Pretty much everyone in this Country knows the U.S. takes a dim view of child labor. Our Fair Labor Standards Act prohibits the employment of children under the age of 16 in jobs that endanger their health and safety. The number of hours they can work is restricted as is the list of occupations they may undertake. A primary reason for the protection of the young is to preserve their academic opportunities, which, for most, exist in our…
You’ve seen those post-apocalyptic movies. A complete breakdown of society has occurred, usually from a war of some kind that has wiped out most of the population along with the vegetation. Dingy desert for as far as the eye can see. Straggly, smelly people living in rusted out shacks. Everybody killing each other for little scraps of nothing that has value today. And everybody riding around in vehicles of some kind. Motorcycles with sidecars, big ugly buses, military…
Life for the poor and the working class was probably never as miserable as during the western world’s Industrial Revolution. That great period of history, which turned agrarian societies into mechanized urban centers, also spawned an oppressive poverty. Unskilled workers labored long hours under dangerous conditions with little job security. Housing was horrifying. Disease thrived in the overcrowded, polluted nightmare of daily subsistence. Workers were plentiful making them also dispensable. Women and children were a large part of the…
David Cameron, Britain’s current Prime Minister, stated last week at a security conference in Munich that Brits need a stronger national identity. According to Cameron, the UK’s years long experiment in state-sponsored multiculturalism has led to different cultures living very separate lives. This pronounced segregation-by-choice is eroding the values that bring citizens together under a single nation banner. In the Prime Minister’s view, the encouraged divisions threaten the cohesiveness necessary to maintain national unity…
In the President’s State of the Union Speech last night, he lobbied for federal government “investment” in infrastructure, education and research. His primary justifications are job creation in a struggling economy and heightened U.S. competitiveness in the increasingly rough and tumble international market place. It was a real “rah, rah, pull together” address. To be sure, Obama gets high marks for style. But, even a speaker with modest skills can be successful using that oratory technique, right up until…
You know the old wives’ tale about husbands and wives starting to look like each other after a few decades of marriage? Well, the same thing is true of the Federal Government and its citizens. As our Government has grown bigger and bigger and bigger, so have our own waistlines. Today, we’re all huge, government and the rest of us alike. Just look in the mirror. What do you see? Hefty. Triple-Plus. And, there doesn’t seem to…
