Response to Anti-Tea Party Propaganda: part 2

Here is the next paragraph of "rhetoric and propaganda" I wanted to tackle.

Oh, to live in a time again when there were no worker safety regulations, when children were allowed to toil away in sweat shops and when minorities, including women, had no equal protection.

Now again, notice that we must accept his false premise that the Federal Government must create bureaucracies in order to put a stop to the evil industrialists. He never attempts to even question the idea that perhaps the Federal government does not have such authority?

Nevertheless, even Ronald Reagan was not against a strong government that could withstand corporations in defense of the "little guy". And being that the Tea Party is made up of a wide variety of people, this charge is just wrong.

The last point is also just rhetoric. What conservative wants to see women being treated in such a way that disrespects the fact they are made in the image of God too? In fact, a large chunk of Tea Party people happen to be...da da dahhhh...women!

Now I want to tackle the children working issue. Notice the description of "sweat shops". This image gives to us the idea of men with whips beating 5 year-old kids to a pulp for not keeping up. However, this propaganda aside, why is the false premise granted that children should not work? Why do we assume that children have a fundamental right to a 12-13 years of public education.

Now I am not arguing against educating our children. I am simply saying that there are other ways of doing things. I was first challenged about how we educate our children by my public school 9th grade English teacher. He was against child labor laws that prevented 12-year-olds from being able to work. He realized that children of that age often do not want to be in school and that they lose the ability to learn work. Another problem is that "children" are forced to go to a school system often not for education, but for indoctrination.

I realize that many would probably respond by arguing that children would be exploited (another emotionally charged term) in order to make some "fat cat" rich. Of course, I guess that means it is ok to exploit 18-year-olds by paying them cheap labor wages. Never mind the fact that there might be a job to be had instead of standing on the "street corner begging". So why is it wrong to hire a 12 year old for cheaper labor? Because someone is getting wealthy, and we just can't have that in America. Yet parents exploit their children all time by getting them to do chores such a mowing the lawn or doing the dishes. Are they paying those high union wages? I doubt it.

Now American parents are seeing no financial benefit in having children. They are a complete expense from day 0 till age 18 and beyond. This is perhaps why a recent article that has shown that parents are not wanting children anymore. Let's face it. In a narcissistic culture, why do we want to spend all of our money and time into a losing financial investment/expense. Mohler cites Jenifer Senior,

Before urbanization, children were viewed as economic assets to their parents. If you had a farm, they toiled alongside you to maintain its upkeep; if you had a family business, the kids helped mind the store. But all of this dramatically changed with the moral and technological revolutions of modernity. As we gained in prosperity, childhood came increasingly to be viewed as a protected, privileged time, and once college degrees became essential to getting ahead, children became not only a great expense but subjects to be sculpted, stimulated, instructed, groomed. (The Princeton sociologist Viviana Zelizer describes this transformation of a child’s value in five ruthless words: “Economically worthless but emotionally priceless.”) Kids, in short, went from being our staffs to being our bosses.

In the majority of world history, children have been seen as not only a blessing from God, but as an inheritance from God. They are to be a source of income, not merely couch potatoes that are stuck in front of a TV or a computer playing video games.

In conclusion, our Local New Times Editorialist simply assumes his worldview as right. Anybody who would dare question it is mean spirited. It is easy to use emotionally charged rhetoric as Mr. Haxton does. It is far more difficult to be a conservative in order to overcome such propaganda.