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In Baltimore schools, free meals for all

We shouldn't punish the kids, but the state should start punishing parents, child neglect is illegal

Children's protective services are underfunded, and in most places, case workers are overwhelmed. Too often we give only lip service to the notion that our children are our future.
 
As it relates to the ideological agenda of the Liberal/Progressive left, you are correct. But in the end, it's not about partisanship, it's about trying to keep the Progressive State from creating a race of robots dependent on the State for everything. History shows that doesn't work out very well.

I listen to progressive rock ,that is all I have about it.
 
You might want to look at birth rates among some of our more recent arrivals. As it relates to the issue in this thread, you're theory is deeply flawed.

I have and they're irrelevant to the claims I have made. The US birth rate is still substantially lower than that of any other point in US history. Do you really want to go down this road?
 
And what weight of punishment would you provide to deter parents so messed-up, they don't feed their kids?

Prison isn't deterring drug addiction, and losing one's kids isn't deterring mental illness.

In more severe cases Dad may be in jail, and Mom may be mentally ill or running the streets. You're going to deter parents like this with punishment?

Short of making the kids wards-of-state, what's your solution, and is it cost-effective?

Getting these kids in school and keeping them in acts as a social service for them in an environment where nothing else may be working, even their families.

Well absolutely the state needs to take away neglected kids for their good. So using the pejorative "wards of the state" I don't know why you would say that, absolutely the kids should be seized.

Laws are not about deference they're about punishment
 
I have and they're irrelevant to the claims I have made. The US birth rate is still substantially lower than that of any other point in US history. Do you really want to go down this road?

Do you really want to go down this road when the topic is school lunches and who gets them?

Your on the wrong thread for your population meme.
 
Children's protective services are underfunded, and in most places, case workers are overwhelmed. Too often we give only lip service to the notion that our children are our future.
Agreed.

Before my daughter went back exclusively to full-time nursing, she worked several pro-bono stints as an intake psychologist in an ER at a very large hospital on the border of some of the worst neighborhoods in the country, including what's thought to be the top gun-murder neighborhood in the country.

She thought she'd have the hardest time dealing face-to-face with murderers and rapists (not figuratively, but literally - she didn't know if she could handle it professionally), but it turned-out the cases that gave her the most nightmares & heartbreak were those where she had to decide to place kids with DCFS, particularly in those cases where the areas were grey, but troubling.

Why?

Because DCFS (here, at least) is essentially a sentence to a high probability of a sub-standard life.

And she agonized constantly over the decisions of placement in those cases where there was a potential or demonstrated domestic parental risk which might be monitored & rectified, vs sending the child on an irrevocable path through the bureaucracy of DCFS where the outcomes are statistically poor.

For these & other reasons, she ended-up going back into helping people through their bodies, rather than their minds.
 
Well absolutely the state needs to take away neglected kids for their good. So using the pejorative "wards of the state" I don't know why you would say that, absolutely the kids should be seized.
The point I was attempting to make, is that it's easier to provide nutritious lunch for the kids, than to attempt to solve the parental problem with criminal charges & punishment (not that punishment shouldn't be done, but it still doesn't solve the problem of the kids being neglected).

I was also attempting to show taking custody of the child is an expensive proposition, that often has a poor outcome for the child as well.

Laws are not about deference they're about punishment
True.

But removing a parent still doesn't help the kid.

Providing a good school environment does.

That's the whole point of free lunch (and this thread).
 
Only when the government becomes the only approved vendor.

Indeed WTF?
Then please, feel free to step-up and buy the kids lunch!

If you & your buddies did this, we wouldn't have to use my tax dollars.

Barring your doing this, what's your solution?
 
Do you really want to go down this road when the topic is school lunches and who gets them?

YOU brought up some old timey bull**** about how thought people were back in some fictional fairy tale land as it regarded having kids, I corrected it. You seem to have an issue with it for whatever reason. It's okay to admit you made something up based on nothing more than old timey bull****.
 
That's the whole point of free lunch (and this thread).

no, the point is it's free lunch AND free breakfast. if someone has a child that they cannot afford to pay to feed more than ONE meal a day perhaps that child should be removed from those parents. at any rate I'm sure nobody checks up to see if these parents do or do not actually have the money to feed their own child(and to me anyone who has a child they can't afford to raise is already an irresponsible moron), and I imagine even if a child could afford his own food the other kids would beat him up for being "the rich kid".

the point is the program is flawed and we wish there was a way to control the spending in that area when obviously money is being wasted. and since I pay taxes just like you I get to complain about it. if you want to smile and keep opening your wallet to pay up....good for you.
 
Then please, feel free to step-up and buy the kids lunch!

If you & your buddies did this, we wouldn't have to use my tax dollars.

Barring your doing this, what's your solution?

Oh, I don't know. Perhaps the solution is the same one that allowed human beings to survive all these years. Something along the lines of requiring parents to feed their children, as opposed to given them reason not to.
 
YOU brought up some old timey bull**** about how thought people were back in some fictional fairy tale land as it regarded having kids, I corrected it. You seem to have an issue with it for whatever reason. It's okay to admit you made something up based on nothing more than old timey bull****.

:lamo

:sword:

:eek:uch:
 
no, the point is it's free lunch AND free breakfast. if someone has a child that they cannot afford to pay to feed more than ONE meal a day perhaps that child should be removed from those parents. at any rate I'm sure nobody checks up to see if these parents do or do not actually have the money to feed their own child(and to me anyone who has a child they can't afford to raise is already an irresponsible moron), and I imagine even if a child could afford his own food the other kids would beat him up for being "the rich kid".

the point is the program is flawed and we wish there was a way to control the spending in that area when obviously money is being wasted. and since I pay taxes just like you I get to complain about it. if you want to smile and keep opening your wallet to pay up....good for you.

I don't mind opening up my wallet so long as I know where my money is going to go. I don't mind my county taxes increasing if that's what it takes to provide healthy meals for school kids.

Taking kids away from their parents is the very last resort.
 
Oh, I don't know. Perhaps the solution is the same one that allowed human beings to survive all these years. Something along the lines of requiring parents to feed their children, as opposed to given them reason not to.
Comon', 'ocean515' - we're long gone from 17th century 30 year lifespans, and 1/3 infant & 2/3 childhood mortality rates! No one would accept them today. A lot of children DIDN'T survive at all in the centuries past. In fact most, not some, but MOST didn't make it through birth, childhood, and into adulthood!

The point (today) is, some of these parents aren't doing what they should.

I hear your complaints, but once again - "What's your solution"?

(NOT, "What's your Utopian Dream?")
 
Oh, I don't know. Perhaps the solution is the same one that allowed human beings to survive all these years. Something along the lines of requiring parents to feed their children, as opposed to given them reason not to.

But it's not happening, and kids are going hungry. So you can sit on your high horse and talk about the should of could of of life, or we can try to find a way to solve the problem.

School's providing lunch to all students "free of charge" (or rather, included in the cost of public school funding) will do nothing to eliminate the parents or make the government the sole provider of food or whatever. It's just an achievable way to ensure that the kids get at least one good meal a day.
 
Comon', 'ocean515' - we're long gone from 17th century 30 year lifespans, and 1/3 infant & 2/3 childhood mortality rates! No one would accept them today. A lot of children DIDN'T survive at all in the centuries past. In fact most, not some, but MOST didn't make it through birth, childhood, and into adulthood!

The point (today) is, some of these parents aren't doing what they should.

I hear your complaints, but once again - "What's your solution"?



(NOT, "What's your Utopian Dream?")

Well gee, I wasn't necessarily referring to 1647, I was more thinking of the '60's and '70's, when I went to elementary and High School. I guess kids were just dying off, and I didn't notice. Considering there was little more than subsidized milk going on, it's a miracle kids in the US survived such a squalid and heartless period of time.
 
But it's not happening, and kids are going hungry. So you can sit on your high horse and talk about the should of could of of life, or we can try to find a way to solve the problem.

School's providing lunch to all students "free of charge" (or rather, included in the cost of public school funding) will do nothing to eliminate the parents or make the government the sole provider of food or whatever. It's just an achievable way to ensure that the kids get at least one good meal a day.

As I suggested earlier, I've grown mmune to the "let them starve" blather that is the line of last resort from people who can't defend their ideas with anything more than platitudes.

Children who are indeed in need of food should get fed. There are children who fit this bill, just as there are adults who also need help.

These numbers are nowhere near what the government has decided to do about the issue. They are deciding to become the sole purveyors of nutrition, and the arbiters of what will be allowed to be fed to all children. In this mission, they are removing nutritional responsibility from parents who for the most part, are apparently are capable of feeding themselves. I am guessing at that, but I haven't noticed a wholesale increase in starvation deaths of parents of school age children, so I think I'm on safe ground.

This usurping of responsibility by government agency is another example of progressive policy that seeks to put the government in the position of holding people at their mercy. Toe the line, or else. That is a dangerous place to put the government. History has proven this to be true.
 
Well gee, I wasn't necessarily referring to 1647, I was more thinking of the '60's and '70's, when I went to elementary and High School. I guess kids were just dying off, and I didn't notice. Considering there was little more than subsidized milk going on, it's a miracle kids in the US survived such a squalid and heartless period of time.
Fair enough.

I grew-up in the era you've described, and was fortunate-enough that my parents may have been immigrants of modest means, but they worked liked dogs & lived frugally in order to give their kids a better life than that of the war-torn Europe my grandfather fled for the New World, with his family & my father in tow.

But this particular subset of parents aren't doing their part - and dreaming, proselytizing, remembering the past, or wishing or hoping, isn't feeding the troubled kids mouths today.

The city stepped-up & provided a solution.

I have no problems with those complaining of the city's solution - if they can provide a better one.
 
Fair enough.

I grew-up in the era you've described, and was fortunate-enough that my parents may have been immigrants of modest means, but they worked liked dogs & lived frugally in order to give their kids a better life than that of the war-torn Europe my grandfather fled for the New World, with his family & my father in tow.

But this particular subset of parents aren't doing their part - and dreaming, proselytizing, remembering the past, or wishing or hoping, isn't feeding the troubled kids mouths today.

The city stepped-up & provided a solution.

I have no problems with those complaining of the city's solution - if they can provide a better one.

Key emphasis - aren't doing their part. And how will further removing them from doing their part solve the problem? The fact is, the government has been further removing them from doing their part for decades. Repeating the same policies that have created the problem is insane.

The fact is, we now are seeing school districts, if not teachers, confiscating parent supplied lunches as if it was some contraband. This is being done because the government has decided they know what is best for the children, as opposed to the parents. Again, this is insane.

Throwing in the towel and letting the wholesale take over of nutrition to the government because nobody has come up with a better solution falls into the same insane category.
 
Nobody?

:lamo

:liar

:2wave:

Well I'm sure you'd be able to find an idiot willing to make the same old timey bull**** claim that smaller families, wide availability (and acceptance) of contraceptive use, women waiting longer to have kids, and a general drop in birth rates (the lowest since records have been kept), means that people aren't more careful about having kids. However, it won't make your absurd claim - from which you based an entire post - any less flawed or anything other than nonsensical old timey bull****. :lol:
 
I don't mind opening up my wallet so long as I know where my money is going to go. I don't mind my county taxes increasing if that's what it takes to provide healthy meals for school kids.

Taking kids away from their parents is the very last resort.

I'm not sure leaving them in a home that doesn't feed them is the best of choices either...

but yeah.. i don't have too much problem feeding the hungry kids.... though i'm not sure why feeding every child should be mandated.

in any event, this is just one more case, in a long line of cases, where the responsibility of parents is being usurped by schools/the state.
 
Key emphasis - aren't doing their part. And how will further removing them from doing their part solve the problem? The fact is, the government has been further removing them from doing their part for decades. Repeating the same policies that have created the problem is insane.

The fact is, we now are seeing school districts, if not teachers, confiscating parent supplied lunches as if it was some contraband. This is being done because the government has decided they know what is best for the children, as opposed to the parents. Again, this is insane.

Throwing in the towel and letting the wholesale take over of nutrition to the government because nobody has come up with a better solution falls into the same insane category.
I wouldn't mind seeing some citation for the lunch confiscation you describe (barring that there's nothing particularly hazardous with the parent supplied lunch - for example, spoilage).

I have no idea how you came-up with the term, "Throwing in the towel and letting the wholesale take over of nutrition to the government". You seem to be conflating another concern with the topic of this thread, which is 'free lunch'.
 
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