It starts way before birth.
Seriously, there is research that poor maternal nutrition (eg because of widespread famine during WWII) long before conception has epigenetic effects on the mother‘s children’s health - in the third and fourth generation, maybe!
And of course, stress and poor nutrition during pregnancy has detrimental effects on the child’s health, and just hearing the language of instruction spoken in utero positive effects. And so on.
- Dutch famine during WWII (
1944-45 Hunger Winter)
- Chinese famine (
1959-1961)
Unfortunately, today there may be self-imposed malnutrition during pregnancy, by various individuals/groups... ranging from those who wish to stay slim... to those who choose to forego nutritiously dense foods for foods which they may find more palate-pleasing due to high content of sugar, butter, salt, etc... essentially beginning their child's life in a "food desert."
You can’t ask the upper middle class referenced here to stop working, or to stop supporting their children’s education, just as you can’t ask them to deliberately ruin their health. Mandatory alcohol consumption in the first trimester maybe, to level IQ for everyone? Yes, it’s a ludicrous proposition...
This type of pre-birth social engineering was foretold in the 1932 dystopian novel,
Brave New World.
You can... expect parents to support... having to pay taxes or contributions for universal high quality preschool and health care for all children, since this benefits all children, regardless of parents income.
...
Likewise, I am all for aggressive economic desegregation of schools, and, by means of public housing programs, neighbourhoods
...
You can (and, morally, I believe, should) make sure that public services are levelled.
While I welcome and respect all viewpoints,
1) I do not necessarily agree with all viewpoints,
2) I do not place equal weight on all viewpoints,
3) I believe that ultimately it is up to US taxpayers to determine how US tax money is to be spent.
When government is called upon to act as an arbiter in matters of law between other parties, it may be seen as impartial. However when government itself is providing the decision-making regarding services such as health-care and housing, it is no longer seen as impartial, but as insular, defensive of its decisions, and even in some cases retaliatory in its decisions. There is an old saying: "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."
One definition of FREE refers to things being without cost at point of service.
One definition of FREE refers to people being self-determining, unhindered by law or regulation; having personal liberty.
There may be an ironic balance in that getting more "free" stuff often comes with a tradeoff of being less "free" as an increasing number of life-decisions may be made for a person by an outside entity.
In the case at hand, taxpayers are compelled to provide pre-determined amounts of money to the government, which the government then rations out and redistributes through a variety of programs with various requirements including the providing of private and personal information for the government databases.
There is a fine balance, beyond which a tipping point exists: if given a choice, which form of "free" do taxpaying US citizens prefer?
