Many of them are just old and have cognitive dissonance about their own experience as a child. They simply believe that children today have the identical, fantasized experience they think they remember. Not only is what they remember untrue and most likely a collage of half-memories, stories from other people, and propaganda, but they have no incentive to scrutinize their decisions and beliefs because they’ve been in a comfortable insular community for most of their life that rewards them for thinking this way.
I say old but you don’t have to be that old to be brainwashed by a religious community and a comfortable job.
If you’re talking about the voters, sure.
The people writing the laws are doing it purely for profit. They get paid by businesses, the businesses get the cheapest labor possible.
It’s a dangerous thing. Because if you talk to some of these legislators they can easily hand over the same excuse about it being their belief as the voters who believe in that. But the scary thing is, as hard as it is to admit, many of them genuinely believe in the thing they vote for.
Maybe in places like the house or congress it’s a skew towards money and power, but it exists especially in local government. It’s easy to completely dehumanize them by saying they’re just paid to do it but the much more real situation is that it’s genuine.