I find that kind of rude. I understand the need for a business to make a buck, and children's fares are discounted from adult fares, but still! Boo on Amtrak!
"Please correct the error(s) shown"? How would they like me to do that -- "selective reduction"? It's not like I'm trying to take the entire fifth grade to Concord.
It kind of illustrates a problem that our entire society has with "too many children". Five children isn't large. The Duggar Family, now that's large. Five kids just fills a minivan; I don't need special transportation to get them to and from places.
How can there be too many children? That is like saying there are too many flowers. --Mother TeresaIt used to be that people respected the family; a man with many children had his "quiver full". Justice demands that a man be paid a living wage.
It may not be fashionable to have large families, but let me just quote Paul's Law: If you want your values to survive into the future, there is no substitute for fertility.[Wikipedia] The living wage is a concept central to the Catholic social teaching tradition beginning with the foundational document, Rerum Novarum, a papal encyclical by Pope Leo XIII, issued in 1891 to combat the excesses of both laissez-faire capitalism on the one hand and communism on the other. In this letter, Pope Leo affirms the right to private property while insisting on the role of the state to require a living wage. The means of production were considered by the pope to be both private property requiring state protection and a dimension of the common good requiring state regulation.
Pope Leo first described a living wage in such terms as could be generalized for application in nations throughout the world. Rerum Novarum touched off legislative reform movements throughout the world eliminating child labor, reducing the work week, and establishing minimum wages.
- "If a worker receives a wage sufficiently large to enable him to provide comfortably for himself, his wife and his children, he will, if prudent, gladly strive to practice thrift; and the result will be, as nature itself seems to counsel, that after expenditures are deducted there will remain something over and above through which he can come into the possession of a little wealth. We have seen, in fact, that the whole question under consideration cannot be settled effectually unless it is assumed and established as a principle, that the right of private property must be regarded as sacred. Wherefore, the law ought to favor this right and, so far as it can, see that the largest possible number among the masses of the population prefer to own property." (#65)
2 comments:
I love the Mother Theresa quote...yet I can't decide if you're turning Amtrak into a straw man or making a mountain out of a mole hill. Yes, "Too many children" sounds ridiculous-it's awful, awful writing...how can there be too many children? I get it. Yet no where in your post do you acknowledge the liability Amtrak must assume to transport children. We're talking about travel without seat belts or harnesses; with frequent starts and stops; moving at variable speeds; plus the assumption that the children will be moving about the cars during the 8 hr duration of the trip. It all combines to create a risk of potential injury. In terms of risk assessment (and I know you are risk adverse) can you really hold it against Amtrak for limiting the number of ambulatory children traveling per adult?
Straw man or molehill, my point is to talk about societal attitudes towards big families in general and children in specific.
I do, in fact, acknowledge Amtrak's point of view, which is not so much about liability as it is about cost. Children's fare's are discounted. The error message says to change one of the children's fares to an adult fare to achieve an "acceptable adult/child ratio".
Whenever a business offers a discount, there is always some outlier that will try to take advantage (legitimately or illegitimately). They are trying to contain their cost.
I was taking umbrage at their horrible programming and error message choices. A little overblown? Perhaps, but it does get my point across about attidudes about big families. I didn't title the post "Amtrak Prejudiced Against Big Families" at least. ;-)
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