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Comment by simplexion | Hacker News Reader

Every time there is a discussion about people without children versus people with, a bunch of childless people will make the statement about having to pay taxes for these kids. It is like they have read that statement elsewhere and then repeats it without actually thinking about it at all. I don't bother responding anymore.

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I agree with you and the person you're responding to, but I also understand where the anti-child-tax people are coming from. I think they come from a good place, which is "I shouldn't pay for optional activities of others" and probably some amount of "why pay for THOSE people's kids who are just a drain on society's resources (and mine personally!)".

But if "those people" (trailer park folk, the uneducated, or whoever else somebody dislikes) are going to have kids, wouldn't we all prefer that they at least get a minimum education, basic nutrition etc. so that we don't push them into being an un-educated, malnourished mob that resents the rest of society?

Public education, welfare, etc. might be broken, but that's a whole other argument.

A lot of these populations of undereducated are in areas that culturally oppose outside influences. See: cults, extremely rural Appalachia, pockets of immigrant groups opposing assimilation violently in European urban areas. Education = indoctrination to them and a loss of their cultural values. How do you teach people that may need it most when they don't want it?

This is not the case by and large but it puts a ceiling on the efforts to educate away problems with the Idiocracy trends of the world.

It's not about being right or wrong, it's about making up grievances to make themselves feel not-guilty about their life choices. Intellectual honesty had nothing to do with it

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