691–700 of 918 posts
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I agree the child should be fed, but we also need to think about the other wide of this. It sounds as though the dad in this case was able to pay but refused to pay. What sort of person puts their own child through this to make a point? It is neglectful or abusive.
All the more reason for using schools to feed children who may be abused and starved at home.
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The effect of what you argue for would be 1) to make innocent children who have no control over whether or not their parents are too poor to fund education for their children suffer, and 2) to seriously negatively affect society as a whole by reducing the education-level of the public. Society needs children to remain functioning and stable as people age and can't sustain themselves, and so from even a purely selfish…
Not everyone in society cares about and values the supply of labor for the functioning of the next generation. It is fundamentally immoral to use force to compel us to fund your genetic and demographic objectives.
If you think that socializing the costs of children is morally correct, why stop at education? Children need clothing and food, why do we not use tax money to provide free clothing and food to all children (instead of just the poor ones)?
Education could work similarly if you believe that; people able to afford to pay for their children’s education should have the obligation to do so, critically, just like every parent does now for food and clothing. Those that are legitimately unable to pay for their child’s education could then be subsidized.
There is a real problem in our society of people having children (and pets) they cannot reasonably afford to appropriately care for.
Forcing other people to subsidize their poor decisions is morally repugnant; which is completely independent of the suffering of children. In fact, if you believe children going hungry or uneducated is bad, you are also invested in solving the problem of people having children they cannot afford to support. (Support of course including the costs of education.)
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Our "decent modern society" already does this, because the government SNAP program guarantees that anyone for whom the standard food budget is not met by their income receives government support. Groceries, however, are expected to be bought by parents and then meals prepared for their children. I don't expect children to prepare their own lunch, but I do expect their parents to - and the same for breakfast, dinner,…
Again, just provide the kids themselves with decent (not stratified) meals, rather than tying it to parental responsibility or otherwise. It's like you're trying to make a mean society.
I'm not arguing against universal school lunches here. I am arguing against the idea society should somehow be providing prepared meals, unless "society" includes "children's parents".
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Which do you think is cheaper: Involving social services because someone isn't paying for school lunch, which would involve the state either paying foster parents or providing other costly monitoring, possible court cases, and/or support, or simply covering the cost of school lunches?
Simply covering school lunches, if this would be the decusion here. But that wouldn't solve the problem of negligent parents, only ease things a little bit for children.
For those who genuinely need more heavy handed interventions, it's not a solution, but it's also not in any way detrimental.
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I posted about it in a different little branch: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43903848 TL;DR: the average disability recipient age has hovered ~50 (stddev 1.54 years) since 1960. The theory of "baby boomers are a huge generation, they got old and US health care sucks ass" is far more parsimonious than your theory of individual accountability, which has to explain why every generation suddenly becomes fraudulen…
Aggregating statistics regarding age has very little explanatory value in regards to fraud and is a non sequitir. I would not be surprised if the average age of a convicted insurance fraudster has remained relatively constant over time either. The example in linked materials of 1 in 4 adults in Hale County receiving disability payments is a clear example of a situation where individuals and healthcare providers have…
The first interview [1] is exactly what I've written: baby boomers got older and more disabled, and economic conditions pushed people into disability. Quote: "consider this: Since the economy began its slow, slow recovery in late 2009, we've been averaging about 150,000 new jobs created per month. But in that same period, almost 250,000 people have been applying for disability every month." What do you want these people to do, manifest new jobs?
The second interview [2] outlines how the definition of disability has expanded over the years and the way the legal profession has exploited that to increase the number and success rate of disability claims. Again, not freeloading.
The third interview [3] describes how welfare-to-work legislation put a higher burden of the welfare onto states, so it's actually in their financial benefit to move people off of welfare and onto Social Security disability--so much so in fact that they pay people to do it. Quote: "PCG estimates it'll save Missouri about $80 million with all the people that will be getting onto disability and off of welfare".
Interviews 4 [4] and 5 [5] describe how people and families get trapped in these systems where if they do too well they'll experience extreme financial hardship. Quote: "a lot of the letters that we got from people responding to the stories were people saying, I'm one of those 14 million people on disability and I want to work. But I get health insurance on disability and what job am I going to find that accommodates my disability, it also gives me health insurance."
If your model of this problem is "there's a bunch of people too lazy to work who are freeloading on the public dole" you will be unsuccessful at solving it, because your model is wrong.
[0]: https://www.npr.org/series/196621208/unfit-for-work-the-star...
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2013/03/22/175072446/millions-of-america...
[2]: https://www.npr.org/2013/03/26/175396983/expanded-definition...
[3]: https://www.npr.org/2013/03/27/175502085/moving-people-from-...
[4]: https://www.npr.org/2013/03/28/175619112/kids-may-stay-on-di...
[5]: https://www.npr.org/2013/03/29/175722025/americans-on-disabi...
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This is why the wealthy should be required to use public schools.
The wealthy do use public schools. They pay huge amounts to live in upper class neighborhoods with wealthy peers, where a lot of tax money goes into the schooling system so the kids can take all sorts of extracurriculars and AP classes. It gets the same results as private school but the cost comes from living in that neighborhood rather than paying the school directly
And that goes back to how taxes for public schools are driven. The problem seems too engrained and too massive to fix. And since schools are state controlled, you'd need 50 solutions, not 1.
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The effect of what you argue for would be 1) to make innocent children who have no control over whether or not their parents are too poor to fund education for their children suffer, and 2) to seriously negatively affect society as a whole by reducing the education-level of the public. Society needs children to remain functioning and stable as people age and can't sustain themselves, and so from even a purely selfish…
Parents would find a way to pay to stay out of jail, same way they do today in finding food to buy their children, or housing, or insurance for their car. Living in our society is not free. Reproduction isn’t either. Socializing the costs of an individual choice to have a child or 8 is not morally defensible. Not everyone in society cares about and values the supply of labor for the functioning of the next generation…
And the notion of imprisoning people instead of simply covering a minor cost, and then harming their children further by taking them out of homes unless there are more serious reasons to that can't be trivially mitigated just comes across as brutally cruel and demonstrating a wildly irrational willingness to harm your own interests just to harm others.
You're not forced to fund anything - you can leave, and find a society that won't make you.
If you disapprove of being asked to contribute to society as a whole, I'd be all for giving you the right to excuse yourself from society, including all it provides. What you can't expect is the ability to selectively opt out of responsibilities and still be free to enjoy the benefits of that society - it goes two ways - it'd be immoral to force society to provide you with benefits and access if you're not prepared to accept the responsibilites that comes with that.
> If you think that socializing the costs of children is morally correct, why stop at education? Children need clothing and food, why do we not use tax money to provide free clothing and food to all children (instead of just the poor ones)?
If parents don't, most civilized countries that can afford to does in fact provide assistance to cover these things, because in most places people find it deplorable to let children go without.
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Stuff like this seems like such a dividing line to me. Like, in theory when people believe things that are morally wrong, I want to reach out to them with compassion and respect and try to gently persuade them to my side because we're all, in theory, on the same side. But if you don't want kids to be fed, I really am not sure we're actually on the same side any more and I really am not sure what to do with that.
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You are not denying food to the parents, you are denying food to the children. They did not choose to be born, and they certainly didn’t choose the fiscal responsibility of their parents. Maybe there is room in there to shame the parents or give them a slap on the wrist, but the kids are blameless and denying them food makes you probably a monster.
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You tell me.
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> The idea that lunches can be freshly made, on site, out of healthy ingredients and children are active participants in serving and cleaning up is just crazy. > When I encountered it for the first time I felt like a big part of my childhood had been sold to the lowest bidder. ....I share the sentiment, but I also see the chasm between the requirements to get to what's desired, & what's actually given to meet those r…
Imagine paying the kids a small amount for their work. Outliers will be everywhere, you only have to select the right ones, and not fix an entire suburbs culture, and ofc the obligatory: tax the rich.