[framapotari]

> I'm in favor of free school lunches for kids. But I'm very annoyed with the strawmanning in this thread. For example, it seems like a strawman to say that people who are against free school lunches "want kids to go hungry". Maybe they just believe that parents should be responsible rather than the state.

If parents are responsible then the children of the parents who can't or won't provide will go hungry. That is a fact. You may not _want_ children to go hungry but if you advocate for that system then you are absolutely okay with a number of children going hungry.

[oefrha]

When I was in school we paid for (very fairly priced) school meals while the poor students were subsidized. It was handled pretty discreetly as well, I don’t think any kid was shamed for it, plus kids have a million ways to find out who’s poor anyway if they’re into bullying. So pretending the solution is binary is ridiculous.

Hell, my college education from Stanford, including room and board and a very modest allowance, was entirely covered by a university fund, no strings attached, while the rich kids paid in full. If $65k a year can be selectively waived (from a very rich institution, yes I’m aware, but I’m talking about the model), no way you can’t do that for a small portion of school lunches.

[BoingBoomTschak]

Look into the expression "perverse incentive". Maybe he doesn't want people so thoughtless they'd make children without being able to feed them to do so?

Also, too many Americans blindly praising socialism without knowing its consequences in the deep end. It's not all rainbows and butterflies.

[vidarh]

Pray tell what horrible consequences you expect from feeding children to ensure they don't go hungry.

[dredmorbius]

Crickets!!!

[framapotari]

I find it such a weird take to call feeding children at school socialism with grave consequences but taxpayer funded mandatory education isn't.

[jdbernard]

This is the thing to me. I'm sympathetic to the concern of people taking advantage of others, but if the government is forcing children to be there (which we are), and already having to bear the cost of funding these schools generally, we really should include the cost of basic nutrition for all students as an operating cost, just like the electric bill and teacher's salaries.

[BoingBoomTschak]

1) Only a very few people are expected to be able (time and competency) to give a general education to their children, unlike feeding/housing.

2) Let's be real, it's not just socialism/charity, one of the major reasons for compulsory education is shaping malleable young minds (for good or bad, mind you).

[rwmj]

And presumably you want them shaped in the best possible way, which is hardly possible if children are hungry or undernourished.

[framapotari]

1) If they don't have time or competency then surely they can pay for the services of someone who can. Most people don't have the time or competency to grow their own food but we still expect them to purchase their food from someone who can.

2) The state taking money from people by force in order to mandate the shaping of malleable young minds sounds like exactly the kind of grave consequences of socialism you fear.

[thrance]

Yeah, I'm a socialist: I believe children shouldn't be hungry in the richest country the Earth has ever seen. Sue me. Your slippery slope fallacy is no excuse for you willingness to let children starve.

Your country is falling into fasicsm and there are still people like you going "feeding kids is literally communism". No wonder this country is going down, its citizens are incapable of the most basic compassion toward one another.

[GuinansEyebrows]

i don't think you understand what socialism is. government assistance programs are not socialism.

[dredmorbius]

As much as I'm in favour of such programmes, they are in fact social welfare and part of the social welfare state.

It's not absolute public ownership of all means of production. But within the continuum between reactionary caveat emptor lessez faire private absolutism and fully automated luxury gay space communism, it's a nudge or two toward the latter.

And an unarguable good, I hasten to add.