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Gingrich: Child Labor Laws 'Truly Stupid'

I really hope he wins the nomination as that would maybe wake up most people to how stupid the republicans actually are. Not that I'm saying the democrats are the brightest bulbs either but the candidates for the republican nomination this year would make Sarah Palin look smart :p

It would be funny if he actually won the presidency though because if anything could bring about a communist revolution that would. It's not bad enough adults have to work for slave wages but now he wants children to do their jobs for them! Fucking moron :!
 
Not only is he dumb enough to make this suggestion but people are dumb enough to buy it? Amazing!
 
Uh...If someone told me that shit when I was in school...man, there is no way I was gonna scrape bubble gum off the undersides of desks and clean bathrooms and fix shit for free. I'd fuckin' sledgehammer the school to smitherines! What that poster is suggesting is akin to what the Nazis made the Jews and Gypsies do in their concentration camps. Public school is just a youth concentration camp anyway so Parents can go to work for the system.

When I saw you quote me, I figured you praise what, in my estimation, is one of the more traditionally conservative things I've said here— that kids need to be taught to value their schools by taking a role in their care and maintenance.

IDK, I live in a neighborhood with a fair amount of section 8 housing, and while I bristle at the way the right characterizes welfare queens, there is some truth to it. Those people, some of them anyway, don't take care of their places, probably because they don;t even see the trash blowing around them, they've lived in it for so long. They probably don't know how to be uptight about it. ;) Their kids throw their candy wrappers in my front yard, and throw rocks at my neighbors' dogs. Its time for schools to start taking up the slack from shitty parents in the expectations department, IMO. And fuck paying them, unless you're going to pay me as an adult for not dumping tires in public parks.

The real take-away from this is that THIS is supposed to be the republicans IDEA MAN?? Lets UNSHACKLE THE CHAINS ON THE FREE MARKET BY LETTING KIDS SELL YOU BOTTLED WATER ON MEDIAN STRIPS AT CONGESTED INTERSECTIONS.

How about ending the war in afganistan. How about unshackling the free market by letting kids sell me cocaine I can take in the privacy of my own home before i pay a prostitute for sex. The whole thing (newt's reputation as a smart guy— and I grew up in his district, I've been to his public birthday parties at the zoo, we would run into each other at the book store) makes me weep. Like bury my face in two palms weep. We are truly fucked.
 
Jesus Christ. I mean honestly people, this is supposed to be instinctively a bad idea. Business openly fucks its employees, in broad daylight, so logically lets extend their efforts to reach children. Yeah, great fucking logic. Lets see we've had stagnating wages since the 70's, while production went up by 62.5% so the deficit there was solved by debt while they were shipping jobs to China later in the 90's. We all know what businesses get away with in China, the most stupid fucking thing anyone can do is let them have children. Even more serious than that the logic behind his statement is:

"We're trying to fix poverty here, why aren't we hiring kids".
To find out how this statement should make you sick you just need to answer these questions with his premise, "Why is there American poverty" It will NEVER be solved under capitalism, it requires it. "Why are we in a current crisis where we need kids to have jobs" because of (arguably) irresponsible big business practices who continue to pass the punishments onto their consumers, bailouts, austerity, kids? Most employers can't even provide good health care and we expect children to fall under this system or worse we expect them to help their parents? What happens when "working out of poverty" keeps the whole family working a minimum wage, skipping basic education, they're still "stuck" in poverty. Over the years big businesses have been disemboweling basic human rights and it's always put forth in a rational way (on the surface) and then later everyone finds out "hey we got fucked, I'm not going to make that mistake again" -- "Oh you mean Reagan ruined this Country?" -- "Oh you mean Bill Clinton procured and accelerated the '08 crash?"
Already there are 16 year olds who pay taxes, yet, can't even vote.

I'm disgusted by anyone who agrees with this shit. I expect it from a piece of shit like Gingrich I mean this guy is human fucking garbage. While his dying wife lay in the hospital he forces her to sign divorce papers claiming "she is not pretty enough to be a President's wife". Imagine what he really thinks about "poor people". America has cancer in the body as the nous mercilessly beats the image of the soul. 'The poor are lazy inefficient peoples lets start employing their kids'

Ok, now you've ranted about capitalism, care to get back to the point and address the possibility of public schools employing kids to do basic custodial duties? Not trying to come out on the side of Gingrich here, but let's just hypothetically say that if you're an 11 year old kid you get the option of doing one of three things for two hours after school say, 3 days a week: play football, sing in a choir, or mop up the hallways for $7.25 an hour. Is it really that evil to offer kids the third option? And is it really that different from being paid to mow a neighbor's lawn all afternoon or babysitting kids for the night?
 
Ok, now you've ranted about capitalism, care to get back to the point and address the possibility of public schools employing kids to do basic custodial duties? Not trying to come out on the side of Gingrich here, but let's just hypothetically say that if you're an 11 year old kid you get the option of doing one of three things for two hours after school say, 3 days a week: play football, sing in a choir, or mop up the hallways for $7.25 an hour. Is it really that evil to offer kids the third option? And is it really that different from being paid to mow a neighbor's lawn all afternoon or babysitting kids for the night?

The topic is child labor laws. His example was public schools. Okay so his first examples says this, 'Amidst a recession and the hardships of finding jobs, I propose we fire people and replace them with children'. I'll let that statement stand alone and go to your hypothetical. It replaces a person's job with that of a child outside of that it wouldn't be a bad idea when placed in this abstract, I still wouldn't be for the idea. Now lets see, if they rewrite the rules it wouldn't specifically only address "public schools" blah blah our example it would immediately expand into other areas; this ALWAYS happens. As far as the money is concerned I highly doubt they'd get paid that, children are used like immigrants. The children are not supposed to work that isn't their contribution to society, that's for adults, their responsibility is to learn (arguably) about the world, the government, have a chance to be interested in fields that lead to high paying jobs, some of the children their responsibility is to fail and become a janitor to complete the circuit.
 
I don't think of people like George W. and Gingrich etc. to be conservatives at all. They are all about setting up new and radical "changes" to our society. They want to move as much government and state into your personal life as possible. They are fucking fascists.
The so-called "conservatives" are the real change-makers
and the so-called "liberals" are merely the followers of this "change."
 
reactionary is the word you're looking for. they want back the good old times of the industrial revolution
 
They are fucking fascists.

100% agreed. I had been looking for the exact definition the other night of what the conservative movement.. but really.. not the right so much as the entire power structure is leading to. It is textbook Fascism. Period. And it has enough rallied, fervent, and scary support that it could go down that road completely very easily.
 
Chomsky did warn that the only disseminated answers that exist to the grievances of the middle-class man are horrific, divisive, classist, and hateful. The reason why that is concerning, is because such an environment tends to coincide with the initiation of an authoritarian, despotic regime. I agree with you aanallein: the U.S. can very quickly go down an even uglier road than it is already on.
 
It just seems like a textbook playbook to me. Initiate widespread economic calamity and then follow up with fascism. Can it get any more predictable?
 
I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to easing child labor laws to allow for some additional employment opportunities for kids. Child labor laws were drafted to prevent kids from taking on dangerous jobs that deprived them of education. But if a 12 year old kid wants to earn a little pocket cash by working after school for two hours mopping up the hallways I wouldn't get angry.
hey kids, to show your appreciation for us teaching you all of these ABCs and 123s, it's janitor duty time! extra credit to whoever takes the cafeteria bathroom!
 
hey kids, to show your appreciation for us teaching you all of these ABCs and 123s, it's janitor duty time! extra credit to whoever takes the cafeteria bathroom!

Workers are exploited all the time especially when the economy is bad. Then employers extort people. Historically, teachers have extorted students, especially faculty have. Don't think school faculty will extort their student workforce?
 
It's not like laxing the adolescent labor laws would do anything without a drop in real wages. They are not Children, and should be referred to as such. Once you hit puberty you are no longer a child.

Workers are exploited all the time especially when the economy is bad. Then employers extort people. Historically, teachers have extorted students, especially faculty have. Don't think school faculty will extort their student workforce?

Yes, those poor workers that never took it upon themselves to learn a trade or skill that would allow them to go into business for themselves certainly are being exploited..... School Faculties are extorting children now to get increased Federal funding and greater benefits for free. Well rather extorting their parents by used the children as reactionary leverage.
 
Fascists would favor the "regimentation of society," "the disdain of an easy life," and "personal sacrifice made for the society." They would like to see young children make such sacrifices in order to benefit their state schools. But, I think this attitude coming from the mainstream GOP is just their hypocrisy showing through. Although plenty of GOP's are a product of the "easy life" and they never make sacrifices or take responsibility for their great fuck-ups, they expect us to for some reason. Today's GOP's are unlike true fascists because they are in government for their own individual gains and could care less about the nation as a whole.

They shit on common people for their own political gain while running this country into the mud. A real fascist does love his country. A real fascist doesn't want to shit on his own people but make them stronger. Our government of neo-libs and neo-cons is certainly a strange breed to understand. They want to make Americans weaker and mindlessly subservient. A real fascist would want his people to be strong and very mindfully endorsing the role of his state. A real fascist leader would be delivering low gas prices to us after the middle east invasions, not allowing oil companies to take advantage of their own countrymen.

Don't think that I like Fascism, it's an epic fail IMO, but really, what modern "democratic" governments are doing to us is some other breed of totalitarian weirdness. I think they just want to put kids to work to save their wealthy supporters some tax cash. Real conservatives would like to see kids and at least (1) parent taking part in their home life more. Home is where kids should be learning values and responsibilities from their parents. Kids should have more free time to learn important life skills such as cleaning, neatness, cooking etc. where people traditionally learned them.
 
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