Thread: This burns my bacon! More nanny state bureaucratic nonesense.

Originally Posted by Jimbo7

ps how delicious is the irony that the child's lunch is taken away according to health guidelines and replaced by, wait for it, chicken nuggets.

That was indeed a very funny case of irony.

I am sorry but I do not think that is very funny, only very sad. I will not argue it wasnt ironic, only that my government is idiotic.

Originally Posted by LX_Emergency

I'm sorry....what?



Why?

I believe it may be a case of protecting the children with peanut allergies etc. We have the same restrictions in some educational facilities here.

Another point I didn't raise before is, what kind of so called 'free country' has total strangers going around, rummaging through a kids bag, to then sort through their food?! That would have to breach so many privacy and freedom laws surely. I can't see any way in which that sort of behaviour can be justified.


Mick

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

That sounds delicious......

Oh trust me it was, quite delicious. Not those styrofoam type pork rinds either this was like real no kidding roast big skin and fat, it was glorious with a side of black beans and rice. I may have one today now that I think about it.

The media has a habit of transforming one thing into something else, I suspect that this is the case here and the story is presented in such a way as to make it newsworthy when it probably was totally benign.

A recent story about a school local to where I work made the news with the headline
Children left to freeze in the classrooms after head turns off heating on coldest day of year 'to show how school can be eco-friendly'
The true story is reported by the staff and pupils in the comments section. Apparently it was no where near the coldest day, no complaints were made and the whole thing was seen as a successful demonstration, but that wouldn't have been news worthy would it.

$1.25 is not a lot of money? The problem is that the $1.25 started out as $10.00 when the Federal government got it's hands on it. For every dollar that trickles down the government has to take in $10. That is why Greece and the rest of Europe is going under a $1.25 at a time.The problem with bureaucrats that they multiple like a virus and infiltrate into every facet of our lives. This will continue till over 50% of the voting public are either bureaucrats or people that are on the dole.....then it will cease to be the America that we know and love......OH!, I forgot we are there.

Later,
Richard

So.. Do I need to live somewhere with a large Cuban population to find this sandwich?

Originally Posted by 1OldGI

Oh trust me it was, quite delicious. Not those styrofoam type pork rinds either this was like real no kidding roast big skin and fat, it was glorious with a side of black beans and rice. I may have one today now that I think about it.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

You call this evidence of a nanny-state?

Yes, I do! Wholeheartedly. Sheesh.

In fact, it's even more ridiculous than usual in this case since the government here is doing exactly the job of a nanny, i.e., feeding a child lunch. It (the use of "nanny state") is not even a metaphor as applied here; it's actual!

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

I'll blame the school nutritionist for allowing a pre-schooler to manipulate her into giving her the school lunch, or for thinking the lunch described didn't meet USDA standards. That's a problem of the school having inadequately trained nutritionists, not bad regulations. I see nothing at all wrong with school nutritionists being required to supplement packed lunches when those lunches don't meet minimum nutritional standards. You have a lot of rights when it comes to your kids, mal-nourishing or under-nourishing them are not among those rights.

Of course you don’t have the right to malnourish or under-nourish your kids, that's why we have child welfare laws and various departments to protect and remove children from situations where they're being starved or neglected. There was no indication that this kid was starving or malnourished.

We don’t need school personnel who only see a little of the picture to offering kids foods not supplied by the parents without that parent's consent or knowledge. This isn’t about a cup of peas or the $1.25. This is about the school stepping in where it shouldn't.

The mom may have given her kid some veggies for a snack and lots of veggies for breakfast (via an omelet?) and with that in mind omitted them from the kid's lunch. She sends her daughter to school with a healthy lunch and thinks "I've done my child a service and teaching her to eat right" only to have the school feed her chicken nuggets and undermine what she's teaching.

Again, the school doesn't have the whole picture nut they're allowed to act as the final authority and undermine the parents.

I've heard so many teachers complain that parents don’t take responsibility for their children's education. It's no wonder when the schools are sending the message that basically says "we know better than you."
Respectfully,

"As for what to do about it, spank the kid, reprimand and retrain the school nutritionist, and publicly ridicule the mother, Fox News, the local Fox affiliate, the local paper, and anybody else who thinks this is evidence of some sort of devious government conspiracy to take away parents' choices of food for their kids."

SPANK THE KID?! For eating a chicken nugget that was offered to her?! That's a little dumb. A person in a position of authority gives the kid a chicken nugget and you spank the kid for eating it? And ridicule the mother? WHY? She packed a perfectly healthy lunch and for all we know may have already or was planning to give the kid the full recomended servings of veggies to her kid. Again, dumb.

Originally Posted by Kantian Pragmatist

Are you paying attention Crotalus? The law doesn't give anybody the right to dictate what anybody's kids can or can't eat. The law requires school nutritionists to provide a supplement if the packed lunch doesn't meet USDA nutritional standards. It doesn't require anybody to eat or not eat anything, nor does it authorize anybody to confiscate anything.

The lunch in question met USDA requirements, so the school nutritionist wasn't required to supplement the lunch. That she chose to do so anyway means that she is poorly trained, regardless of whether she did it because the kid was badgering her in order to get chicken nuggets (which I think is more likely), or because she really thought the packed lunch wasn't sufficient. This is a bad school nutritionist, not a bad law.

So we have a law that is allowing a poorly trained person to tell a kid that her mom isn't feeding her right, to give her unasked for food and send the mother the bill. Can't you see how absurd the whole affair is?

The government sure has a lot of money to spend if it can afford lunch police to inspect what kids are eating. You are willing to allow such nonsense because you are in favor of larger government. I am not. To me this whole affair is soft tyranny.

The government has no business at all trying to micromanage our lives like this, no matter how benevolent it might seem on the surface.