"Chicago school bans some lunches brought from home"

Matt Welch | 4.12.2011 12:05 PM

This is not an article you should read if you're having a bad government day.

At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

"Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school," Carmona said. "It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke.["]

Hmmm. I wonder if there are any interesting incentives involved?

Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money in the pockets of the district's food provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch.

But at least the kids like it, right?

At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry or both. During a recent visit to the school, dozens of students took the lunch but threw most of it in the garbage uneaten. Though CPS has improved the nutritional quality of its meals this year, it also has seen a drop-off in meal participation among students, many of whom say the food tastes bad. […]

"Some of the kids don't like the food they give at our school for lunch or breakfast," said Little Village parent Erica Martinez. "So it would be a good idea if they could bring their lunch so they could at least eat something."

So is there any hope for the future? Mercifully, yes:

"They're afraid that we'll all bring in greasy food instead of healthy food and it won't be as good as what they give us at school," said student Yesenia Gutierrez. "It's really lame. If we could bring in our own lunches, everyone knows what they'd bring. For example, the vegetarians could bring in their own veggie food."

You go, Yesenia. And you go to hell, Chicago.

Reason on school lunches here. And surf through the Reason.tv archives for various nanny-state horrors.

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Otto 14 years ago

Moscow on the Michigan...
smz 14 years ago

that is so yesterday's news.
http://reason.com/blog/2011/04.....nt_2227042
Aresen 14 years ago

At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry or both. During a recent visit to the school, dozens of students took the lunch but threw most of it in the garbage uneaten.

"We will starve you until you eat right."
Concerned Citizen 14 years ago

Well the nanny state has produced a generation of mothers (fathers aren't necessary) with no clue how to raise a child. My wife worked for the Ohio Disability Bureau and dealt with the fucktards who just had kids to get a check. They wanted their kid diagnosed as ADHD so they could get Ritalin, then sell it on the street.
1. Id 14 years ago
  
  Therefore, everyone must be punished, don't you know.
  1. Concerned Citizen 14 years ago
    
    Too much state is never enough for these idiots. What they've done to the inner city poor is criminal. We had a security system installed to keep their precious offspring out of our house. Our neighbors weren't so lucky.
    1. Mog 14 years ago
      
      i'm so glad i'm not the only one to think this.
      1. Pablo 14 years ago
        
        You are far from the only one.
    2. Mr Fourty Four 14 years ago
      
      Smith & Wesson?
2. Brett L 14 years ago
  
  Fuck yeah. "My 18 month old got the hyper-mental. He need that Ritlin."
squarooticus 14 years ago

Un-fucking-believable.
Mog 14 years ago

Next thing you know, black market twinkies.
1. Aresen 14 years ago
  
  "Psst. Hey, kid. How'd ya like a Big Mac?"
  1. Really? 14 years ago
    
    "The first slider is free"
2. Ska 14 years ago
  
  I don't know about you guys, but when I was in high school people DID sell food out of their backpacks. They'd either steal burgers from the cafeteria then sell them half price, or bring in outside food and sell at a premium.
3. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
  
  Black market peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
  1. Ted S. 14 years ago
    
    If black-market PB&J kills all the people with peanut allergies, they'll never pass their peanut allergy genes on to another generation.
    1. Tulpa 14 years ago
      
      Peanuts have been around a long time, as have peanut allergies. So no.
      1. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
        
        Yeah, allergies aren't genetic. It's some developmental process that we don't understand yet.
      2. Law Student 14 years ago
        
        As a New World plant, most of the world's population have not been exposed for very long. Of course there is no such thing as a peanut allergy gene. Allergies have a large environmental component and the only known genetic causes are more general susceptibility to all allergies.
        
        copy-editor 14 years ago
        
        Most of the world's population != a New World plant.
        
        Colonel_Angus 14 years ago
        
        Many food allergies result from idiot parents giving babies food that the body can not yet digest properly.
        
        Tulpa 14 years ago
        
        link to the evidence for that theory?
    2. Gus 14 years ago
      
      Tangental:
      
      I went to Target to get latex gloves, but all they had was vinyl (they used to carry latex). So I asked the manager about it and he said they were discontinued because some people are allergic to latex.
      
      And yet target continues to sell peanuts.
      1. wylie 14 years ago
        
        Did they sell condoms?
      2. Tulpa 14 years ago
        
        They probably don't sell enough plastic gloves to justify stocking both latex and vinyl, so it's better to stock the one that more customers can use.
    3. Hardy Weinberg 14 years ago
      
      I suspect not.
fish 14 years ago

This simply can't be.....the government remains the only force for good existing today....good food and right thinking.
fresno dan 14 years ago

It reminds me of the old Carol Burnnet sketch where she is a nanny and is force feeding a kid some medicine with sugar while singing "just a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down" - finally she asks the kid what his illness is, and he replies "diabetes"
Restoras 14 years ago

Gubmint noze bestest!
Id 14 years ago

This country really needs a collectivist enemy. Ever since the fall of the USSR, this kind of thing has somehow become ok.

And yes, this is probably crazy talk.
1. Dave 14 years ago
  
  That was supposed to be Red China, but we became BFFs instead.
  1. DesigNate 14 years ago
    
    I thought the big bad was all of the mooslims in teh middle east.
    1. Sudden 14 years ago
      
      Ha! Its a stockholm syndrome at best. Even if our "existential threat" is Islam, we'll still mandate that all school lunches be halal.
Id 14 years ago

This country really needs a collectivist enemy. Ever since the fall of the USSR, this kind of thing has somehow become ok.

And yes, this is probably crazy talk.
1. MJ 14 years ago
  
  Given recent political history, the USA's greatest collectivist enemy is Chicago.
  1. Butts Wagner 14 years ago
    
    I thought the collective enemy was Global Warming
Id 14 years ago

Double crazy talk. Hey reason: here's some free advice, do a quick compare on the sender and body of comments. If two come in quick succession (less than 5s) dump the second. It's really not that hard.
1. wylie 14 years ago
  
  Clicking submit only once isn't that hard either. *shrug*
  1. Id 14 years ago
    
    What can I say. Itchy trigger finger.
Fiscal Meth 14 years ago

"At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry or both. During a recent visit to the school, dozens of students took the lunch but threw most of it in the garbage uneaten"

If the objective is skinnier kids, they may be on the right track. On the other hand, I'm one of those extremists who would be willing to sacrifice the dream of winning the future with a svelte youth if I could get a non-totalitarian state out of the deal.
1. Id 14 years ago
  
  You know who else liked "svelte youth"?
  1. Ska 14 years ago
    
    Roman Polanski?
  2. The Baron Vladimir Harkonnen 14 years ago
    
    *raises hand*
  3. The Immaculate Trouser 14 years ago
    
    The design team behind Wii Fit?
  4. JoJo Zeke 14 years ago
    
    The manager of the Bay City Rollers?
  5. juris imprudent 14 years ago
    
    Somalia?!!
2. Enjoy Every Sandwich 14 years ago
  
  Ha, maybe the idea is that all children will be made in the Great Obama's image. In which case they'll get to smoke cigarettes!
  1. Fiscal Meth 14 years ago
    
    Cocaine and bolemia. If it's good enough for supermodels, it's good enough for our little fatties.
    1. Mensan 14 years ago
      
      Bulimia too.
      1. Lord Humungus 14 years ago
        
        Bolemia is right next to Somalia.
        
        Sudden 14 years ago
        
        I thought it was bordering distendedbellistan...
        
        PS 14 years ago
        
        I thought it was next to Moravia.
3. JW 14 years ago
  
  "At Little Village..."
  
  "I am am not a number, I'm a very fucking hungry kid!"
  1. JW 14 years ago
    
    Sorry for the echo.
  2. Night Elf Mohawk 14 years ago
    
    Just one more thing I looked into because of an Iron Maiden song.
melman 14 years ago

breaking news: school cafeteria lunches don't taste good
1. Drill Instructor 14 years ago
  
  doesnt taste good? shovel the food in ur fat maggot piehole & fall-out for more push-ups & sit-ups dumfuk
2. James Ard 14 years ago
  
  Don't taste good? You are too kind. It's a crime the food they feed kids in school.
Night Elf Mohawk 14 years ago

Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

Surely medical excuses provided with the same rigor as those in Wisconsin would be acceptable.
1. Tulpa MD 14 years ago
  
  "Johnny is to be allowed to eat mutton, sloppy joes, Twinkies, turkey skin, and anything else he brings from home. I cannot disclose the reason due to HIPAA regulations.
  
  Also, a bodyguard will be necessary to keep all the other kids sick of eating your shitty food from stealing his."
  1. CaptainSmartass 14 years ago
    
    I cannot disclose the reason due to HIPAA regulations.
    
    Pure genius!
  2. HIPAA 14 years ago
    
    I am so fucking misunderstood.
Shenequa 14 years ago

fucking single parenting, how does it work?
1. pancakes 14 years ago
  
  As a black woman, I am offended at your handle. That is racist.
  1. Shenequa 14 years ago
    
    What Chris Rock said.
    1. Thurgood Orville Stubbs 14 years ago
      
      "come and get this nasty Latrine outta my buildin'."
AU H20 14 years ago

I believe you owe some HnR commentators a hat tip, sir.
1. Hank 14 years ago
  
  Yes, let's all tip our hats to the muckraking gumshoes who tirelessly scoured Drudge Report. Ass.
  1. AU H20 14 years ago
    
    Ah, sorry.
    
    Don't read Drudge normally, so I spoke in ignorance.
    
    Now, fetch me my katana, as I have dishonored myself.
    1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
      
      And this was a pretty big story here in Chicago, so I'm guessing there would be several tips o' the hat.
      
      I think Radley Balko made a good call in deciding against hat-tipping (save for unique situations) from the beginning.
    2. cynical 14 years ago
      
      You mean fetch your tanto or wakizashi.
    3. Aresen 14 years ago
      
      Well just leave you in a room with a pistol and a single bullet on the table.
  2. smz 14 years ago
    
    here were my chain of events: 1) open yahoo, and it gives local chicago news - I see the story and my jaw drops, 2) send it to Drudge (he didn't have it up), and 3) before it gets on Drudge, posted it on reason's morning links.
    1. Hank 14 years ago
      
      And based on the iron law of solipsism, every subsequent mention of it on any of the internets is thanks to you.
      1. smz 14 years ago
        
        Absolutely, Hank The Yankin' Yankee!
2. Matt Welch 14 years ago
  
  That's not where I found it.
  1. Gus 14 years ago
    
    Daily Caller?
3. Law Student 14 years ago
  
  I saw it on Hot Air last night.
Meta_Man 14 years ago

While I tend to agree that this policy seems a little shady due to the relationship to the vender, it is hardly "totalitarian". Students could simply choose to go to a private school if they don't like the public school policies.

Probably a better policy would be for the school to simply disallow certain junk food items (candy, sodas, etc.) while still allowing kids to bring their lunches.
1. xenia onatopp 14 years ago
  
  Better? For whom? By whose definition?
2. Fluffy 14 years ago
  
  Sure it is.
  
  Students are COMPELLED to attend this school if they cannot afford to go to private school.
  
  If we passed a law saying that I could COMPEL you to sit in a particular building for 12 hours a day, and then I decided that we would have a rule where you could either eat the dog shit sandwiches I provided you or just sit there with nothing, I think you would find the situation intolerable.
  
  And NO, you also don't get to ban "certain junk food items".
  
  I'm 5'10" and weigh about 160 pounds [until my 30th birthday or so, that was usually 130-135 pounds.] That's on the basis of eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted for my entire life. My kid is basically my clone. If you're telling me that he can't have a brownie with his lunch because some OTHER LOSER GENETICALLY INFERIOR kid might gain weight if he sees a brownie, tough shit. Go on The Biggest Loser and shut the fuck up.
  1. Hank 14 years ago
    
    You have a kid and still wrote that sacrifice scene in Jericho?! I am... impressed?
    1. Fluffy 14 years ago
      
      I have very few authentic or sincere emotions and I have to mine them for material the best I can.
      
      There are several different parts of that work where I said to myself, "How would it feel if the worst thing you can imagine happened?" and then tried to write that down.
  2. Mensan 14 years ago
    
    The kid who gains weight more easily is genetically superior, from an evolutionary standpoint. His metabolism is more efficient, so he requires less calories to do the same amount of work. In an environment of scarce resources (e.g famine), he would have a much better chance of survival.
    1. Really? 14 years ago
      
      But we don't live in a world of famine. And if my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle.
      
      In a world of hunter-gatherer, physically superior specimens would thrive more than their weaker counterparts. But guess what? We don't live in that world, either.
      1. Zeb 14 years ago
        
        Well, we don't live in a country of famine, at least.
        
        I think that the genetic portion of obesity is (or was) a valuable adaptation for some populations of humans. There are some tribes from the south west who lived for a long time in areas where food shortages were common throughout most of their history. Now they are almost universally obese since they have plenty of calories and live on a shitty reservation with nothing to do.
        As someone who is even skinnier than Fluffy, I don't think I would do well with even a brief food shortage.
        
        Even supposing that the school should force kids to eat well (which I do not), the government has such a bad track record in determining what constitutes healthy eating that it is still a bad idea.
        
        I find the trend of schools thinking that they should run kids' whole lives quite disturbing. Public schools, if they are to exist at all should teach basic academics, and perhaps vocational skills in high school and that's it. The rest is up to parents.
        
        Invisible Finger 14 years ago
        
        Well, we don't live in a country of famine, at least.
        
        Yet.
      2. Tulpa 14 years ago
        
        And in 15th century Europe, Christians would thrive more than their atheist counterparts. Therefore, Christians were superior.
      3. Gender Studies Major 14 years ago
        
        "And if my aunt had balls, she would be my uncle."
        
        Not necessarily.
    2. Tulpa 14 years ago
      
      I suspect the main advantage would be their better chances for reproduction; the issues with obesity don't pose much of a threat until you're past ordinary reproduction age anyway.
    3. Fluffy 14 years ago
      
      The brain uses 30% of the calories you consume.
      
      My brain is blazing like Chernobyl most of the time and it just burns the calories right off.
      
      Your efficient-metabolism kid may just be a sluggard.
      1. Mensan 14 years ago
        
        I don't know where you came up with that 30% figure. All the research I've ever seen suggests the brain uses 400-500 kcals per day regardless of activity level. The percentage would necessarily depend on the total kcal intake.
        
        I wasn't arguing that an obese person is more physically fit. I was responding to your claim of genetic inferiority. A person with a more efficient metabolism can also more easily grow muscle tissue and increase strength. But, hey, I'm only a physiologist, so the what the hell would I know about it.
  3. Tulpa MD 14 years ago
    
    If you're telling me that he can't have a brownie with his lunch because some OTHER LOSER GENETICALLY INFERIOR kid might gain weight if he sees a brownie, tough shit. Go on The Biggest Loser and shut the fuck up.
    
    Some libertarians just don't know when to shut up. Really, Fluffy? This is what you post for the world to see.
    1. Lost_In_Translation 14 years ago
      
      Seriously, sight induced weight gain is one of the most serious issues we have in this country. Right now, people looking at cakes in windows are literally blowing up like balloons and THEY CAN'T LOOK AWAY!!!
      
      We must fight this visual menace.
    2. Fluffy 14 years ago
      
      I have posted much worse shit than this. You expect me to stop now?
      
      And this is what it boils down to, really.
      
      The basic argument here is that my kid, who will never gain weight no matter what he eats, has to have his diet at school restricted by force in order to try to make it easier to keep OTHER kids thin.
      
      He gets to have his lunch bag rifled through in the future not to protect HIS health but because other people are fat bags of shit.
      
      Yeah, that pisses me off. Unlike many other people, I'm not afraid to expressly state that I don't want my kid hassled or inconvenienced - or made to go hungry or eat food he hates - not for HIS sake, but for some fatty's sake. Especially when the fat kid is going to find a way to eat and be fat anyway.
      1. Tulpa 14 years ago
        
        The problem isn't that you express your opinion; it's that you lace it with insults directed toward people who bear no responsibility for the policy that you're all worked up about.
        
        You catch more flies with a dead squirrel soaked in honey than with a dead squirrel soaked in vinegar.
  4. Marshall Gill 14 years ago
    
    Students are COMPELLED to attend this school if they cannot afford to go to private school.
    
    Actually, depending on State law, most children are not compelled. They can be home schooled.
3. Night Elf Mohawk 14 years ago
  
  Probably a better policy would be for the school to STFU if my kid wants to bring her own lunch or have a Dr Pepper with her lunch on Fridays. And, you know, maybe worry about lunches from home once these students all read and write at grade level.
  1. DesigNate 14 years ago
    
    Amen.
    1. Madbiker 14 years ago
      
      Seconded. My brain is 'sploding...
4. Pablo 14 years ago
  
  Please tell me you are being sarcastic. Parents have to pay out the ass for a private school, if they want the privilege of deciding what their kids eat?
  
  Probably a better policy would be to stay the hell out of parental decisions, including what their kids eat.
  1. Gus 14 years ago
    
    Probably a better policy would be to stay the hell out of parental decisions, including what their kids eat home schooling.
5. Really? 14 years ago
  
  Students could simply choose to go to a private school if they don't like the public school policies.
  
  Fine - then if the parents so choose to send their children to private schools, they should not have to pay taxes to fund facilities (i.e. public schools) they are not using.
  
  Is that a deal?
  1. Mainer 14 years ago
    
    And I don't have kids, so I don't have to pay at all...right...right ?
    1. Lost_In_Translation 14 years ago
      
      We couldn't look like we're doing anything to discourage the creation of children. After all, they are our future (of course that assumes we are the borg).
      1. wylie 14 years ago
        
        And somebody has to pay off the deficit. If our birth-rate declines too much America's creditors will start getting nervous about our (eventual) ability to repay.
6. kda 14 years ago
  
  Students could simply choose to go to a private school if they don't like the public school policies.
  
  Aside from the issues already brought up with kids whose parents can't afford private school, there's this: Once again, the parents that can afford it, but opt out are still paying into a system that gives them another reason to want to opt out. They get double tapped. Once for the school that they don't want their kid to go to because it's more important for that school to micromanage the kids' meals instead of teaching their offspring Algebra, and once for the school that they now have to pay for on top of that. Fuck you.
7. Colonel_Angus 14 years ago
  
  "Students could simply choose"
  
  Hahahaha.
jello 14 years ago

Soon parents will not be allowed to feed their own children in their own homes. Freedom is gone.
We are not idiots, its not about nutrition, its about money and freeloading.
1. Zeb 14 years ago
  
  Just a bit of hyperbole there.
  1. Gus 14 years ago
    
    No. No there isn't.
  2. wylie 14 years ago
    
    Slippery slopes, how the fuck do they work?
    1. Zeb 14 years ago
      
      Sometimes. That's how they work. Please do not interpret this as any sort of approval of school policies telling parents what they can send to school with their kids for food.
  3. Fluffy 14 years ago
    
    That's what people said when we claimed that the day would come when people couldn't smoke in their own apartments.
    1. Zeb 14 years ago
      
      Well, maybe in Chicago and San Fran. I have to believe that there are enough parents in the country that will never accept this. We shall see.
      Most people aren't that spineless. Are they? Fuck.
      1. Zeb ca. 1950 14 years ago
        
        Well, maybe they'll lynch uppity blacks in Alabama, but most of the country won't stand for that. So it's OK.
GroundTruth 14 years ago

A little late for an April Fools Day column, isn't it?
BH 14 years ago

How is this even legal? If a company banned its workers from bringing lunch to work and only let them eat from the company owned cafeteria the .gov would have something to say about that.
1. Pro Libertate 14 years ago
  
  Interesting if the discrimination turns out to have a disparate impact on ethnic and/or racial minorities.
2. DesigNate 14 years ago
  
  Yes, but the company doing it = evul Capitalism. The gov't doing it = for the best interest of teh childrenz!!!
3. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
  
  My daughter will be starting in a CPS school in the fall. If her school pulled this I would look into every possible legal angle and I'm pretty sure I could find at least one or two.
4. xenia onatopp 14 years ago
  
  I don't know about the legality, but if this had happened in a school my kids attended I sure as fuck would've kept sending them with lunch from home if that's what they preferred. Sometimes, the school authorities blink first, as I learned when I refused to force my then 13 year old son to bleach out or cut off his hair, which he had dyed blue. They threatened indefinite suspension, and I essentially said "bring it." They apparently weren't prepared for that response, because I sent him to school the next day and they didn't send him home.
  1. Madbiker 14 years ago
    
    Cheers. I would do the same in that situation. My mom did the same for me in a similar situation...I had a pink mohawk that grated on the admins nerves and my mom said (essentially): "so what? she's doing well in her classes and doesn't cause trouble for anyone."
    
    Maybe that's why I wanted-so-badly-to-be-but-was-not-really-cut-out-to-be a school teacher. At 35, I'm still suffering angst over a career choice due to my inability to deal with authority or authoritarian means of compelling me to follow policies that are bullshit.
5. Raven Nation 14 years ago
  
  Except there is precedent for the "waiving" of constitutional rights in public schools e.g. (1) schools can prevent school newspapers from publishing certain articles; (2) schools can conduct allow police to conduct searches of lockers w/o warrants. Not saying it's right, just saying it happens.
  1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
    
    True, but that's waiving the STUDENT'S rights. If we're talking about waiving the PARENT'S rights to raise their kid(s) as they see fit, then the fact that the kid is at a public school becomes irrelevant (at least with respect to that issue).
    1. Turnkey 14 years ago
      
      Really unhealthy lunches (like chips and soda) are kind of a mild sub-type in the rainbow of child neglect.
      
      So "as they see fit" from what the parents can do is always limited. And in this case the school that crap lunches was a big enough issue to address it this way.
  2. curiousgeorge 14 years ago
    
    From what I remember, they get around this by saying the locker is the school's property and informing the student's that they have absolutely no expectation of privacy regarding it. I'm pretty sure there is also something about them being children, and thus second-class citizens in there too.
  3. Raven Nation 14 years ago
    
    CuriousGeorge: yeah that's how the argument is phrased.
    
    ClubMed: agree. However, the argument here is probably that it is the students' rights to eat lunch. What the authorities argue is that parents must actively contest the rules. In other words, any court action would probably have to be along the lines that parents have not waived kids' rights.
6. MJ 14 years ago
  
  Government and its supporters are masters of "Do as I say, not as I do".
JW 14 years ago

Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money in the pockets of the district's food provider, Chartwells-Thompson.

Every time I read yet another article with the gummint corruption and arrogance as the money shot, I begin to wonder when Bob Hoskins will start showing up to fix my ducts.
1. FlyoverCountry 14 years ago
  
  He won't be fixin' nothin' without the 27b/6...
2. Mainer 14 years ago
  
  What we really need is Joe Pesci to go straighten out the school administrators.
  1. Fat Crack Ho 14 years ago
    
    "What's that? You hear a little girl, Ace? Is that a little fuckin' girl? What happened to the fuckin' tough guy that told my kid he had to eat cafeteria food"?
Bikerider 14 years ago

What the hell is our country coming too? This is just insane.

You can't fight nannies with logic but ...

I wonder what would happen if a group of parents filed a lawsuit against the school demanding that all students get free lunch. After all, if the school forbids parents from sending less expensive food, then the school should have to cover the cost.

The other option would be an anti-trust suit. Since the school has a monopoly on public education (I don't believe CPS has school choice), it could be an anti-trust violation to require students to buy lunch from them.
1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
  
  Here's my thought. I don't know how it would work under Illinois law, but at the federal level aren't laws that infringe upon a parent's right to raise their kids as they see fit subject to strict scrutiny? It seems to me that this law would have to be evaluated as such. Especially if you have a parent who morally feels her child should be raised vegetarian (or kosher, or whatever) then they'd have a pretty good argument against forcing kids to eat school food.
Saro 14 years ago

I sometimes wonder why the government doesn't just cut out parents entirely and go straight to government care facilities for children 0-18. If you can't trust parents to even feed their children, how can you entrust them with the responsibility of finishing at night the indoctrination you've spent all day cramming into their heads? Seems a bit inconsistent to me.
1. Kristen 14 years ago
  
  Oh, parents can raise their own children! They just have to be guilty white liberal intellectual elitists to do so. They're the only ones that can be trsuted, see?
  1. Shocked 14 years ago
    
    Just once, I would like to see one of these nanny, statist, asses stand up at the podium with actual individuals that need the states help in living their lives. I dare Ms. Carmona, to go in the hood, knock on a door and say "You don't know how to feed your kid, I need to make the decisions for you".
2. Tulpa 14 years ago
  
  I actually think there's something to be said for labor specialization in child rearing like we've moved to with pretty much everything else. A 16th century farmer would probably be just as horrified to think of depending on other people to produce all his food as current parents are at the thought of other people raising their spawn.
Hobo Chang Ba 14 years ago

You should've added the hilarious picture with the kid clasping his head in torment above a very disgusting looking enchilada casserole. Serious, my dog's poop looks far more appetizing than that. It's really shouldn't be that hard to make some grilled chicken and caesar salad or something that you can't possibly ruin.
1. Free2Booze 14 years ago
  
  Because enchilada casserole is SO healthy. I noticed that one kid had a pint of chocolate milk on his tray, which of course, must be healthier than drinking a can of Pepsi.
  1. Hobo Chang Ba 14 years ago
    
    Yeah, was gonna say... I guess when they say "healthier" they mean "we reduced the portion sizes so it looks like we cut calories."
2. Mainer 14 years ago
  
  Oh my Christ ! I linked to the article, and that plop on the tray is vile looking. I'm about to lose my lunch.
3. Bucky 14 years ago
  
  enchilada casserole? that reminds me of taco dogs from PSU...
the truth 14 years ago

This is what happens when you give n i g g e r s freedom. How much you wanna bet that the people pushing this are Michelle Obama she-boon clones? Go ahead, deny it all you want - continue to deny it while the black plague spreads and kills more of our freedoms.
Boon 14 years ago

I blame the blacks.
1. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
  
  Fuck off, loser.
  
  This site does not tolerate racist assholes, or what is more likely, left-liberals pretending to be racist assholes to make libertarians look bad.
  1. Tulpa 14 years ago
    
    Apparently we do tolerate self-righteous people who fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.
    1. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
      
      I have a zero-tolerance policy for racist sock puppets.
  2. Hobo Chang Ba 14 years ago
    
    Hell yeah!
  3. PS 14 years ago
    
    No, "this site" much prefers self-appointed, self-righteous arbiters of moral standards and rectitude.
    1. Bucky 14 years ago
      
      i dunno, seems more like the founding fathers than the "smartest in the room" types they ridicule...
      PS you might want to get the Cliff notes on the Constitution, just a thought...
2. Old Mexican 14 years ago
  
  Re: Boon,
  
  I blame the blacks.
  
  I blame the crackers!
  
  With cheese.
  
  http://johngushue.typepad.com/.....970b-800wi
3. oncogenesis 14 years ago
  
  Izzat my ace coon, Boon?! Whazzzup, en to tha eye to the double gee gee ayay!!!
ClubMedSux 14 years ago

My experience is that the less that parents are involved, the more school administrators feel it is their duty to fill the parents' role. On one hand I can understand an administrator's frustration as they see their hard work going to shit because parents just don't give a damn. But at the same time, pulling something like this clearly isn't the answer.

I will say this, though. I doubt you'd see administrators pull something like this in a school with an active group of parents. Say what you want about teacher salaries, spending on students, etc., but here in Chicago the one obvious difference between the good public schools and the shitty public schools is that the good public schools have a group of parents who take ownership in the school and don't put up with shit. It's just unfortunate that it's the kids who get double-fucked (bad parents AND bad schools).
1. Zeb 14 years ago
  
  Based on what I have seen in my own experience, and what is generally seen in school districts where there are a lot of poor, single parents, I think that the most important factor in educational success is, by orders of magnitude, the parents. If parents value literacy and education and make it clear to children that that is a priority and expectation of them, kids who are not mentally deficient in some way will do well.
2. Tulpa 14 years ago
  
  I'm not clear on what hard work school administrators see going to shit when children bring lunches from home.
  1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
    
    No, my point is that they see actual efforts to educate kids going to shit because parents aren't involved, and then they start to get it in their head that because parents are failing their kids they have to fill that role. Once they get that mindset, THEN they start to see everything--including lunches--as their domain. I truly believe many, if not most, of these administrators truly think they're helping the kids when they enact policies like these.
Really? 14 years ago

Why, again, was "stringing them up" ruled out as an option?
1. Really? 14 years ago
  
  I just wanted to clarify that I meant "government officials" as "them", not "blacks". I have no desire to be affiliated with Boon's ignorant ramblings.
  1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
    
    Boon's just still bitter that his racist parents wouldn't let him watch "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air" when he was a kid so he never knew what everybody else was talking about at school.
    1. Really? 14 years ago
      
      It is a shame that he never had the pubescent joy of drooling over Lark Voorhies, either.
  2. JD 14 years ago
    
    Stringing Boon up shouldn't be ruled out as an option either.
2. Mainer 14 years ago
  
  "Why, again, was "stringing them up" ruled out as an option?"
  
  Tar and feathers would be a good first step.
Boon 14 years ago

This is all attributable to the presence of blacks in this country. We should have listened to Ben Franklin - instead, the seeds of our demise were sown by keeping them here. Now it's late, and like Rome, we will crumble from within due to a barbarian presence that resides within our own borders. Seems that we never learn from history. A damn shame.
1. DesigNate 14 years ago
  
  Shut. The. Fuck. Up.
  1. Britt 14 years ago
    
    He's trolling. Probably washed up from /b/.
2. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
  
  Please die and fuck off.
3. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
  
  You know that Little Village is Mexican and not black, right?
  
  Of course you do, because a pure Aryan like yourself knows everything.
4. Old Mexican 14 years ago
  
  Re: Boon,
  
  This is all attributable to the presence of blacks in this country[.]
  
  And the presence of blacks in this country is attributable to the presence of whites in this country! So there!
  1. AU H20 14 years ago
    
    OM, being minorities, they OBVIOUSLY stole the boats they used to get here. Duh.
    1. White Slave (circa 1820) 14 years ago
      
      They took our jerbs!
      1. wylie 14 years ago
        
        Actually, I bet indentured servants were a bit pissed at the labor competition produced by owning people outright.
5. The Immaculate Trouser 14 years ago
  
  Yes, it would be far better to listen to fine specimens of humanity like yourself as opposed to Thomas Sowell or Walter Williams.
  1. The Gobbler 14 years ago
    
    Awesome break on the cuffs!
6. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  You don't know how... well... history works, do you?
  
  Boon... did you escape from the half way house for the special folk again?
7. Lurker Kurt 14 years ago
  
  I think it is time to unleash the Ban Hammer.
  1. Tulpa 14 years ago
    
    Nah, it's a calmly posed, however morally repugnant, statement with no personal attacks or spam. The solution to bad speech is _______ (or in this case probably just ignoring it).
8. Zeb 14 years ago
  
  Well, it can't be said too much: Fuck off, you piece of shit.
9. lkjfis 14 years ago
  
  You've got it all wrong . It's because women are allowed to vote. Including black women of course.
Minute Man 14 years ago

Yesenia Gutierrez

Dey're takin our lunchez!!1!1!!!11!!!
1. wylie 14 years ago
  
  Lunches that white kids don't want. What's the problem?
ChicagoSucks 14 years ago

Chicago Rules!
The Hamilton 14 years ago

Can we PLEASE cut Chicago loose from the rest of America? Maybe Canada wants it....
1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
  
  Yeah, it's bad here, but it's not measurably worse than San Francisco, New York, L.A., etc. In theory I'd love to move to a place that actually respects individual freedom, but in practice a shack in the middle-of-nowhere Montana just isn't that appealing.
  1. ChicagoSucks 14 years ago
    
    My sentiments exactly. It's very difficult to be successful in rural America(nt) compared to a urban areas. I base that solely on population proximity (more people = more opportunity). But it seems the catch is that living in Urban areas requires you to be a statist fuck.
  2. AU H20 14 years ago
    
    Plus, I'm not giving those damn, freeloading Canadians the recipes for the best style of American pizza, or Italian Beef.
    
    How do you think we won WWII, huh?
    
    Old Style and Chi Dogs, that's how!
    1. Sudden 14 years ago
      
      Pro L and I will defend your preference for deep dish, but Epi and SugarFree Wilfred Brimley will be picking a fight in no time...
      1. AU H20 14 years ago
        
        The righteous do not fear, Sudden, for they are cloaked in the truth.
      2. ChicagoSucks 14 years ago
        
        Deep dish isn't pizza, it's lasagna with a crust. Also, nobody in Chicago really eats the deep dish pizza.
        
        Pro Libertate 14 years ago
        
        Okay, that's just not true. I lived there for three years. What is true is that there is also thin pizza there. Of course.
        
        Trespassers W 14 years ago
        
        I only ever get the thin crust from Pat's any more.
        
        I also believe deep dish is essentially a tourist thing. That's why Giordano's near the Mag Mile is always packed, but never busy anywhere else.
        
        Pro Libertate 14 years ago
        
        Come on--Gino-s and Lou's do plenty of local business. In any case, Giordano's has been a second-rate chain for years.
        
        ChicagoSucks 14 years ago
        
        I order Pete's every time, the pepperoni and jalapeno is like eating government subsidies.
        
        octothorpe 14 years ago
        
        Deep dish is indeed only for tourists and suburbanites.
        Home Run Inn type pizza is what most native Chicagoans eat.
      3. The Gobbler 14 years ago
        
        I'm taking off the goves and linking arms with Epi and Sug.
      4. Bingo 14 years ago
        
        Deep-dish "pizza" is more aptly named "pizza casserole" and shares about as much in common with pizza as a taco casserole shares with tacos.
        
        Au H20 14 years ago
        
        Wait, are you denying that enchiladas, aka Taco casserole, are not one of the best applications of tacos?
        
        Bingo 14 years ago
        
        Although tasty, an enchilada is still an enchilada, it doesn't become a taco just because the pre-neolithic denizens of a certain midwest city deem it to be so. No one says "my favorite taco is an enchilada", it is ridiculous on it's face. Yet people mistakenly say "oh my favorite pizza is deep-dish!" without blinking.
        
        Personally, I blame public education and the corruption of the true nature of pizza by big business (Dominos being the most egregious offender).
        
        Pro Libertate 14 years ago
        
        Pointless wordplay.
      5. SugarFree 14 years ago
        
        Sudden, do not lump me in with the partisans. I am a pizza ecumenicalist.
        
        Sudden 14 years ago
        
        My apologies SF.
        
        Pro Libertate 14 years ago
        
        Is that like Olivier liking oysters and snails in Spartacus?
    2. Robert 14 years ago
      
      "Italian beef" is a joke. For those of you who haven't lived in Chicagoland or visited it long enough to know, it's just boiled beef sandwiches.
      
      Meanwhile, Chicago pizza comes in two kinds: so thin crusted you can't serve slices of it and eat it without a knife and fork, and pot pie with an Italian veneer.
      
      And what's with "Italian lemonade"? We have Italian ices too, but don't pretend they come in just 1 flavor.
  3. Red Rocks Rockin 14 years ago
    
    Seems like kind of a false choice, don't you think? Cities have always been havens of dysfunction because their problems are ones of scale. It's easier for a large urban area to absorb an underclass that's perpetually financially and socially deviant. The kinds of problems that cities are forced to deal with every day don't emerge as often in the countryside because rural communities have to be self-selecting by nature in order to survive. A parasite class will use more resources than the community can reasonably provide, and a deviant class will create greater social fissures that destroy trust bonds and tear communities apart.
    
    The coasts look down on flyover country as "backward" looking and ask "what's the matter with Kansas" because they are incapable of understanding that the features of urban scale which they enjoy cannot be transplanted onto smaller communities, which have to be more homogenous on many levels to ensure continuity and sustainability.
Hazel Meade 14 years ago

I agree that there is a strong possibility that this was brought on by political influence from the lunch providor. This is Chicago, after all.

It may be true that the school lunches are on average healthier than what parents provide in this district. But they are still probably fall short of a genuinely healthy meal, and are probably beaten by a simple sandwich, which is what the more decent parents would give them.
1. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  Wait, a decision made in Chicago because of corruption?
  
  Shocked, gambling, etc.
The Party 14 years ago

Attention! The school lunch ration has been increased to 75 grams per meal. Double plus good food for all children of loyal Party members.
1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
  
  Jane: Why isn't our low-protein gruel wearing down his resistance like all
  the others?
  Glen: It doesn't wear down your resistance if you eat a whole month's supply!
  He even ate mine!
  1. Jim 14 years ago
    
    Come back Leader! Willie still believes in ya!
2. Really? 14 years ago
  
  Do the kids get Victory Gin? Because that's the kind of fascism I think we can all agree on.
  1. pancakes 14 years ago
    
    I hear it tastes like motor oil.
Mensan 14 years ago

The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch.

So, the taxpayers pay for the "free" lunches. Then there are the kids who are not eligible for "free" lunch; their parents are forced to purchase a good from the school. When I was a kid, my mom made us pack a lunch, because it was cheaper than each of us buying a lunch every day at $2 a piece.
1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
  
  When I was a kid in the Chicago Public Schools, we qualified for a reduced-price lunch (I want to say it was 40 cents, back in the late '80s) but they sucked so my mom only made me eat the school lunch two days a week. The other days she gave me a nickel for milk, but I was never sure if you could buy the milk separately (let alone if it only cost a nickel) so I just took the milk and kept the nickel. FIGHT THE POWER!
Boon 14 years ago

Hey Designate . . . nope. Not shutting up. I am right. Blacks have destroyed this country.
1. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
  
  Go fuck yourself you lying progressive fucktard.
  1. DesigNate 14 years ago
    
    I would respond to his retarded, racist ass, but clearly he is superior to me in every way.
2. Really? 14 years ago
  
  I suppose that if I were as much of a failure as a human being as you clearly are, I would look for a scapegoat too.
3. Mindja Biz 14 years ago
  
  The only thing blacks destroyed is your mother's gaping maw of a snatch. Over and over and over again.
  1. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
    
    +1
    Best Boon response so far.
  2. Fat Crack Ho 14 years ago
    
    . . . which is why she didn't even feel it when she squeezed him out nine months later.
    1. Sandi 14 years ago
      
      I squeezed out a Boon once.
4. The Immaculate Trouser 14 years ago
  
  And here I was thinking that it was the Jews...
  1. Sammy Davis Junior 14 years ago
    
    Yeah, man.
5. 1980 Redux 14 years ago
  
  The man has a point, though crudely made. If we had shipped them all back to where they came from, we would not today have a communist dictator occupying the White House.
  1. DesigNate 14 years ago
    
    well since his dad was an actual African and not a slave descendant, you are wrong.
    1. 1980 Redux 14 years ago
      
      Apologies, you're quite correct. I should have included in my statement, "shipped them all back to where they came from, and not allowed any others to come in."
      1. nekoxgirl 14 years ago
        
        I don't see how Hillary Clinton as President would have been much of an improvement. Like all Democrats, she believes prosperity comes from having the government print lots of money in order to pay people to dig holes and break windows.
  2. Also not a sock puppet 14 years ago
    
    +1. And Boon is so handsome!
  3. Sudden 14 years ago
    
    Looks like 1980 Redux and Boon have had the same experience of arriving home from work early only to find a camera crew, Fubu apparrel on the floor, and his wife making sounds he's never been able to produce himself.
    1. Concerned Citizen 14 years ago
      
      It isn't the blacks, it's what the liberals did to them. By any measure they were making solid economic gains, until the libs discovered them in the 1960s. Their out of wedlock birthrate went from 25% to 75%. The war on poverty has accomplished more than the KKK ever dreamed of.
      1. pancakes 14 years ago
        
        so the answer is white people. white people are destroying this country. which makes sense, after all, they created it. and plymouth rock landed on us!
        
        Concerned Citizen 14 years ago
        
        The answer is statists. They brought the slaves here, abused them for hundreds of years, then set them up with a new slave master, the state. And yes, our founding statists were white.
      2. wylie 14 years ago
        
        The war on poverty has accomplished more than the KKK or BET ever dreamed of.
    2. The David 14 years ago
      
      "Fubu apparrel"
      
      I have heard it said that FUBU stands for Fucked Up Black Underclass
6. Lurker Kurt 14 years ago
  
  Reason Overlords: I think Boon has exceeded the ban threshold.
  1. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
    
    No, let him stay. Eventually it will become apparent that he's a sock puppet being manipulated by some left-liberal bigot who thinks libertarians are racist.
    1. Lurker Kurt 14 years ago
      
      Can we at least see who he is being a sock puppet for?
  2. Zeb 14 years ago
    
    1980Redux needs to go too.
    1. Mensan 14 years ago
      
      We've already established that 1980 Redux is a fake. He hits every point on a lefty's caricature of their idea of a "typical" Republican. There's no way he's real.
Michael 14 years ago

Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.

Le fixed.
MiserMinster 14 years ago

Dear Matt,

Chicago rules. Get bent you fuckhead.
1. Michael 14 years ago
  
  As a long time and current resident (and one of La Villita until just last year) I can confidently deny your claim and present a degenerated cinder block and brick face shithole chock full of transplanted Ann Arbor yuppies as evidence.
  1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
    
    +1 on the Ann Arbor part.
Michael 14 years ago

I still find it amusing when authority figured insist on taking away as many choices from people as possible then become perplexed when those same people end up making bad choices with what precious few options they have left.

And by amusing I mean completely infuriating and sad.
Boon 14 years ago

I am proud of my Aryan heritage. But I am an American first - I love this country, and I hate being witness to its destruction by a greedy, low-IQ, knuckle-dragging, violent, illiterate, socialist-prone, culturally retarded race that we should have never brought to this country. But this is the fault of the white man - we created the above litany of disastrous traits when we decided to kidnap them, enslave them, assault and dehumanize them, and then set them free. What did we expect? Is it any surprise that they revel in their stupidity and backwardness?
1. The Immaculate Trouser 14 years ago
  
  "Is it any surprise that they revel in their stupidity and backwardness?"
  
  As opposed to the brilliance that is categorizing people by color.
2. Hank 14 years ago
  
  I hate being witness to its destruction by a greedy, low-IQ, knuckle-dragging, violent, illiterate, socialist-prone, culturally retarded race
  
  Labor Unions aren't technically a "race", Boon.
  1. AU H20 14 years ago
    
    Hank, come on now.
    
    He clearly means white people.
  2. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
    
    Fucking projection, how does it work?
  3. Xenocles 14 years ago
    
    NASCAR fans?
    1. Xenocles 14 years ago
      
      Never mind, missed the "socialist" part.
3. Hey, boonster 14 years ago
  
  What kind of tattoos you sportin'?
Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago

Fernando Dominguez cut the figure of a young revolutionary leader during a recent lunch period at his elementary school.

"Who thinks the lunch is not good enough?" the seventh-grader shouted to his lunch mates in Spanish and English.

Dozens of hands flew in the air and fellow students shouted along: "We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!"

Fernando waved his hand over the crowd and asked a visiting reporter: "Do you see the situation?"

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton then persuaded President Barack Obama to establish a no-fly zone over Little Village Academy.
1. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  That kid is fucking awesome.
  1. Fist of Etiquette 14 years ago
    
    Hopefully he has his birth certificate in order before he runs for strongman president of the United States.
    1. AU H20 14 years ago
      
      If not, I hear Chavez is getting on in years.
      
      Seriously though, I can totally see that kid leading protests in 20 years. No normal seventh grader talks like that. And because of this kind of shit, they may be libertarian ones.
      1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
        
        Not if Miguel Del Vaille gets to him first.
2. R C Dean 14 years ago
  
  Fernando waved his hand over the crowd and asked a visiting reporter: "Do you see the situation?"
  
  Priceless. I can practically hear the haughty Latino aristocratic sneer.
  1. Gus 14 years ago
    
    Far too stereotypical to actually have happened. The reporter made it up and the editor didn't question it.
Walter Duranty 14 years ago

It's a lie. No one is starving.
Marie Antoinette 14 years ago

Let them eat (fat-free) cake.
Boon 14 years ago

Ha! Is that the best that Reasonoids can do? All any of you have done is say "Shut up" or "He is envious of black sexual prowess". Trust me, I have NO reason to envy any black man. But one thing I have not encountered here is a denial of my characterization of the black race in America in 2011. That's telling.
1. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  Hey guys! I figured it out!!!
  
  He's a jealous Miami fan! Well sorry bitch, but Bulls have the one seed.
2. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  Also, this thread is now about the NBA playoffs.
  1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
    
    As a Bulls fan myself, I've spent all season looking for reasons to explain away their record (as both a skeptic and a Chicago sports fan, I'm naturally reluctant to raise my expectations), but the numbers all back up the fact that they're really, really good. Sure, in a perfect world you'd like a solid 2-guard, but between their shutdown team defense and D-Rose's emergence as a finisher, I have to agree they're the favorite.
    1. AU H20 14 years ago
      
      Yeah, but it'd be pretty amazing if Keith Bogans got over his addiction to sticking testicles in his mouth for three whole months. So... I do worry about that.
      
      But yeah, Tibs has them playing ungodly good D.
3. pancakes 14 years ago
  
  you're cool. It's really cool and awesome to scapegoat people for the color of their skin. It's really cool to enflame people by pretending to be an ignorant asshole. It's even cooler if you actually are an asshole, bonus points if you are actually racist.
  
  Badass scumsucking fucks like you are just what the country needs right now. People who aren't afraid to be totally backwards and wrong on just about everything. People who would rather make an enemy out of people they just plain don't like than try to understand anything. You are just that fucking cool.
  1. AU H20 14 years ago
    
    Pancakes!!!
    
    I need your thoughts on the Western Conference man aka ignore this asshole, let's talk about a sport full of successful, educated black men to piss him off.
    
    Plus, I think this will be a hella fun playoffs. I am really pulling for Denver in the West.
    1. pancakes 14 years ago
      
      Sorry, I personally find NBA basketball to be just about the most boring professional sport, ever. I'd rather watch golf. I know, strong words, but it is what it is.
      1. ClubMedSux 14 years ago
        
        Thoughts on the NHL playoffs?
        
        pancakes 14 years ago
        
        Not a huge hockey fan. But come what may I will watch the Pens. The main concern for me is that they do better than the Flyers. I'm not a beleiver, just a hater. My friends are Flyers fans, and I now live in Pittsburgh.
        
        AU H20 14 years ago
        
        Is it ever NOT fun to root against Philly?
        
        I don't mind Philadelphians, but all their sports fans are kinda dicks.
        
        ClubMedSux 14 years ago
        
        That's how I am with college sports. I went to a small, liberal arts college with a solid mid-major basketball team but a joke of a football program. I root for my grad school and law school teams, but otherwise most of my college football consumption is rooting against all the other large state schools around here that all my buddies went to. I think sports is a great outlet for anti-social behaviors that are fun but destructive, and hating fits that description to a T.
        
        Mensan 14 years ago
        
        Go Bolts!
      2. AU H20 14 years ago
        
        My friend is the same- he's a hockey player, and he finds it way too easy to score in basketball.
4. RyanXXX 14 years ago
  
  What do you propose we do about this Black problem, Boony?
  
  (I may be opening Pandora's box here, I know)
5. Sudden 14 years ago
  
  I cannot speak for all libertarians, nor will I claim to, precisely because the generally accepted libertarian first principle is treating everyone as an individual and rejecting group categorizations and collectivism.
  
  None of this is to claim that I am ignorant of the propensities that statistical observations reveal. But someone who is coming from your clearly biased world-view is unlikely to accept such rationalist observations if they don't conform to your originally racist preconceptions.
  
  But if you want to play this game, do you know what the most common trait shared among prison inmates is? Hint: It's not race/ethnicity, IQ, or income. Over 70% of the currently incarcerated population in the U.S. was raised in a fatherless home. This is why Concerned Citizen above wrote about the tripling in black out of wedlock births since the start of the war on poverty. Because this is the single largest factor driving the disparities in income and crime. And its been a creation of the state, fostered by the state, and committed even with the best of intentions by the state.
  
  And do you know who has been one of the most eloquent and profound researchers into this trend, and how this trend came to arise directly from public policy? Shelby Steele, a black man.
  
  And for all of Obama's faults from a policy standpoint, one thing he has actually attempted to do repeatedly is sing the praises of fatherhood specifically to his own community. Whether or not I accept his policies in almost any regard, it cannot be doubted that he is a person that inspires people of color, and I have seen (albeit anecdotal) evidence that young black children are wanting to emulate him, follow him, and achieve like him. He has to one degree cracked this misbegotten notion that race is an impediment to success in this country (and many of us will argue that his race was actually one of his biggest assets in his bid for the presidency). Regardless of the damaging policies he has pursued (which, to be quite honest are probably virtually identical to the policies we would've got from the mainstream alternative McCain), there are some intangibles that Obama has brought to the table that inspire some faith that maybe the very existence of his administration will offer long-term benefits that can't be factored now in terms of how it affects the larger culture.
  1. pancakes 14 years ago
    
    Yes. This is probably one of the things that really bugs me about feminists though. Some I've met think that a single woman should be able to have a professional career and raise children. I agree, they should be able to, but a fatherless upbringing can be troublesome. I would say growing up without a Dad is worse for boys than girls, but only because violent outcomes are easier to spot and more likely in boys.
    
    To get back on topic, the state makes a terrible parent. Unfortunately you can't force people to be good parents so we are dropped to the lowest common denominator.
    1. waffles 14 years ago
      
      Ugh, it's like there's this little statist in all of us. Sometimes I am disgusted at the "freedom for me, but not for thee" thoughts that inevitably pop into my head.
    2. Enough About Palin 14 years ago
      
      "I would say growing up without a Dad is worse for boys than girls, but only because violent outcomes are easier to spot and more likely in boys."
      
      I word say it is worse for girls. They lack a committed father's love and affection, which causes them to desparately seek it out from less than ideal boys and men. A great many of the pregnant teens I worked with fell into this group.
      1. Sudden 14 years ago
        
        This actually hits on why illegitimacy is also a generally exponential problem too. Daughters from fatherless homes are generally too prone to seek fatherly love somewhere, anywhere, and therefore fertile (pun intended) ground for absentee dads to be. And sons of fatherless homes are generally more prone toward criminality and incarceration will make their offspring fatherless (not even factoring in the lack of any positive male role models to emulate in terms of how to treat a woman and therefore the increased likelihood for domestic abuse and/or fleeing the house when the babies arrive).
Boon 14 years ago

pancakes . . . I don't want to be "cool". I'd rather be right. And I am right. Once again, no refutation of my core assertions. I will leave contented that I have made my point and have not met any intellectually serious resistance.
1. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  Yes, truly Boon, you are the intellectual equivalent of the Nazis, and we France.
2. pancakes 14 years ago
  
  You're right. If only America focused on ethnic cleansing then we have full employment, no deficit, and would totally rule in the Olympic games! Why haven't any countries ever tried this before!?
3. Zeb 14 years ago
  
  If you believe that "race" is a meaningful or useful way to divide people into groups then you are not going to be able to understand any refutation of your idiotic assertions about black people. This is a libertarian site. We treat people as individuals. It is impossible to know anything about an individual based on their race (beyond the traits that are used to decide race). Even supposing that race A is in some way superior to race B on average, that does not allow you to say that a person of race A is superior to a particular person of race B. There is far more variation from the mean within any racial group than there are differences with other racial groups.
  There, now you know why you will not get any traction with libertarians and why racism is just plain stupid. Please fuck off now. There are special websites for pieces of sub-human shit like yourself. GO fuck yourself, asshole.
4. Tulpa 14 years ago
  
  OK, this crosses the line into spamming -- 5 comments saying essentially the same thing in quick succession. I now support banning him.
Boon 14 years ago

No, I prefer this analogy: I am the equivalent of the Enola Gay, and you are Hiroshima.
1. RyanXXX 14 years ago
  
  So you're a faggot? 🙂
  1. AU H20 14 years ago
    
    Damn it Ryan, and damn your quick Gypsy fingers!
    1. Boon 14 years ago
      
      I hate gypsies too
      1. pancakes 14 years ago
        
        No lie, gypsy stole my shoes. Fuckin' Air Jordans too. Sucks.
      2. AU H20 14 years ago
        
        I don't hate them: I envy their mystically quick typing however.
2. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  Well, you got the gay part right.
3. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
  
  Actually, you are more like the progressive equivalent of the Lybian security forces, running a false flag operation targeting libertarians.
  
  You are a bigot, just a bigot against people who don't share your leftist beliefs. You're so convinced that we are racists that you dec ided to come here and pose as one of us and make racist comments, assuming that we'd all join in and agree with you.
  But the responses of the commenters here prove that your assumptions were wrong. You are a prejudiced, political bigot. A much bigger bigot than the average Tea Partier.
4. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  Also Boon... you walked right into that one.
Boon 14 years ago

Ah, how wonderfully libertarian of you ... now the gay jokes! It is wonderful, having the power to reduce people to the level of that which they claim to despise. It shows true colors . . . I am not in favor of ethnic cleansing. I am saying it's too late. there is nothing that can be done to mitigate the disaster. We can only await the fall of our civilization, and do the best we can to shield ourselves and our families against the pernicious effects.
Sudden . . . ok, I will take what you say at face value. The problem of black illegitimacy was evident before the rise of the welfare state. The Great Society programs, aided by white liberal guilt, hastened that problem forward to its present, atrocious condition. This was diagnosed rather cogently by D. Patrick Moynihan in the late 60's. The prescience of his work back then cannot be ignored. Alas, America, by and large, ignored him and we have what we are left with today.
1. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  Wait, Boon... I have an idea!!!
  
  We'll go into the rural part of California, get a bunch of hippie chicks, and then go murder some dickwad producer who won't release my single.
  
  Then, and this is the best part, we make it look like blacks did it, trigger a race war, and emerge later from our bunker to lead them.
  
  There's no way this can go wrong!
2. Sudden 14 years ago
  
  Without having the benefit of being able to locate that study via a quick google search, I would also wonder what the larger trend in illegimacy rates for non-blacks among similar income groups was during the time of this rise. Although it is true that the black illegitimacy rate increase from 15% in 1940 to 24% in 1960, I would not be surprised if the rise in illegitimacy among blacks pre-1965 was also evident among whites within the same general economic stratum. Moreover, an increase from 15% to 26% is not even doubling, but the increase since 1960 is almost threefold.
  
  And for the record the authors that best analyze these issues are black themselves
3. Enough About Palin 14 years ago
  
  "I am not in favor of ethnic cleansing. I am saying it's too late"
  
  Say boon, it would be easier just to kill yourself, which would immidiately eliminate your problem of having to live with teh coloreds.
Boon 14 years ago

Zeb, you held together rather well until the very end . . . I appreciate the explanation of libertarianism. But I already knew that, thanks. It still has precious little to do with what I said. Remember, I do not say that blacks are genetically inferior. I was careful to attribute these problems to the evils perpetuated by the white man. Whites created the monster that is Black America. Now we must deal with it.
1. Zeb 14 years ago
  
  Is it a black problem, or one of the urban (and to a lesser extent rural) poor? If you are not actually a racist piece of shit or a false flag instigator, why use race when other factors are better determinants of what and where the problems lie?
2. Boonster 14 years ago
  
  So you hate peckerwoods?
Boon 14 years ago

Ah yes AU, because the millions of Americans who think the way I do just loooove them some Charles Manson family antics. Juvenile.
1. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  Fun Fact: Charles Manson's Family Antics was the top rated sitcom of 1970.
  
  Never got why they had to shoehorn in President Ford in Season 5, tho. Such lazy writing.
Boon 14 years ago

Hazel . . . yes, you are correct. I am so obviously progressive. I simply cannot be real - I must be a progressive plant, a ruse! How rich!
1. Lurker Kurt 14 years ago
  
  Hazel . . . yes, you are correct. I am so obviously progressive. I simply cannot be real - I must be a progressive plant, a ruse! How rich!
  
  Boon, your actions are similar to leftist trolls of the past. That is why no one takes you seriously.
2. AU H20 14 years ago
  
  Boon, let me get this straight.
  
  Your definition of victory is: This naked chick was too busy laughing her ass off and insulting my incredibly tiny penis to stop me from furiously whacking off to her into a wet rag.
  
  Cool, good to know.
Boon 14 years ago

Sudden . . .here ya go
1. Sudden 14 years ago
  
  I glanced through section 2 of the study, the one specifically referencing the breakdown of the black family. And there were a few things that I found that were interesting to say the least. First, Moynihan mentions that there is a black middle class and a larger black underclass. He states that the numbers for overall illegitimacy among the underclass are significantly higher than what the larger numbers shows, but that the black middle-class skewed the numbers slightly so that the probelm didn't look as bad as it really is among the underclass. At the same time as the author recognizes the substantial impact of income in regards to this trend, when he references the statistics comparing white families, he fails to adjust for the fact that during the 1950-1960 period, white families generally saw considerable income gains that likely skewed this variable as well. Nonetheless, he does state "Although similar declines occurred among white females, the proportion of white husbands present never dropped below 90 percent except for the first and last age group." The white rate likely never dropped below 90% husbands-present because the relative starting point and enjoyment of economic gains during this period was greater for white families. Although I have no access to raw data to prove my theory, I would imagine that the rates of illegitimacy for whites and blacks among similar income groups would be fairly close.
  
  Another telling bit of data here is that eventhough this period predates the "War on Poverty," it does not predate Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which is the program that essentially encouraged black women to kick underemployed black fathers out of the house in order to maximize welfare bennies. From the study: "The majority of Negro children receive public assistance under the AFDC program at one point or another in their childhood.
  
  At present, 14 percent of Negro children are receiving AFDC assistance, as against 2 percent of white children. Eight percent of white children receive such assistance at some time, as against 56 percent of nonwhites, according to an extrapolation based on HEW data. (Let it be noted, however, that out of a total of 1.8 million nonwhite illegitimate children in the nation in 1961, 1.3 million were not receiving aid under the AFDC program, although a substantial number have, or will, receive aid at some time in their lives.)" Also: "A 1960 study of Aid to Dependent Children in Cook County, Ill. stated:
  "The 'typical' ADC mother in Cook County was married and had children by her husband, who deserted; his whereabouts are unknown, and he does not contribute to the support of his children. She is not free to remarry and has had an illegitimate child since her husband left. (Almost 90 percent of the ADC families are Negro.)"11" Those husbands that "deserted" many times did so because black men were unfortunately still suffering from racism at this time and were generally underemployed, and their presence decreased the actual money that the mother was able to receive via AFDC. So the mother kicked the man out in order to maximize her families bennies. This is the perverse incentives that were apparent in the system. And this is almost directly the cause of the substantial increases in black fatherlessness since the advent of the welfare state in 1935.
  1. Sudden 14 years ago
    
    Another illuminating study on how ADC/AFDC encouraged out of wedlock births, kicking out fathers, etc.
Boon 14 years ago

AU H20 . . . you seem to have an inordinate fascination with penises, homosexuals and cuckolding. I would just chalk it up to the schoolyard taunting of a slobbering mental defective . . . but I detect a pattern.
1. Boon 14 years ago
  
  Fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap fap!
2. 1980 Redux 14 years ago
  
  Really, you take things too far. If you're an actual conservative, then understand that 1) you are choosing to be on a forum in which most of the commenters will disagree with you, and 2) hold yourself to a higher standard of politeness than you otherwise would, which will add legitimacy to your statements.
  
  I lose my temper sometimes on here as well, and always regret it, as that does nothing to contribute to the conversation. There are already enough children on here who mistake insults and snark for intelligence, so please, don't be another one. I believe libertarians can be reached with a conservative message, so I try to present it as best I can. You accomplish nothing with meaningless agitation (which I try to avoid, though am admittedly often unsuccessful at).
Banned from Hit & Run 14 years ago

At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

The shooters at Columbine attacked the wrong people.
Ornithorhynchus 14 years ago

I'm told it is now common practise in the UK for schools to search through the lunches the kids bring and to confiscate anything that doesn't fit their definition of 'Healthy'. I don't know if there is a specific law or Government policy for this, or if it's just something the schools do on their own.
1. Paul 14 years ago
  
  I don't know if there is a specific law or Government policy for this, or if it's just something the schools do on their own.
  
  Assuming it's a government (public) school, then if the school does it, it's government policy.
Boon 14 years ago

Sudden . . . exactly. While there is evidence that there were serious problems in the black family prior to white liberal Great Society programs, those programs - the welfare state - made them that much worse. You cannot enslave a people, set them free, and then in some sort of perverse way re-enslave them to the state and expect that they will be anything but resentful, broken, angry and maladjusted. Now, America reaps the whirlwind.
1. Sudden 14 years ago
  
  But Boon, here's where we differ. If it is public policy that lead to denigration of the black family, then it is precisely through reform of those policies (or perhaps more accurately, complete scrapping of them) that we can fix this problem.
  
  What I want to get across is that there is nothing inherently wrong/bad/troublesome about anyone of a specific ethnicity. People are malleable and can be conditioned to certain behaviors, and this is true of all people. But given the start that blacks had in this century, with the legacies of slavery and Jim Crow, the perverse incentives of the welfare state (and I have to reiterate that all of those trends that were happening predating the Great Society were the result of existing New Deal welfare programs like AFDC) crippled them more than it did whites. But it did so largely because blacks were starting off in relatively poorer shape than whites.
  
  The welfare state has done one thing since its inception, it has made the poor poorer and decrease class mobility among the poorest. No longer do you get the Andrew Carnegies of the world, who rise from destitution to lucre. Instead, the best you'll get is working to middle class mobility, and some middle class to filthy rich mobility. And the reason that happens is the dependence that the state has bred into people.
  
  There is no race of people that are genetically inferior, but the State constantly asserts its supremacy. Progessive government, even with the best of intentions, is the enemy of all people and in the eyes of progressive government, the entirety of the human race is inferior to our progressive overlords.
2. RyanXXX 14 years ago
  
  You're halfway to a reasonable, rational statement, Loony Boony. You can go all the way if you try
chuck 14 years ago

Ummmm, I may have to slap myself later, but I think I actually agree with Boon on most of his points. He didn't start off so hot, but he's really talking common sense. Though I think most of us are afraid to admit it because what he's saying is the definition of politically incorrect.
1. Free2Booze 14 years ago
  
  Once you manage to dig through the layers of racist stereotyping, Boon does make an interesting point about white, liberal policies destroying black society.
  
  Since we are already aware of the failure of the welfare state, Boon's not enlightening anyone with some grand revelation, just being a douche bag.
  1. Sudden 14 years ago
    
    At the end of the day, all I want is that the next person Boon meets and speaks with, regardless of race/ethnicity, get treated as an individual and approached without prejudice and judged on his individual merits as ascertained through conversation and observation. That, to me, would make my day a success.
    
    Libertarianism, to me, isn't just about policy preferences. Its a temperment. Its based on the idea that every human being is an end himself and is worthy of being engaged with an open mind. Admittedly, there comes a point in having met someone that its safe to make some preliminary judgements, and those judgements may often conform to societal stereotypes of that persons race/religion/creed (hence why stereotypes exst to begin). But the critical part is to first give every human being a unique chance to demonstrate that they are in fact a unique human being, complete with all of the individual idiosyncracies and fallabilities that make each of us a distinct person.
    
    I embrace diversity... but I embrace the purist form thereof. I don't embrace blacks, mexicans, arabs, etc. I embrace each individual human being (until that individual proves himself unworthy of my embrace based on their own individual behaviors).
    1. Sudden 14 years ago
      
      I should admit that I recognize my own naivete here. But I'm still under 30, I can be sanguine about the ability to change an individual's thinking even if I am rightly cynical on the ability to thwart the state.
      1. Free2Booze 14 years ago
        
        Their is nothing wrong with your line of thinking. People should view others as individuals, as opposed to members of a group. I would also add that people need to view themselves as individuals also.
        
        When a person view them self as part of a group, no matter how successful he/she becomes, that person will still think of themselves as a victim of what ever atrocities burden the rest of the group.
        
        Sudden 14 years ago
        
        Or likewise a perpetrator of whatever inhumanities have been committed by that group throughout history (i.e. modern white guilt).
    2. Zeb 14 years ago
      
      Well said. And I'm over 30.
  2. Zeb 14 years ago
    
    "Boon does make an interesting point about white, liberal policies destroying black society."
    
    The problem is that libertarians manage to make this point all of the time without sounding like a vile racist. PR efforts may be impure philosophically, but as I see it libertarianism is often mis-associated with racism in the minds of people who know nothing about libertarianism and it will help the cause to be very hostile to racism. There is no benefit to staying stuck in the past and framing things in terms of race when there are much more useful aspects of people's lives to look at when looking for solutions to chronic poverty and dependence on government subsidy.
    1. Sudden 14 years ago
      
      True enough Zeb. But the best thing we can do as libertarians is to prove ourselves the anti-racists.
      
      Most of the modern racist whites in America are that way because they see the disproportionate crime and poverty rates among blacks and misattribute that to a inferiority. There are two directions this can go, the hard bigotry that Boon started with; and the soft bigotry of low expectations and government dole that is at the heart of progressivism. Both of these strains can be mended by showing that no group is inherently any more prone to any activity, but that all people respond to incentives and that our society, through the welfare state, has perverted incentives and created and exacerbated these problems. Ironically enough, I think it makes it almost easier to reform the hard racist than the soft racist because the hard racist believes his enemy in the modern era is usually government, and so he can be made to find common ground with the object of his racism once you prove that those whom he hates have a common enemy. The progressive believes that the government is a tool for reforming/fixing those who he feels have these undesirable conditions independent of government and therefore in need of government.
      1. Hazel Meade 14 years ago
        
        Hence my policy of unequivolently rejecting racists and not tolerating them in the slightest.
        
        It doesn't help our cause to appear to be making any room whatsoever for racists in the libertarian movement.
        
        Remember 'Shut the fuck up, LoneWacko'?
        
        We used to have a regular poster here whose central issue was immigration by hispanics. After everyone eventually got tired of the anti-hispanic racism that tinged his comments, every time he posted he would be greeted by a round of 'Shut the fuck up, LoneWacko!'
        
        Eventually, he left.
        
        Sudden 14 years ago
        
        But if we're seen as the ones uniquely capable of shattering racist preconceptions and reforming racists into fair-minded individuals are we not only not marginalized, but doesn't that make us THE most attractive stream of thought? Especially if the means by which we reform racists is to show them that the current system is keeping minorites impoverished and turning them into what the racist previously viewed as an inherent undesireable?
        
        As with every hand, there comes a time to fold. But sometimes, if the stakes are small enough, it doesn't hurt to call the blinds and see the flop. That 8, 2 offsuit might hit something, and you might have a hand to work with.
        
        Boon came across as an absolute hard racists asshole at first. But when we dug deeper, we found the cause of his resentment. We tried to reach him with reason and reform his thoughts. It most likely did not work. But in the course of debating it, he demonstrated that the group he allegedly hates has only been turned into that because of perverse policies, not inherent genetic ills. Perhaps this insight will seep in over time and he will transform from hating blacks, to sympathizing with and seeking to help blacks through the dismantling of the most damaging government programs. I'll admit its unlikely, but I refuse to concede to ignorance right off the bat. I will fight bad speech with good, I will not shout over ignorance, I will run intellectual circles around it, I will appeal to the innate logic that all people possess. I will only fold after I have exhausted any chance of winning.
    2. Free2Booze 14 years ago
      
      "The problem is that libertarians manage to make this point all of the time without sounding like a vile racist."
      
      Did you read the part when I called Boon a douche bag?
      
      "There is no benefit to ... framing things in terms of race."
      
      I slightly disagree with you on this. Our government has expanded the welfare state under the guise of helping the black community. To add insult to injury, we have a political party that treats blacks as a monolithic group, and perpetuates the narrative that they should be viewed as a group, not as individuals. This has led to generations of blacks viewing them selves as victims, and unable to rely on their own unique skills, and talents to improve their condition, with no shortage of 'leaders' to exploit this for personal gain.
      1. Zeb 14 years ago
        
        I don't think we disagree much and I noticed the "douche" bit; just speaking generally. The culture of victimhood is another bad thing that comes about because we frame things in terms of race too much. Liberal welfare-statists and other naive do-gooders (not to mention racist black people) are just as much, if not more to blame than white racists.
        
        Free2Booze 14 years ago
        
        A large portion of the black community allows themselves to be viewed as a group. Anyone who insists on being referred to as "African-American" is perpetuating that group identity.
        
        Yes, things are framed in terms of race, but who is driving that? I feel much of that comes from blacks, because a majority view their identities as part of a group, and have labeled themselves as such. Because of this, framing an issue as "black", isn't racist if this is how the group choses to be identified.
Edward G. Robinson 14 years ago

I like the "Green Suprise" though...
RyanXXX 14 years ago

Child who's lunch got confiscated: But dad, isn't that fascism?

Dad: No, because we don't call it fascism.
SUM SUM SUMMARY 14 years ago

STATISM = BAD
RACISM = BAD
LUCRE = GOOD
LUNCH = MAYBE
DesigNate 14 years ago

you want a refutation? The problem is not blacks. The problem is the state. Any evils you can attribute to the black community are only possible because the state created the problem in the first place. And zeb was spot on, you cannot lump all black people together and try to say they are all responsible for the evils that America struggles with anymore than Hitler could legitimately use the Jews for the same purpose.
SugarFree 14 years ago

Boon has a good point. For example, there are no poor white people whatsoever. None. Anywhere.
1. Sudden 14 years ago
  
  Except for the ones that Scott Walker has launched his starvation jihad against of course...
2. The Immaculate Trouser 14 years ago
  
  I also don't remember having seen any white serial killers.
The Immaculate Trouser 14 years ago

You know, you'd think that a proud Aryan like Boon would be able to figure out threaded comments.
Invisible Finger 14 years ago

I want to know if it is easier to smuggle a lunch into the school or an aspirin.

Or plastic explosives.
Merilee 14 years ago

Freakin' socialists!
Cherry Pie 14 years ago

Another unfunded mandate. The govt should fund more man dates.
Brian Brady 14 years ago

"This is not an article you should read if you're having a bad government day."

Why didn't a listen to disclaimer? I'd complain but...well, I was warned

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