot of parents, particularly fathers, would lay around their milltown homes letting their kids work enough to pay the bills while they drank and carried on.
Here’s a reflection in a UNC Oral History archive from a lady whose mother worked as a child in the mill at the start of the 20th century. (Not specifically about the part I mentioned regarding layabouts.)
Ruckus
@joeyess:
How many time do you think you could get in, “moronic bitch” before they hang up?
Rpx
This explains republican opposition to abortion. They need every worker they can find in a uterus to drive down wages even further. Wait till they propose allowing fetuses to operate heavy equipment.
AkaDad
This is awesome. When she starts working I wouldn’t have to pay my daughter an allowance AND I can charge her rent!
danimal
First, they came for the puppies, and I wasn’t a dog, so I did nothing. Then, they came for the minor children, and I was grown, so I did nothing….
Welcome to
Missourimisery.Karen
@Ija:
And if the Republicans won’t screw Obama up, PUMA Firebaggers will.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Apparently the parents are supposed to have the expertise and time to perform regular workplace inspections:
Respect Mah Parental Authority is one of the WingNutty memes that has been around for a while (sex ed classes anyone?) As far as I can remember this is a new articulation of the theory. It could lead to some interesting discussions. I mean, if a kid can work if the parents say so, why not vote or drive? Father Knows Best after all.
@Kristin: Listen here Missy. We’ll be the best goshdarn 3rd World Country there is despite what naysayers like you try to do!
Our starving kids will have the greatest number of flies crawling over their faces. They’ll write books about our bread riots! The mortality rate for our cholera outbreaks will never be topped!! And the squalor of our living conditions will make hardened humanitarian aid workers puke last week’s breakfast. USA! USA!
Leo
@scav:
Not a joke. Jane Cunningham, who sponsored this abomination, sits on the Mo. Senate Education committee and consistently takes positions that are openly hostile to public education. This is a very live issue in the state right now, and she’s right in the middle of it.
Karen S.
Well, look at the bright side. With all the kiddies working, we’ll have that childhood obesity problem licked, won’t we? Right? Schools, whatever will be left of them, won’t even need to keep up the pretense of having P.E. or recess. Just get the kids on the factory treadmills and cleaning toilets at the Starlight Motel. That’ll whip ’em into shape. No more Michelle Obama and her broccoli mandate!
Jebediah
@Leo:
Can’t Missouri be declared a failed state and get taken over by the feds, or a pack of drunken orangutans, either of whom might do better?
Petorado
You know, if I was conspiratorially minded, I’d think that the right wing was against abortion to provide a larger quantity of low-skilled child labor to feed the machine, was against education so kids would have no other option than to work, focuses on “voter fraud” to make sure they stay in power, redistributes tax dollars upward to create a permanent upper class, and wants poor healthcare so that — as Alan Greyson quipped — if we get sick we die quickly.
But I’ll look on the bright side and consider them to be just nostalgic, pining for the good old days of Oliver Twist. “Good times, man, good times.”
TenguPhule
We can call this the Missouri Child Prostitution Legalization Act.
TenguPhule
If ever a person needed to be hit by a car….
urbanmeemaw
@El Cid: I read an autobiography of Jackie Cochran, a famous female flyer back in the 30’s. She was raised in a very poor family in the South and worked in the mills when she was a child. She recounted how she learned to avoid the mill bosses who routinely molested the children. So they were not only physically abused. They were sexually abused as well.
Steve M.
He may not be funny, but kudos to Jay Leno for taking a (mild) potshot at this bill.
Silver Owl
Hey, not even kids are off limits for conservative beat downs for their rich white corporate benefactors these days.
MikeEss
Angry Black Lady, thank you for contributing to this blog. You bring a another great perspective. And thank you John for giving ABL another forum… :)
jcgrim
Face it. The financial oligarchs are setting policy across the nation and the world. A growing, domestic cheap labor force will balance third world outsourcing. Actually, dahling, oil prices are cutting into profits and those Somali pirates are a serious liability expense.
Our current education policy is being driven by the same sociopaths who are feeding us reform on a false premise:
nyceducator.com/2011/01/false-premises-false-promises-corporate.html
mclaren
This is extremely short-sighted of you, ABL. Every Republican knows what children are good for: sex.
That’s why GOP stands for “Gay Older Pedophiles.”
El Cid
@urbanmeemaw: Yeah, I’m sure that these women (and maybe some of the men) would talk about that, but if so it’s probably not something likely to come up by itself in such an interview.
twiffer
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal: why can’t they just be like regular stoners and play video games and eat pizza when baked?
twiffer
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: so if parents know best, she’ll be trying to get rid of laws against child abuse next, right?
Begin de Revolt
No one discussed another reason to ensure a large under/uneducated population of children. Since we have gone to an all volunteer army, the power barons need cannon fodder to fight their resource wars. All of their children will have the best education money can buy. Most children of priviledge will opt out of the military, and follow the “winner take all” path established by their parents. It largely falls on the poor and middle-class to join the military because they see it as their only hope of upward mobility.
ReadTheBill
Did anyone actually read the bill before they spewed all this crap!! The bill is NOT repealing all child labor laws, the bill IS redefining the law ONLY for those children whose parents allow their children to work in the entertainment industry ie: movies, on stage, etc.
Read it for yourself instead of regurgitating the false crap you hear from others. Get involved, but in doing so it just might actually require some work on your part to read and understand; or is THAT too much to ask!!!!
GET EDUCATED ON THE SUBJECT AND READ THE BILL:
senate.mo.gov/11info/pdf-bill/intro/SB222.pdf
GET REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ReadTheBill
P.S. There are Federal Child Labor Laws, here are three links to provide additional reading:
dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/childlabor101.pdf
dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/
dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/cl/default.htm
Tigger Knits
You people are retarded. “Worker’s Rights” is a joke. So is “minimum wage.”
The fact is, you’re a bunch of whiney socialists and we don’t need you anymore.
TK