This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1461799
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1461799
U.S. law also does not treat 16- and 17-year-olds as adults.
Except when applying for a passport. That’s not a criticism, because I wholeheartedly believe in Child Labor Laws. It’s just an observation.
ETA – I just checked the State Department’s website, and it seems that this has been revised since my daughter got her passport in 2008. 16 and 17 years must now show that one parent is aware that they are applying for the passport, whereas children under 16 must have both parents present when applying for a passport.
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Rat bastards! No level of hell is bad enough.
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…and all states have compulsory school attendance laws.
Well, there’s the real problem right there. But I have no doubt our homegrown jihadis have a plan for this, too.
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It’s just another freedom to take away, as we go into our annual Independence Day celebration missing a few more rights we had the year before.
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And here’s the kicker: no one is doing a goddamn thing about it. Certainly not the public. Anyone hear of a Women’s March equivalent being planned? I mean, nothing spontaneous will happen, that’s for damn sure.
Everyone likes shitting on Israel but Israelis have been protesting en masse for 16 weeks over proposed judicial changes that would alter their country’s makeup. Here? The tumbleweeds are blowing through empty streets and politicos are making their usual vague and limp “We will never stop fighting for…” and “raise your hand if you agree!” social media posts are all this lazy country has.
Were it that I knew how to do these types of things: I depend on smarter and more organized people for such. Alas, let’s just watch something else on Amazon Prime or Netflix.
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AND it’s ‘all for the kids’, amirite??? These mealy mouthed bottomfeeders will weaken laws while protecting THEIR children and insisting that’s who they are doing this for…
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Call it what it is: wage slave grooming.
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Add children to the groups that Repukes look at as another one to be used for their advantage and to build the wealth of the uber-rich.
These are some evil people.
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Ronald Reagan sought to ease federal protections to allow 14- and 15-year-olds to work longer hours in fast-food and retail establishments and to pay young workers less than the minimum wage
It’s called slavery.
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The Republican Party is where concern for others goes to die. They are, indeed Right to Life - right to a miserable, soul sucking life of hard work, poverty, ignorance and exhaustion. Sociopaths all.
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As always, follow the money. Adolescents are easier to manipulate than adults. You can pay them less because if you cheat them out of their wages, as minors they have no way to sue unless an adult intercedes for them. And the kids that are working these jobs and hours aren’t the ones that have adults in their lives that can protect them physically or legally. Also, adding a whole lot of minors to the job pool undermines any leverage over pay, benefits and working conditions that unskilled workers might otherwise have. In fact, expect to see adults lose their jobs to minors in these child labor states. 
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And in France we see six days of public riots after cops shot a teen in a traffic stop. Thirty-two people shot in Baltimore, meh, just another day.
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Hey, it’s no problem. Kids can listen to podcasts while they work and keep on learning.
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Start by defunding and otherwise trashing education, then usher children into long hours at pitiful pay, because they haven’t been educated enough to even know about the evil of slavery and child labor.
And of course, all brought to you by the robber barons and their submissive Repulsivan politician sissies.
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You know, here’s where the law of unintended consequences will be ready to pounce: as kids film themselves doing everything, who is to say they wouldn’t start filming unsafe working conditions as soon as they arise?
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The party of family values strikes again.
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Yes, @leftcoaster, because family values are soooo important… But now we know why they want all the babies born. More workers for the fields and the abbatoirs. Win win.
Hey these Christians. Never underestimate them.
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The jig is up when the boss wants to pay the child laborer less.
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American oligarchs and their digital plantations.
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