Child Labor And Family Farm Propaganda

Marjorie Elizabeth Wood in the NYT:

LAST month, a proposal by the United States Department of Labor to prevent children under age 16 from working in dangerous farm jobs ignited a firestorm in conservative media outlets. The new rules would have restricted having young workers handle pesticide, operate heavy machinery, cut timber and perform other agricultural tasks identified as hazardous to children by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

Conservatives quickly went on the attack. Senator Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, argued that “if the federal government can regulate the kind of relationship between parents and their children on their own family’s farm, there is almost nothing off-limits in which we see the federal government intruding in a way of life.” Fox News posted a story entitled, “Team Obama Wants Children Banned from Doing Farm Chores.” Sarah Palin chimed in on Facebook: “The Obama administration is working on regulations that would prevent children from working on our own family farms.”

So the Obama administration quickly reversed course, acknowledging “thousands of comments expressing concerns about the effect of the proposed rules on small family-owned farms.”

The writer goes on to highlight how Southern textile manufacturers used the same scare tactics to oppose a child labor law that would have ended their use of children in their mills back in the 1920s.  It really amazes me what scary stories that farmers will believe when somebody tells them big government is coming to get them (even though we are never shy about taking checks from big government).  I mean, bovine fart collectors?  Really?  But it is amazing that Sarah Palin can claim that the regulations would prevent children from working on our own family farms, and leave out the part about them being other peoples' children.