Strength Training May Stunt Your Growth

[Will Morris]

American children have been working on farms since the founding of this nation, and, miraculously it may seem, we didn't die off.

[SumDumGoi]

Reading comprehension again kid. A wholly owned farm yes, but many of them are not wholly owned. Read my response to casaubon. Again.

Before you go beating yourself about the chest, please check your facts. The majority of your posts lack any factual support.

The surprise move comes just two months after the Labor Department modified the rule in a bid to satisfy opponents. The agency made clear it would exempt children who worked on farms owned or operated by their parents, even if the ownership was part of a complex partnership or corporate agreement.

http://www.wral.com/business/story/11032523/

As I have said before, although the original rule may have excluded children on farms "partially" owned by their parents, this provision was later amended allowing for children to work on farms that are partially owned by their parents.

You can now stop arguing over untruths.

[SumDumGoi]

American children have been working on farms since the founding of this nation, and, miraculously it may seem, we didn't die off.

During the time of the founding of this nation the majority of the farm work was done by slaves, especially in the Southern States. Since the founding of this nation, although slavery became illegal (which by your argument would be a bad thing), the majority of agricultural work being performed has been done through the hard work of poor immigrants who have come to this country. This is what we see today. An disproportionately large number of these farm workers are illegal immigrants from Mexico. The idea that these rules would hurt John-Boy Walton from "lurnin himself a good work ethic" is, as was mentioned, a myth.

The All-American imagery of the farm kid not being able to perform his chores on the family farm is factually untrue, and the more you continue to support this argument the less credibility you have. As was mentioned several times, these rules would not effect the Norman Rockwell imagery you are trying to paint.

The truth is this type of work has always since the conception of this nation relied largely on the exploitation of immigrants and the poor to perform this kind of work. This is also the reason why there has been such a push-back against these rules, because they know that the "Real America" that you so gleefully defend in the name of Freedom would refuse to do these jobs under the current working conditions.

These are the very same people who the conservatives choose to vilify every chance they get, yet are more than happy to allow them to be exploited as they ignore the working conditions which supply an ample source of cheap labor.

I'm sorry but little Johnny working in the field is not brown because he's just finished a hard day of "lurnin a good work ethic". He's brown because he's a fucking Mexican! and his dad is not standing next to him because he owns the farm, he is just another employee!

Please read up on the history of agricultural work in this country!

http://www.ncfh.org/?pid=4&page=2

[Mark Rippetoe]

During the time of the founding of this nation the majority of the farm work was done by slaves, especially in the Southern States.

Oh FUCK. This is such utter horseshit. The vast majority of families who farmed could not afford slaves, and the vast majority of farms were family farms. Please go renew your food stamps now.

[SumDumGoi]

Oh FUCK. This is such utter horseshit. The vast majority of families who farmed could not afford slaves, and the vast majority of farms were family farms. Please go renew your food stamps now.

Large Southern plantations used farms. The vast majority of the smaller family farms (those in the north) had the family do the work. Sorry if that distinction wasn't clear in my previous post, but today there simply aren't many small farms left and therefore the majority of workers who would be protected are poor immigrants.

However, exemptions were made for for the children whose parents own either fully or "partially" the farm they are working on. Therefore, the small family farms would have been unaffected by the rules. that is unless they are hiring others to do the work, which the majority would be immigrants.

Are you doubting that the history of agriculture in this country has relied upon the exploitation of poor immigrants?

[Mark Rippetoe]

What do you mean by "exploitation"?

[SumDumGoi]

What do you mean by "exploitation"?

I believe this is what I mean:

http://bit.ly/IHbAd0

[Mark Rippetoe]

Okay: the act of making some area of land or water more profitable or productive or useful; "the development of Alaskan resources"; the act of employing to the greatest possible advantage.

I like both of these things. So, the use of poor immigrants to their fullest capacity, making their labor more productive, profitable, and useful, is probably an order of magnitude better than anything you're doing now.

[DoctorWho]

SMG asked how farm work by young kids could be overseen without the regulations. Where the government can investigate a parent for taking a 6 year old to a tanning salon based on a sunburn, it would have plenty of power to police unsafe working conditions for "kids".

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/05/0...ning-mom-clip/

[casaubon]

But these are also not family owned farms. These are corporate farms. Big food, big agriculture, you know like the big pharma you and yours despise so much? I don't have a lot of sympathy for corporate farms myself. They are absorbing the family farms as the farmers (average age 50 in Illinois) age out of active farming and will sell off because these kind of regulations.

They sell off because the market doesn't sustain their lifestyle and the government subsidies (nice that we call them subsidies instead of welfare for the country folk) aren't enough to prop them up.

And let's be real. If you're going busto because your business relies on your children as free or heavily discounted labor, your business deserves to go broke.

I have to pause here for a moment and thank you for the gift of committing a huge unforced error. I'm an Illinois boy myself. I was born in Kankakee and grew up mostly in Papineau, a village of 200 souls surrounded by fields. I have friends and family that still live in the same county, Iroquois which is entirely rural other than the county seat of Watseka. So yeah, I know a little bit about Illinois and farm life although I only worked for farmers. The Old Man didn't inherit his mother's farm. He put up steel buildings all over the US and the world until we settled down when I was 3.

well thanks for letting us know you don't know much about farming then. I myself come from Coles and Douglas County. We farm the shit out of everything down there.

And funny thing is, when you need more than four or five hands every fall, lots of folks just happen to be around that area to help out. Most of them with funny names that don't sound much at all like Mark or John, if you know what I mean. Folks don't brag about it for a lot of reasons, but don't kid yourself. It's very real. I'm sure things look different with the benefit of memory from out there on the West Coast.

And you know what? It's cool. There's nothing wrong with those people selling their labor and trying to make a life, like mark says. I'm with the libertarians there. Borders are crimes agains the land and what could be more of a big government project than forcibly preventing the movements of people based on supply and demand.

But damn, let's not undercut the market too much be broadening it to include kids. Let's give mom and dad a fair shot at earning something approaching a decent wage.

Funny thing, the farmers I worked for never let me drive their tractors, or operate their combines, or other equipment. I wasn't a family member and hadn't been brought up to it like their sons and daughters were. That's right, I got hauled from point A to point B on a hayrack from time to time by Bonnie Voss or Becky Schrieb driving their father's tractor from the field to the barn. The alternative was I suppose to turn me loose and hope I didn't get hurt. Of course if I had gotten hurt that would have entailed a visit from The Old Man. No one who knew him wanted that kind of a conversation. He was a fearsome guy both before he dropped out of high school to join the Marines and even more so after he survived three amphibious landings. My point being, there was and I'm sure still is, a healthy social contract alive in rural America about not putting teens into more than they could handle. A little healthy fear of a pissed off parent probably didn't hurt either.

So that's your basis for farm labor policy. My dad will beat you up. Awesome.

And healthy social contract my ass. People are people. They're as shitty, greedy, noble and friendly in the country as they are anywhere else. Some guy sees a chance to make a buck off some poor kids, maybe he does it maybe he doesn't.

You guys like to talk about personal responsibility, but what it really comes down to is you're naive enough to think people are basically good. That's as much a suckers game as thinking if only the workers owned the means of production we'd all be living in a paradise.

The solution isn't just individuals or just the market or just government. It's all of them interacting and bumping up against each other and setting and resetting the lines. That's not quite as nifty a one-liner as "where are the parents" but it has the benefit of actually working in the real world, instead of fantasy land.

No doubt there are some illegal aliens working in the fields in Illinois. But relatively few and small in scope, pretty much like I said at the outset. You glad you decided to play some more of your games with me now?

Delighted. I love a good argument. Though, I'll admit I'll be jealous of the weather out there in California in six months.