Yet more traditional values...

[The Doctor.]

Came across this;

"Steve Kellmeyer, a conservative Catholic who writes for numerous publications (with whom Heather and I had a rather lengthy and tendentious discussion about evolutionary language here in the comments), is writing a book, an essay for which now appears on his site. It's title of the essay is, and I'm not making this up, The Return of Child Labor. In it, he says a lot of things, the most striking of which includes:

'We have millenia of data to demonstrate that the agrarian model of apprenticeship transforms children into stable adults. An information society can implement that model today. At this point, America has literally no reason not to return to the agrarian model of child-rearing. Mass schooling doesn’t work and has never been successfully reformed. The child labor laws are anachronistic. Why do we retain either?'

As hilarious as it would be for the republican party to adopt repealing child labor laws into its platform, I'm wondering how widespread these opinions are in conservative circles. Does anyone have any idea?

I ask because the logic and method of the essay reads to me very much like wingnuttery I've read before. For example, we have our selective and unsubstantiated generalizations about history:

In an agrarian society, children are producers from almost the time they can walk. They work the farm side-by-side with their parents, thereby both putting food on the table and learning adult methods of thought and speech. Children in such a society are expected to pull their own weight and help provide for the family."

http://hereswhatsleft.typepad.com/home/

I can't wait to hear Falwell on this one...

[ck4829]

1. And then Bush gets crowned King of America by Pat Robertson

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. My brother started working at age 9

to help put food on the table when my father deserted us, taking all our money and even our furniture. He moved from paper routes to grocery stores to the Army, from which he retired after 20 years only to begin a new career with computers. If anyone knows and understands "child labor" it would be my brother. I think it is both interesting and telling that NONE of his children got jobs until they wanted to (seniors in high school) and that NONE has joined the military.

[amjucsc]

3. I can't believe even the Republicans would buy that nonsense...

And it is nonsense. No corporation is going to want to put up with employees bringing their seven year olds into work... It would be a tremendous drain on efficiency... Kids would only learn as much as their parent know, etc, etc...

Just compare the overall level of education in the US to what it was in the early 19th century. Repeat with every other country that's instituted public education. Even if todays adults might be more capable of independently educating the young, it would only be because of public schooling...

[KharmaTrain]

5. Education? That Only Makes 'Em "Libruls"

Read closely and you'll see there's little mention about education as having any value. The term "apprenticeship" says it all...schools wouldn't be needed to teach critical thinking, it'd be strictly as a vocational system to produce machine-like "workers" to take orders from the "leaders" (religious, off course) and drum in submission and obedience.

Reading between the lines, I see yet another attack on not only the education system here, but a continuing GOOP effort to kill AFT and other teachers unions that contribute lots of money to Democrats and stand in their way of fleecing billions of local tax dollars and divert them to their religious and private interests.

[Anakin Skywalker]

4. That's Pretty Funny, Dumb@$$ Conservative!

Gee, their agenda is showing more and more now that they've won "mandates". Next they'll be calling for the return of witch-hunting and other nonsense.

[th2techdude]

6. Yeah, let's hear it for "traditional" values.

Child labor? I don't think anyone will buy into this garbage. That's not how you build a better society.