Why yes, Fox News, that's the ticket. Let's ask viewers whether poor kids should have to clean the cafeteria for their free breakfast and lunch so their little delicate work ethics aren't eroded.
“I think it would be a good idea if perhaps we had the kids work for their lunches: trash to be taken out, hallways to be swept, lawns to be mowed, make them earn it,” said Ray Canterbury, a Republican from Greenbrier and a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates, during debate over Senate Bill 663, also known as the Feed to Achieve Act.
The bill — the first of its kind in the nation — would create a partnership between private donations and public funds to make breakfast and lunch available for free to every student, kindergarten through high school senior, in West Virginia. It’s based on a model program in Mason County that’s improved attendance and decreased discipline problems, according to the school district’s food service director.
WTF is the matter with these people? West Virginia suffers from some of the worst poverty in the nation, but every child is not poor. That means two things. First, every poor child who wants to eat gets to announce to the world that he or she is so poor they're relying on the charity of government and private enterprise. Second, it ensures that they receive the message that they're different from other children, and must work harder to prove themselves somehow worthy of eating a decent meal.
Not just that, but oh, the framing Fox uses is just evil. After all, doesn't every child of parents with the money to do so get free meals? How many kids do you know in first grade who work for their breakfasts or lunch? For heavens' sake! Part of parenting is making sure your kids eat, and if you're too poor to be able to afford nutritious breakfasts, why shouldn't government step in and provide that to assist? To listen to this Fox News idiot is to think that some kids actually somehow pay for the meals their parents provide, and therefore poor kids should be subject to a work-for-meals program.
What's next? Are we going to make seniors scrub the floors of the senior center where their Meals on Wheels program is located in order to reinforce their work ethics? Are we going to make people in need of food banks sweep the floors and stock the shelves before we give them their free food?
I really loathe these people and their sick, ugly mindsets.
