Newt Gingrich: Child Labor Laws Are 'Stupid'

Wow its amazing how much drivel one sees when the author is oblivious to history....I hate to say it Kabuki but your post is just that drivel.

Child labor laws exist because of excesses that led to the deaths of thousands of children and were pushed for not by liberals but rather by a HUGE public outcry....part of which (to be fair) was in fact fueled by the great depression and the fact that folks got desperate enough to work for slave wages.

Lets look at some highlights of pre-child labor law US history:

Lets see there was the fact that kids were sold into virtual slavery by impoverished families and then worked 70-80 hours a week, only allowed to spend their wages in company stores at inflated prices and had a life expectency that was short even by the standards of the day.

Children as young as five were forced to work in coal mines....most died young.

There was the fact that some factories locked the "child workers" behind barbed wire fenced walls and then worked them literally to death.

Ahhhhh got to love the "morality of the market"....man I sure miss the good old days when children were seen as little more then expendable market capital!

Man those were some good times.....

 

No I think republicans should be allowed to vote

 

I would contend that no child/snowflake should have such a mother.

 

OOHHH Pleeeeeaaaasssseee let it be Newt ..please please please. It will be so much fun if he wins the nomination, and I won't have to worry about pesky details like who would win..

 

Wonderful hyperbole!

Uh......your story seems to be missing the year of these abuses as well as supportive sources.

What you have not included is the fact that at the time of those abuses....worker safety laws for all workers of any age were virtually non-existent.

Any kid working today is protected by the same worker health and safety laws as any other employee by multiple agencies.

 

LOL Kids need to get their stuff somehow. Taking out the garbage, washing dishes, and similar chores don't cut it.

 

Anecdotes do not a policy position make, but here's mine. I worked a couple paper routes from 12-14, I began "regular work" a month after my 16th B-Day, and have been working ever since. All the most important life lessons I have learned have been outside of, or redundant to those learned at work.

EDIT: and I worked at a Library through high school.

 

Kids must go to study and play and develop. Not work. I thought that the children labour was thing of the past. But I see that the new slavists want to introduce again the childs labour.

Yes, new slavists. That is what I think about conservative that defend child labour.

And now, answer my question: What kind of jobs would do the children? All jobs, even work in the mines? No, now seriously. Whose children do you expect to go to work? And why?

Children with parents without adquisitive power will work. They won't study. That is the reality. And that is what said Gingrich. That is what he hoped. The reality behind this, is that poor children working while rich children studying. Funny scope.

 

Hyperbole again.....but kids can play, study, and develop while working. Millions and millions of Americans have done so. Developing a work ethic is also important. The "slave" rhetoric is just silly. No one is forcing anyone. This is a free choice issue.

A kid hasn't worked in the mines probably since the late '30's when the child laws first enacted. The jobs would be the same jobs as traditionally done by the young. Again, no body is expecting or forcing any young to get jobs. They would like the freedom from oppressive regulation to have the choice.

 

I child that learns a good work ethic today will stand a much better chance of being hired by his privately educated counterpart tomorrow.

Seriously though, as long as the child's education comes first-understanding that hard work pays off but smart work pays better-I don't see a problem with any child having a menial job. If the situation is actually desperate and the family could use the money, it is preferable to the child trying to do his homework on an empty stomach.

 

Okay, I will play along. How old should a child be before being able to have the freedom to choose to work, 5 years old, 8, 10? How many hours in a week should a child be able to have the freedom to work, 10, 15, 40, 80? Are there any jobs prohibited from a child have the freedom to choose to do, iron smelting operator, iron worker, fire jumper?

Please clarify where you think a childs freedoms end.

 

A summary of the conservative 2012 platform:

-End child labor laws
-End minimum wage
-End public schooling
-Overthrow all environmental regulation
-End all programs for the homeless, disabled, elderly and impoverished
-Make unions illegal
-Lower taxes on the rich, shift the burden to the poor

Wow, what a great country this will be if they get in power.

 

Usually you keep that stuff out of the planks of the platform and just do it after getting in. Even politic master Bush knew enough not to talk about reforming social security until he got reelected. Speaking of which you forgot eliminating social security and medicare as they are now known, electrocuting illegal immigrants with a giant fence, reinstating don't ask don't tell, etc.

 

No, that is not an hyperbole. Kids can't do all. If you make them to work they lose time to enjoy of their lifes. They will have time when they become adults to don't have a life.

But when they are young they must enjoy their life. Study, get educated the most formed possible. And when are enough developed, 16 years old start to work, and 16 years is a good age to start working.

And the "theory" from practice is really far. And yes, children will be forced to work if you abolish child labour laws. Simple like that. Children where their parents don't have enough money to pay the bills, children will have to work more. And even, they won't be able to go to school. That is what we see in third world countries, and that would be if it is done in America. Do you want that?

Sorry, but I refuse to having children working, for the profit of corporations. And having children working even 8 hours, because sirs, you're abolishing the laws that limit that. And if a child works 8 hours this child won't study anymore. Also if this child goes to school about 6-8 hours per day and after he must go to work, he won't be able to enjoy his life, like playing, hang up with friends...

Children must develop themselves learning, playing(form part of the process of becoming adult)...

 

I have created a post now, that shows how the Republican ideas of today are exactly the opposite of the Republican party of Lincoln. Or the precessor of the Republican Party the Whig party.

The Republican Party of today is a reactionary authoritarian force that is really terrible.

 

It's not forcing or not. Children have not go to work. Point

And yes. They are forcing to go to work to the children of poor people. And the fascist Gingrich left it clear: The poor children can go to work to be the janitors...

And good. And you want to abolish these laws to make able again the barbarities of the XIX century with the children. Then I say you. No thanks. And if I was American and the government did that, I would be fomenting revolutionary forces against this. Yes, and as the American constitution says. People can make revolution against the autocratic government.

 

But, but, but aren't they all GOOD ideas?

Victorian England became rich off of Child labour



Of course the fact that hiring children was much cheaper than hiring adults and therefore put adults out of work was all to the good

Minimum wages



and you certainly don't need no stinking pollution regulation



After all China manages fine without all of that problem!!

 

Yes! It all works out.

The child no longer goes to school so he or she can work instead. They no longer have to pay them minimum wage, so costs go down. In addition, we can add tons more people into the pool of workers so wages will be driven down to pennies an hour. Human labor will be devalued to the point that work will be non-stop so nobody who isn't rich will have a say in the way society works. The environment gets destroyed, but life will be so miserable from childhood on that nobody will even want to live anymore anyways!!

I guess the free market really will work out all our problems. And we can step boldly into the 19th err I mean 21st century!

 

Exactly the free market will sort it out... when the environment gets destroyed no one will buy stuff from the polluters anymore cause we will all be dead, then the environment will eventually clean itself up. Free market works, free market works, I just made the pages of Atlas Shrugged sticky.

 

When you prevent them from voluntarily seeking and engaging in work of their choice.

 

So you think a child should be able to do any work, no restrictions at all?

 

Strawman, no one has said without restrictions at all.

Do you believe they should not have the freedom to work at all?

 

If kids learned to work, Bluesday, what would happen to the welfare state? What if the only people taken care of by taxpayers were people who are physically or mentally incapable of working? Liberals might have to, gasp, go to work? Liberals couldn't buy votes with welfare programs. Oh, the horror. Liberals are doing their best to see that no one works and if they do work they certainly shouldn't benefit from that work. Teaching children to work in a liberal country is subversive.

You inhuman monster.

 

Not a straw man at all, do you think the restrictions a kid and adult have on working should be the same, or do you think children should have extra restrictions on the type and amount of work they do?

I do believe some children should not work at all yes.... 0-10 year olds for sure.

 

So 3 year olds should be able to work?