Demosophia

Exploitation of Child Labor Employed for Kerry in Wisconsin

Apparently schools in Milwaukee and Madison have, in concert with Wisconsin Citizen Action, initiated a program to have children canvass low income and minority neighborhoods in an effort to get out the vote. This is utterly reprehensible, since the effort is highly partisan. Now, in a past life I was a Citizen Action canvasser, so you can believe me when I tell you that they are not "non-partisan," as they claim. The organization was founded with seed money from Ralph Nader, and is based on precepts laid down by Saul Alinsky. I have nothing against it as a representative of its constituency, but to claim that it is non-partisan isn't even remotely credible.

Futhermore, I was also involved in a lawsuit between big city school districts and state agencies in Minnesota over school funding, where the cities claimed that they were entitled to additional funds even if it had to deprive rural children of resources. Presumably Wisconsin has some of the same issues, and in that light to employ these same "deprived" children in an effort with highly dubious educational benefits, makes Glenn's objection even more relevant:

I firmly believe that once the state compels young people to attend school, deprives them of their freedom, it owes the highest duty to them to use their time only in ways that benefit them. To see them as a source of free labor or to exploit them for any purpose that is not itself a good reason for depriving the young of their freedom is a great wrong.

Indeed

(NOT cross-posted by Demosophist to Demosophia, Anticipatory Retaliation and The Jawa Report)

Posted by Demosophist at October 27, 2004 01:47 PM | TrackBack