EDITORIAL: Big Brother is Watching You...Down on the Farm

In the online article, "Rural kids, parents angry about Labor Dept. rule banning farm chores," by Patrick Richardson in The Daily Caller, the reaction from those directly involved has not been favorable:

Under the rules, children under 18 could no longer work “in the storing, marketing and transporting of farm product raw materials.”

“Prohibited places of employment,” a Department press release read, “would include country grain elevators, grain bins, silos, feed lots, stockyards, livestock exchanges and livestock auctions.”

Rossie Blinson, a 21-year-old college student from Buis Creek, N.C., told The Daily Caller that the federal government’s plan will do far more harm than good.

“The main concern I have is that it would prevent kids from doing 4-H and FFA projects,” said Blinson.

“I started showing sheep when I was four years old. I started with cattle around 8. It’s been very important. I learned a lot of responsibility being a farm kid.”

John Weber, 19, is a Minneapolis native grew who up in suburbia and learned the livestock business working summers on his relatives’ farm.

He’s now a college Agriculture major and was a small businessman in high school. He took out a loan and bought a few steers to raise for income. “Under these regulations,” he explained, “I wouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

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This new Department of Labor regulation gives us a clear sense of how Obama and his team see us in rural areas of the country.  They think we abuse our children by making them do farm chores, for one thing.  This is micromanaging of a culture's traditions, folks.  Clearly, Obama and friends believe they have to save our children from farm families.

And here we thought that we were instilling a little discipline, work ethic, and responsibility for one's family through these chores.

Here's what we want to know about these eggheads in the Obama Administration's Department of Labor: was there some kind of child abuse epidemic going on across the country that the rest of us missed? Were increasing numbers of farm kids coming to school exhausted or otherwise sick from excessive work on the family farm?

If not, then the Labor Department is far out of line in suggesting that a few farm chores equals child abuse.  Our Congressional representatives should jointly call for the Labor Secretary's ouster if this regulation is released.  

We are tired of the constant insults from our own federal government, and we're going to manifest our sentiments at the ballot box this November.