Strength Training May Stunt Your Growth

[Rob Waskis]

therefore the majority of workers who would be protected are poor immigrants.

And this is the crux of the disagreement right here. Some of us believe we should have the freedom to live our lives how we choose so long as we do not infringe on the right of someone else to do the same. Others believe that the government should regulate everything in an effort to protect us from ourselves.

[Mark E. Hurling]

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

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.

You should perhaps consider how unwise it is to provide a link to your source with a carefully cherry picked quote that can be refuted when someone looks at the whole article and can quote what came before and after it. So let's see:

The plan specifically excluded children who work on farms owned or operated by their parents. But the proposal still became a popular political target for Republicans who called it an impractical, heavy-handed regulation that ignored the reality of small farms.

"It's good the Labor Department rethought the ridiculous regulations it was going to stick on farmers and their families," said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. A contextual reality check #1 "To even propose such regulations defies common sense and shows a real lack of understanding as to how the family farm works."

Your cherrypick
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.

Another contextual reality check #2 That didn't appease farm groups like the American Farm Bureau that complained it would upset traditions in which many children work on farms owned by uncles, grandparents and other relatives to reduce costs and learn how a farm operates. The Labor Department said Thursday it was responding to thousands of comments that expressed concern about the impact of the changes on small family-owned farms.

Primogeniture is less common in farmers today than it once was. Many family farms are part of the extended family as described above. That kid, is some truth.

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.

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

Isn't it embarassing to keep de-pantsing yourself? But you're still wrong, there are plenty of small farms left here in the US. But if that regulation had gone through there would have been less of them. Your article really was focused on crops that relied on hand labor intensive harvesting methods that only affected a few regions in the US like the deep South and the Central Valley of CA. As Rip has correctly pointed out, most of the South were and are small farmers. Plantations were relatively few compared to the rest of the agriculture there. That leaves the Mid-Atlantic states, the New England states, PA, the Midwestern states, the states of the Great Plains, the mountain states, and the Pacific Northwest as the exceptions. Quite a lot of exceptions aren't there?

Slavery was only a feature of the Confederate states, and the rest of those poor exploited immigrants you speak of like the Swedes and Germans largely homesteaded the little houses on the prairie with their surrounding fields. The Italians, Poles, Irish, and other eastern Europeans settled mainly in the cities or around a few mining centers. Those other immigrants your article spoke of were indeed involved in the growing in CA's Central Valley. But your article and you seem to extend that to all the other states that weren't using those immigrants and never did.

[Mark E. Hurling]

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.

No, they sell off because there's no one to replace them because their kids don't want the growing aggravation of government influence in their lives and decided to sit their last time on a tractor seat 10 years ago.

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.

See? Missing the point again. The resistance to this regulation by the family farmers was not an economic one. It was the chilling (see how conservatives can use a liberal favorite word?) effect it would have on passing on of farm skills to their sons and daughters. All of which would accelerate the aging out of small farms and their sell off.

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.

So since I live here, it doesn't mean I don't visit my place of origin regularly. Maybe you enlightened folk around Arcola way farm that way now. Not where I come from though even to this day.

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.

I suspect you're talking about Rip, because I'm no libertarian, I'm a conservative. This remark about borders I hope is facetious, because you sound just like Vicente Fox when he talked about his countrymen leaving Mexico to work here in the US. If you're serious, just where does this crime against the land end? So your saying all those farmers in Douglas and Coles Counties should have just kind of farmed and tilled the land in common without ownership? That worked out well for Soviets and their collectives, huh?

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.

With the exception of the Central Valley in CA, most illegals are males are single or who leave their families behind in Old Mexico and send money back to them. They don't arrive like the Joads fleeing dust bound Oklahoma in the 30's.

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.

I guess I shouldn't generalize what all rural people are like based on my own experience. But fear is a good short term motivator. As for the flawed human condition we are all subject to, maybe where you came from the farmers didn't all go to the same churches, run into each other at the feed store and grain elevator, or maybe a coffee shop in town where the above mentioned places were. Maybe they didn't all have gone to the same grade schools and high schools together. They may not have liked each other as a result of some of those weaknesses and flaws you mentioned, but collectively all those webs of the rural social contract and it's binding ties make a pretty strong disincentive to screw with the kids of your neighbors who do some work during planting, growing, or harvest. You might have a hard time getting a loan from the local bank when you aren't thought well of, and the social costs may be more than you and your wife are willing to bear. But it's been 10 years since you sat on the seat of a tractor so maybe you kind of forgot that about where you came from.

Though, I'll admit I'll be jealous of the weather out there in California in six months.

You'd fit in just fine, there are plenty more just like you here in the People's Rainbow Republick of Kalifornia. Pelosi, Boxer, and Feinstein would be happy to have you as a voter. You will find that the relentless sunshine wears on you after a few years though. I happen to like winter and the snow.

[Maine]

I never did any work on a farm until I was an adult, but I was doing manual labor outside for pay when I was 15 years old. Although my brother and I lost a bit of blood here and there, the people supervising us were very careful to make sure we were not assigned tasks that were beyond our decision making ability or using equipment that we could not be reasonably expected to handle with safety. This is because they were experienced adults who knew full well the risks involved in tasks like cutting down trees or excavating ditches with a heavy duty chain on a six foot bar mounted on a Bobcat. Nobody expected me to be able to use a chainsaw or worry about cutting through electrical ground lines. But they did expect me to be able to drive a truck with a dump bed if I could drive myself to work, to use a weed whacker (for which they gave me safety glasses and ordered me to wear pants every day), and to be able to move bales of hay which were used to control water runoff. Jokingly, they also said they'd beat me if I didn't use sunscreen or they caught me using tobacco. They had my best interests at heart.

Are there situations that kids should not be in at work? Absolutely. It is unnecessarily heavy handed to severely restrict physical labor because sometimes kids are told to do things which are too much for their capability? I think that is not a reasonable minimum level of safety. It does not make sense to me to restrict the labor practices of responsible, safety-conscious employers because of the poor decisions of a few. When it is in fact the case that so many people make a particularly poor decision that it becomes the most popular choice, then yes, Big Brother should probably step in and lay down the law (hello texting while driving). But in general I do not believe legislation and regulation should be designed to resolve the need for careful, conscious thought and responsible decision making. When you take choices away from people you aren't just removing the ability to make bad choices. Often you are also hindering the ability to make good choices by saying, "you don't have the responsibility/intelligence/experience to decide between these options" regardless of whether or not it is in that specific situation a good idea.

Does that mean people are sometimes enabled to make decisions that will lead to the injury or death of themselves or others? Yes, it does. I'm honest enough to admit that I prefer a world where people sometimes die because of poor decision making than a world where people don't die because the opportunity to make a potentially poor decision - or a good one - has been completely removed. To put this in context, texting while driving is almost never a good decision. If you must respond, just pull over. But the decision to give a teenager a summer job where they might have to drive a small tractor, use a nail gun, or pick up and carry a hundred pounds is not so clear, and people should have the opportunity to choose whether or not it is a good idea.

[SumDumGoi]

You should perhaps consider how unwise it is to provide a link to your source with a carefully cherry picked quote that can be refuted when someone looks at the whole article and can quote what came before and after it. So let's see:

I fail to see how any of what you have said disproved my point. Originally the rule would have excluded farms "partially owned" by their parent. So yes, in part you were correct. However, in the face of the criticisms they willingly changed the initial rules to mitigate these concerns and allowed for children to work on farms that were partially owned by their parents as well. Yes the farmers yet again bulked and changed the discussion. The only thing you have shown is that you are not honest.

The whole argument was nothing more than a giant misinformation program aimed at stopping the rules which would have prevented the abundant supply of cheap labor.

No, they sell off because there's no one to replace them because their kids don't want the growing aggravation of government influence in their lives and decided to sit their last time on a tractor seat 10 years ago.

The government hasn't changed the rules for child labor working in agriculture since the early 1970's. What government regulations have been driving these kids away from working on a farm during at an early age over the last 40+ years that has been causing small farms to disappear? Also if these small family farms don't want "government influence" perhaps they should stop sucking on the government teet as they collect their welfare checks that prop up these farms.

But I will tell you what. I will let have your Norman Rockwell imagery of small farmers as I think there is a better way of addressing the issue of children being injured on a farm. Let's crack down on the employers who are hiring illegal immigrants to work on their fields. Let's start enforcing the existing laws which state that by doing so you are committing a felony. Let's start making farmers pay an actual working wage for their employees in the field. The injuries that are happening are most likely a symptom of a larger problem, and that is the employment of unqualified workers (young children) as they are being exploited as a source of cheap labor. I would bet you anything that these same "small farmers" you are supporting would still balk at this and their farm would no longer be in existence for John-boy to work.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I fail to see how any of what you have said disproved my point. Originally the rule would have excluded farms "partially owned" by their parent.

Your myopia is profound then. Also further demonstrating your lack of reading comprehension.

So yes, in part you were correct.

Ha! But I thought you failed to see?

The whole argument was nothing more than a giant misinformation program aimed at stopping the rules which would have prevented the abundant supply of cheap labor.

The American Farm Bureau from whom I quoted does not represent the big corporate farms who most benefit from such cheap illegal alien labor of any age. Fail once again.

The government hasn't changed the rules for child labor working in agriculture since the early 1970's.

Wrong again kid. Ever hear of the minimum wage? When it changed from $1.15 an hour to $1.25 an hour in 1963 I informed Eldon Hinrichs that he owed me $10 for 8 hours work, not $9.20 like he tried to pay me. Try that when you're 13 facing down a man in his 50's. He paid it too, with a little grumbling about smart-ass kids. Something you are pretty good at, just with far less intelligence and intellectual integrity.

But I will tell you what. I will let have your Norman Rockwell imagery of small farmers as I think there is a better way of addressing the issue of children being injured on a farm. Let's crack down on the employers who are hiring illegal immigrants to work on their fields. Let's start enforcing the existing laws which state that by doing so you are committing a felony. Let's start making farmers pay an actual working wage for their employees in the field. The injuries that are happening are most likely a symptom of a larger problem, and that is the employment of unqualified workers (young children) as they are being exploited as a source of cheap labor.

Now here I will agree with you. No illegals nowhere, no how. But how and who O' wise one, determines what an actual working wage is? Isn't that what the minimum wage is supposed to do for such unskilled labor?

[Conway]

I fail to see how any of what you have said disproved my point. Originally the rule would have excluded farms "partially owned" by their parent. So yes, in part you were correct. However, in the face of the criticisms they willingly changed the initial rules to mitigate these concerns and allowed for children to work on farms that were partially owned by their parents as well. Yes the farmers yet again bulked and changed the discussion. The only thing you have shown is that you are not honest.

The whole argument was nothing more than a giant misinformation program aimed at stopping the rules which would have prevented the abundant supply of cheap labor.





The government hasn't changed the rules for child labor working in agriculture since the early 1970's. What government regulations have been driving these kids away from working on a farm during at an early age over the last 40+ years that has been causing small farms to disappear? Also if these small family farms don't want "government influence" perhaps they should stop sucking on the government teet as they collect their welfare checks that prop up these farms.

But I will tell you what. I will let have your Norman Rockwell imagery of small farmers as I think there is a better way of addressing the issue of children being injured on a farm. Let's crack down on the employers who are hiring illegal immigrants to work on their fields. Let's start enforcing the existing laws which state that by doing so you are committing a felony. Let's start making farmers pay an actual working wage for their employees in the field. The injuries that are happening are most likely a symptom of a larger problem, and that is the employment of unqualified workers (young children) as they are being exploited as a source of cheap labor. I would bet you anything that these same "small farmers" you are supporting would still balk at this and their farm would no longer be in existence for John-boy to work.

You finally start making sense in your final paragraph. There are already laws in place to deal with the main issue of illegal immigrants and their children working farms. Enforce those. Additionally, I support cutting off ALL subsidies for ALL fields. Maybe then people will realize how much we have been bent over and fucked by the government's continual devaluation of our monetary supply when food isn't being artificially kept low in price.

But more fucking regulations are not the answer, when there are already proper laws in place to deal with the problems being bitched about. Some farmer employs dozens of illegals? Fine and jail him, deport the workers. A farmer has neighborhood kids working in unsanitary or unsafe conditions? The family should sue him into oblivion.

[Jamie J. Skibicki]

"Also if these small family farms don't want "government influence" perhaps they should stop sucking on the government teet as they collect their welfare checks that prop up these farms."

Try again. THe largest share of subsidies go to large corporations.

http://farm.ewg.org/top_recips.php?f...heUnitedStates

[wes]

I fail to see how any of what you have said disproved my point. Originally the rule would have excluded farms "partially owned" by their parent. So yes, in part you were correct. However, in the face of the criticisms they willingly changed the initial rules to mitigate these concerns and allowed for children to work on farms that were partially owned by their parents as well. Yes the farmers yet again bulked and changed the discussion. The only thing you have shown is that you are not honest.

The whole argument was nothing more than a giant misinformation program aimed at stopping the rules which would have prevented the abundant supply of cheap labor.





The government hasn't changed the rules for child labor working in agriculture since the early 1970's. What government regulations have been driving these kids away from working on a farm during at an early age over the last 40+ years that has been causing small farms to disappear? Also if these small family farms don't want "government influence" perhaps they should stop sucking on the government teet as they collect their welfare checks that prop up these farms.

But I will tell you what. I will let have your Norman Rockwell imagery of small farmers as I think there is a better way of addressing the issue of children being injured on a farm. Let's crack down on the employers who are hiring illegal immigrants to work on their fields. Let's start enforcing the existing laws which state that by doing so you are committing a felony. Let's start making farmers pay an actual working wage for their employees in the field. The injuries that are happening are most likely a symptom of a larger problem, and that is the employment of unqualified workers (young children) as they are being exploited as a source of cheap labor. I would bet you anything that these same "small farmers" you are supporting would still balk at this and their farm would no longer be in existence for John-boy to work.

Small farms are propped up by subsidies? What are you talking about? Most crops arent subsidized, pretty much only the grains are. Do you know what the subsidy per acre is? Do you know how many acres you need to turn a profit on a subsidy? Do you think that is a small farm?

Both sides of this debate are extreme bordering on absurd. There is a complete lack of understanding about what happens on a small/family farm going on in this thread.

[SumDumGoi]

Wrong again kid. Ever hear of the minimum wage? When it changed from $1.15 an hour to $1.25 an hour in 1963 I informed Eldon Hinrichs that he owed me $10 for 8 hours work, not $9.20 like he tried to pay me. Try that when you're 13 facing down a man in his 50's. He paid it too, with a little grumbling about smart-ass kids. Something you are pretty good at, just with far less intelligence and intellectual integrity.

So because the minimum wage went up as the cost of living increased for across the country you think this shows that the labor laws for agriculture have changed over the last 40+ years. Since you are so adept at reading comprehension, my original point was that the government didn't regulate these kids away from farming since no changes in the labor laws have been made over the last 40+ years where there has been a dramatic decline in young farmers taking up the trade. If this is the argument you are choosing to go with wouldn't the higher wages make it more likely that children would have become involved with farming during this time, or did the higher wage turn them away?

Now here I will agree with you. No illegals nowhere, no how. But how and who O' wise one, determines what an actual working wage is? Isn't that what the minimum wage is supposed to do for such unskilled labor?

Now you have just unknowingly given up the game. Unskilled labor is not automatically priced at minimum wage. The wage which is paid is determined by the market. For example, I used to work in a warehouse during the summer when I was in college. I would say that my job was relatively unskilled as it primarily consisted of loading and unloading trucks. I would say that the work would be analogous to farm type of work in that it involved a lot of heavy lifting, working in a hot environment for long hours a day, but my pay was substantially above minimum wage at the time.

Wage is not set only by the skill of the work. The wage is determined by how much you need to pay to get someone to do the work. The problem with farming is that you have the same types of working conditions as described above, but with an increased risk of injury or death. However, you get paid substantially less and have no health insurance even if you were to get hurt while working in the field.

Furthermore, and more importantly, if you are only willing to pay the minimum wage (which a lot of these folks I bet are not getting as they are paid under the table) the only people you are going to get to do the work are either illegal immigrants or children. As the other poster previously said, if you have to undercut the labor market so dramatically by having your workforce consist of free or heavily discounted labor from children (let's "pretend" no illegals work on small farms as you contend) then your business deserves to go under.

Furthermore, given the dangerous working conditions that these children you are exploiting are placed in, in addition to the fact that you are only willing to pay minimum wage for "unskilled labor" if I had a kid there is no fucking way in hell I would let him work on a farm. I can assure you that I worked just as hard as any farm kid with any of my previous jobs, yet I was paid substantially more while having things like health insurance, workman's compensation and minimum risk of injury.

From what you just told me, perhaps the reason why the average age of the farmer is so high is not because of any government regulations like those that have been proposed that are turning young children away from farming. Maybe the actual reason is that farmers have been undercutting the labor market so substantially as they continue to exploit there young workforce that there is simply no reason for a child to ever step on a farm.