In what has become an ineluctable march into a Dickens novel, two Republican states have bravely stood up for rights of rich people to exploit children the way they do in, say, Pakistan: the model of conservative economy. The Tea Party Occupation forces in Missouri, and now Maine, have proposed “relaxing” child labor laws. By relaxing, the Real Republican Party™ means that corporations can relax and make money off teenagers who ought to be in school, but now can work overtime at McDonald’s instead. A relaxing thought, if you’re rich or don’t like children, which pretty much sums up the conservative movement.
By the way, Maine is also the substrate that is (loosely) governed by the Tea Party darling and art critic manqué, Paul LePage, the very apparatchik who removed a mural from the Department of Labor because it was too “pro-labor,” thus coining a new term in the art world: “Corporate Surrealism.”
But leaving aside the GOP’s lumpenconservative views of the graphic arts, what is happening here is a vintage Tea Party meme. Regulations – in this case child labor laws – are successfully legislated by progressives (over a century ago) to solve problems caused by the market (i.e., rich people exploiting everybody else). Years later, thinking history started yesterday, conservative myopics turn around and conclude that there isn’t a problem, so let’s get rid of the regulation which is (boo-hoo) stopping us from doing what we want (which apparently involves making a quick buck off of 16 year olds). And isn’t doing exactly what we want without worrying about the consequences the essence of conservatism?
All this proves that not only is this legislation directed at adolescents; it’ is adolescent. And it’s further evidence that conservatives are people who think that traffic is caused by traffic lights.
Meantime, it is the best of times and the worst of times in Maine and Missouri. We can only hope that this new foray into the absurdly retrograde will cause Americans with children (a special interest group by GOP standards) to finally begin to wonder if Republicans aren’t trying to channel Fagin.
More gory details here.