Strength Training May Stunt Your Growth

[SumDumGoi]

I know I said the last post was my last, but here is one piece of information that the anyone continuing on this discussion should be aware of. The proposed regulations regarding children working on farms actually went out of its way to EXEMPT children on farms owned by their parents! In other words, the government is not telling any farmer how to raise their damn kids however, they do need to be responsible for the welfare of others children who are under their employ.

Any discussion regarding the government being involved in how you raise your kid is irrelevant. Because the issue is not telling farmers how to raise their kids, however the farmers have a responsibility to ensure the safety of any and all of their workers. If there was an unusually large number of children under the age of 16 being injured while working at McDonalds I bet no one would have a problem pointing the finger. What makes farms any more/less special?

Once again, I am not personally taking a side on the issue, but if you want to have an honest discussion on the issue you need to examine ALL of the current child labor laws that are currently put in place instead of only myopically examining this issue as it relates to farm work.

[casaubon]

Rip has already stated that he talking about the parents, I am not referring to that portion of your statement...but what concerns me, is this:

Where does it end? Today, children are being protected from their slave driving, abusive farming parents that are working their poor little fingers to the bone and (possibly) depriving them of education - or XBox 360 time - or time to PLAY - or whatever. They are working the defenseless, helpless children from sun up to sun down, or rather, that's what the government fools that have made this proposal are hoping we will believe. Further, the idiots that put this forth will have us believe that they are protecting these same children from eminent danger their parents are recklessly placing these children in for THE GOOD OF THE PEOPLE - [sarcasm]thank goodness for that[/sarcasm].

Well, considering we're talking about regulations that exempt family farms, I'd say we aren't. We're talking about regulations that prevent large farm operations from taking advantage of non-family child labor.

Basically, a good portion of that population is undocumented workers. The other portion is poor folks.

So we're not talking about "get out there and learn a good lesson about the value of work." We're talking about "get out there and earn because it's cheaper than me hiring an adult worker."

At which point, you have to ask yourself, in what way is a farm different than a steel mill? Or are you saying we should be free to ship our kids off to a factory to teach them about hard work? Is the problem with america that there aren't enough 14-year-olds working in factories?

A lot of this argument seems to come down to mythology. The sacredness of hard work. The notion that rural people are real americans and there's nothing more real american than a farm. etc, etc.

If you simply substitute the word "factory" for "farm" in every post in this thread, you'd have an argument that your side lost in the early 1910s. And thank god for that.

And if you disagree, then I encourage you sir to send your children into the mines or factories or fields as early as possible. Surely a 10-year-old could do a lot of good in a coal mine. No bent back for them! And when their application is denied, take to the courts. You sir need to strike a blow for freedom. Don't let those bureaucrats take your freedom from you. Be the Rosa Parks of child labor. Take a stand for individual liberty. Put your children to work in backbreaking conditions and make america great again.

[Mac Ward]

If you simply substitute the word "factory" for "farm" in every post in this thread, you'd have an argument that your side lost in the early 1910s. And thank god for that.

I was referring to parents and their family farms, and parents and their right to raise their children responsibly. I was not referring to the horrible corporate, money mongering entities that clearly should be taxed for their evil money earning ways. Since this proposal does not include "family owned farms", I suppose my point is off the mark. Clearly, the government is looking out for the small guy in this instance. More likely that the government is "protecting" the small guy somehow. Perhaps the proposal goes on to tell "family owned farms" that it's OK to hire the coal miner's daughter, and has no regulation for family owned farms as long as it's all in the family. Since I have only scanned it, I'll concede that you are correct, this proposal is for the good of the people. Keep it in the family, the farmer can preferentially work/hire his kids, but not the neighbors, unless they are in the family.

A lot of this argument seems to come down to mythology. The sacredness of hard work. The notion that rural people are real americans and there's nothing more real american than a farm. etc, etc.

I disagree, perhaps I have not articulated my point effectively. My belief is simply that parents should maintain the right to responsibly raise their children. The last thing I need as a parent is some knee jerk reaction of some politicians that results in ANOTHER regulation that I ultimately pay for, that affects my ability to live and raise my children as I see fit, so that I can be SAFER, or PROTECTED FROM MYSELF.

Recent example in my old neighborhood from about 6 months ago: A child being harassed by the police for not wearing a bicycle helmet while riding a bike in the street. Child was eight (I think), playing with other kids, daylight, summer, Saturday morning, IIRC. All for the safety of the child, because somewhere some asshole parent allowed their child to attempt to jump the Grand Canyon without a helmet on or some such nonsense, and we now get to buy government approved bicycle helmets to protect our children from themselves. I'm more likely to believe that somewhere some lobbyist convinced some other politicians that voting this regulation in would create jobs (making helmets) and the result was a new regulation put in place. Who knows? I don't really care. For a while there was a dusty helmet next to the dusty bike my child no longer rode. Really solved that problem.

My point remains the same, government regulations and government growth should be monitored and regulated by the people. EVERYTHING the government does should be questioned, thought out, and every attempt to find another measure should be taken. Believe me, this is what the founders of our country were trying to do. They were so fearful of government control and government in general they did all they could to limit the government. If we do not question all that government does, we'll have the government telling us what we can and cannot do with our bodies, families, money, and the like. Prohibition anyone?

I'm certain this discussion can go on all day, you will point out some atrocity the government is saving me from, I'll point out what I interpret to be another unnecessary invasion of my civil liberties, and we will never agree.

My point remains the same, government control should be limited to the maximum extent possible, and further, government should serve the will of the people. Get the government out of my wallet, home, marriage, and body.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I'll forebear to throw some more rotten fruit at your fellow traveler for the moment because you present some different points than his. No less specious, but differen.

Well, considering we're talking about regulations that exempt family farms, I'd say we aren't. We're talking about regulations that prevent large farm operations from taking advantage of non-family child labor.

Actually you're wrong there and I'll cite this as the refutation of it:

In February the Labor Department seemingly backed away from what many had called an unrealistic reach into farmers’ families, reopening the public comment period on a section of the regulations designed to give parents an exemption for their own children. But U.S. farmers’ largest trade group is unimpressed.

“American Farm Bureau does not view that as a victory,” said Kristi Boswell, a labor specialist with the American Farm Bureau Federation. “It’s a misconception that they have backed off on the parental exemption.” That narrow “parental exception” has quickly become a political football in U.S. agriculture. The Farm Bureau and one other national agricultural group told TheDC that it would only apply to parents who “wholly own” their own farms.

That would rule out kids working on an uncle’s farm, or a grandfather’s, and it would ban teens from working on farms where ownership is split — even among several generations of the same family. It would also mean teens couldn’t be around when their friends are doing farm work.

Estimates vary on the number of children who live on farms their parents ”wholly own.” One state-level Farm Bureau cited an internal estimate of less than 30 percent. That number, the organization said, takes into account the fact that many farms in animal agriculture are part-owned by the large food companies that ultimately purchase the mat after slaughter.

Basically, a good portion of that population is undocumented workers. The other portion is poor folks.

In some areas like the Central Valley of California this has some merit. But not most of the rest of the US. As far as poor folks, you are stuck on The Grapes of Wrath tome from the Dust Bowl. The net worth of even small farmers is pretty significant. What with the land they own, the buildings on it, and that dreaded power equipment that makes you so queasy.

At which point, you have to ask yourself, in what way is a farm different than a steel mill?

Well lets see now. No blast furnace, no hammering mill, no huge ladle of molten steel, no sparks from any of the above, and no multi-ton sheets or I-beams being moved by cranes. Sounds significantly different to me. Also farms typically don't operate after dark on a 3 shift basis like steel mills do. Are those steel mills family owned and operated with their own teens? Probably not since Andrew Carnegie's time.

A lot of this argument seems to come down to mythology. The sacredness of hard work. The notion that rural people are real americans and there's nothing more real american than a farm. etc, etc..

Hard work, can't have that. No union to oversee things. As for real Americans? Who feeds you and more often than urbanites goes to war to protect your ass?

Surely a 10-year-old could do a lot of good in a coal mine. No bent back for them! And when their application is denied, take to the courts.

You are, once again operating from a pre-20th Century paradigm in how mining is done. No doubt you're thinking of those stern old wood cuts from the old country across the pond where women and children were used as draft animals to haul up the coal buckets. Maybe you saw the movie How Green Was My Valley or The Molly McQuires. Most mining tasks and operations require a full sized adult to operate the equipment and move the coal worked loose. But then you don't care about reality anyway.

[zephed56]

Going off on a tangent.

But does everyone agree the federal government has become too powerful and large? I'd be willing to bet many democrats believe so. I really don't think this country is ever going to head back the other way towards a smaller central government. It's got too much inertia already. I think we're fucked. The shit will boil over eventually, but not yet and not for awhile I don't think.

[Mark E. Hurling]

This will be my last post in this thread because this is getting ridiculous.

Sadly such was not the case.

No one has said that young children can't work on a farm or do chores on the farm, not even the proposed rule. The only thing that has been said is that perhaps young children shouldn't be allowed to work with dangerous machinery that is located on the farm.

See the points made to casaubon on this. You are being intentionally obtuse.

As a counterpoint to what has "always been done" on a farm, please see my lumber-jacking business example. Should a parent be allowed to hand their kid a chainsaw and put him to work chopping down trees?

How about you acknowledge that your lumber-jacking metaphor is more like jacking of another kind? One does not equate to the other.

I know I said the last post was my last, but here is one piece of information that the anyone continuing on this discussion should be aware of. The proposed regulations regarding children working on farms actually went out of its way to EXEMPT children on farms owned by their parents! In other words, the government is not telling any farmer how to raise their damn kids however, they do need to be responsible for the welfare of others children who are under their employ.

Once again, read response to casaubon and then these from the article about the regulation:

“What would be more of a blow,” he said, “is not teaching our kids the values of working on a farm.”

The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the average age of the American farmer is now over 50.

“Losing that work ethic — it’s so hard to pick this up later in life,” Clark said. “There’s other ways to learn how to farm, but it’s so hard. You can learn so much more working on the farm when you’re 12, 13, 14 years old.”

“And in my view, if the federal government can regulate the kind of relationship between parents and their children on their own family’s farm, there is almost nothing off-limits in which we see the federal government intruding in a way of life.”

If that doesn't sound to you like the passing on of family values that also happen to involve work, there's little hope for you. The change in 2008 was too much for you.

Boswell told The DC that the new farming regulations could be finalized as early as August. She claimed farmers could soon find The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division inspectors on their land, citing them for violations.

This doesn't strike you in the least as Orwellian? It sounds a lot like the commissars from Mockba coming to the wheat field collectives for an inspection, maybe a messy public example, a propoganda photo op like we used to see with Kruschev, and maybe a little roll in the hay with an attractive serf, oh sorry proletariat.

If there was an unusually large number of children under the age of 16 being injured while working at McDonalds I bet no one would have a problem pointing the finger. What makes farms any more/less special?

Old McDonald really got into your head didn't he? Now you're channeling his urban nephew in fast food.

Once again, I am not personally taking a side on the issue, but if you want to have an honest discussion on the issue you need to examine ALL of the current child labor laws that are currently put in place instead of only myopically examining this issue as it relates to farm work.

But you are taking a side and it is evident to all that it is profoundly personal. Otherwise you wouldn't persist in this as you have. It'll never happen, but an hour with you across a table in an interrogation, sorry interview, room would really be fun. Of course it'd probably be 30 minutes more time than needed to crack that brittle facade of numbers like the eggs you had to gather for Old McDonald. You persisted in bad reading and bad numbers from the outset until enough other people called you on it that you finally backed down. The reason is simple. You didn't like what you read, you quit reasoning and just stayed pissed. So your attempt to resolve your massive cognitive dissonance was to retreat behind numbers.

I don't what happened back when and why you dislike conservatives in general so much and rural life in particular, but it comes through like a lighthouse in the fog. Your concluding statement is yet another attempt to expand the boundaries of this discussion to render this specific topic pointless and you can walk away with some shreds of your intellectual dignity intact. At least in your own mind. Nice try, but fail again.

[rumblefish]

Going off on a tangent.

But does everyone agree the federal government has become too powerful and large?

Unfortunately, no. There are many that are totally comfortable with the extended reach of the federal government, and advocate for more.

[SumDumGoi]

Well lets see now. No blast furnace, no hammering mill, no huge ladle of molten steel, no sparks from any of the above, and no multi-ton sheets or I-beams being moved by cranes. Sounds significantly different to me. Also farms typically don't operate after dark on a 3 shift basis like steel mills do. Are those steel mills family owned and operated with their own teens? Probably not since Andrew Carnegie's time.

So you are basically saying that you believe that children shouldn't be put in a position where they are working in dangerous conditions, except when those dangerous conditions involve farm work? How did you manage to write this and think it made logical sense?

[DoctorWho]

Going off on a tangent.

But does everyone agree the federal government has become too powerful and large? I'd be willing to bet many democrats believe so. I really don't think this country is ever going to head back the other way towards a smaller central government. It's got too much inertia already. I think we're fucked. The shit will boil over eventually, but not yet and not for awhile I don't think.

Further to Mark's point. The regulation was a federal one, with no leeway for differences between Wisconsin, Maine, or Florida farms.

Another problem is the cumulative effect of well-meaing labor regulations, which often have unintended, detrimental consequences. Even Al Franken called the cancellation of the regulations a good thing. To the proponents, being to the left of Al Franken on any issue is rarified air. That doesn't mean you're wrong, just unusual.

[Mark E. Hurling]

So you are basically saying that you believe that children shouldn't be put in a position where they are working in dangerous conditions, except when those dangerous conditions involve farm work? How did you manage to write this and think it made logical sense?

OK, let me make this crayon simple for you. The regulation made no material distinction between working around power implements and manual labor despite your artful attempt to ignore this. It talks about transport of grain which I suppose you think will be interpreted narrowly and mean just transported by something with an engine. You can transport grain in a bucket, a wheelbarrow, or by picking up a 75 lb. bale of feed. You do remember the regulation said feed right?

You were 12 when Old McDonald abused you down on the farm right? You're how old now, 18? Because your simplistic reasoning speaks to a lack of experience. Can you really believe yourself when you compare one of your dark satanic steel mills owned by one of the 1% to a father having one of his sons or daughters scoop a shovel full of oats into a trough for the livestock? You see no difference between a relatively disinterested industrial employer and a parent in a small family enterprise? Your blinkered perspective really betrays a poor universe of things to talk about in a truly intelligent manner.

How about sending them out into a soybean field with a hoe to cut down a corn stalk in the middle of a row of beans? Now I'll grant you, I saw Jim Frogge and his brother Tom operating tractors and conveyors on their father Calvin's farm when they were 13 and they weren't especially exceptional. I've also recounted the missing fingers and hand of others I grew up with. Accidents happen farming and they happen to adults and the younger as well. I could also recount my own experiences with all manner of sports injuries and other broken bones from age 5 to 57. None of them from working on a farm.