Abolish/amend 13th amendment?

@chai2,

Yes, it is certainly a straw man to state or imply that I believe slavery no longer exists. It exists in the United States when Chinese laborers are smuggled in and then live in conditions of slavery to pay off exorbitant sums for the laborers to have been smuggled in. I'm sure there are other circumstances of which I am not aware. That doesn't abrogate my conviction, based thousands of years of evidence, that slavery should never be allowed.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

Oh sure, no problem, I'll enslave you! That's what you started this thread to volunteer for, right?

It's really irritating when people say things like this because it makes the discussion so superficial and emotionally-reactive.

Take a moment to think about a poor person who wants out of ghetto drama or other insanity of poverty. They might think, "all I want is a place to live and healthy food and basic necessities. All I want is to save up enough money that I can worry a little bit less as I get older."

What if there were places you could go sign a contract to work for a certain number of years and you wouldn't get paid and you'd be required to do whatever work was assigned to you, but peace and prosperity were guaranteed and you received a certain sum of money when you were set free?

How many people would want that in the present day? How many people support socialist politicians precisely because they expect life to be like that once they are in power? How many people went voluntarily to work camps during the WWII era believing that they would have a better life than the one they were having as a result of the Great Depression(s) in North America and Europe? I've always wondered why the words, "arbeid macht frei," were on the front gate of Auschwitz. Was it just cruel nazi sarcasm or at some point did someone actually believe that the poor would just go to work in the camps for a few years until the economy recovered and then they would go free?

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My Dog . . . what delusional idiocy.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

My Dog . . . what delusional idiocy.

If you can't contribute anything interesting to this thread, please just ignore it. There might be others who are willing to actually think about the topic and discuss it sanely without spitting-angry bias.

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@livinglava,

So are you trying to take away Set's First Amendment rights?

From what I can see, no one is having an issue with his points, however, yours are absolutely lame, and are just being used to take up space in hopes of an argument.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

It's really irritating when people say things like this because it makes the discussion so superficial and emotionally-reactive.

There is an unstated premise in your complaint: That the discussion was deep, dispassionate and rational to begin with. [

livinglava wrote:

What if there were places you could go sign a contract to work for a certain number of years and you wouldn't get paid and you'd be required to do whatever work was assigned to you, but peace and prosperity were guaranteed and you received a certain sum of money when you were set free?

That was not the kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment abolished. That kind of slavery was hereditary, and the slaves wouldn't have been able to enforce any contracts and guarantees against their slavers. The courts simply would simply not let them file a case.

But even without that problem, every alleged benefit you describe could be accomplished without slavery, through WPA-type jobs programs by the government. And it actually has been accomplished by the actual WPA, the CCC, and other New-Deal progams. There is thus no advantage to abolishing the 13th Amendment in the real world.

livinglava wrote:

How many people would want that in the present day?

Well, certainly not me!

livinglava wrote:

How many people support socialist politicians precisely because they expect life to be like that once they are in power? How many people went voluntarily to work camps during the WWII era believing that they would have a better life than the one they were having as a result of the Great Depression(s) in North America and Europe?

Lots of rhetorical questions, no conclusive reasoning that acutally shows that slavery would improve the working people's lot in the real world.

livinglava wrote:

I've always wondered why the words, "arbeid macht frei," were on the front gate of Auschwitz. Was it just cruel nazi sarcasm or at some point did someone actually believe that the poor would just go to work in the camps for a few years until the economy recovered and then they would go free?

That one is easy. Cruel sarcasm. As I said, there is no deep philosophical discussion to be had there. But if you would like to work yourself to death in a concentration camp, by all means go to North Korea and do it. Both North Korea and the United States might be better off if you did.

1 Reply

It is also worth noting that people weren't sent to concentration camps because they were poor. They were sent there because they were Jews, or Roma, or Slavs or homosexuals. They were sent there to die.

Man, talk about invincible ignorance.

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@chai2,

chai2 wrote:

So are you trying to take away Set's First Amendment rights?

No, I'm just asking people to exercise the liberty to engage in constructive free speech or else voluntarily allow it to happen. Obstructing constructive discourse is a bizarre and ironic abuse of free speech rights.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

There is an unstated premise in your complaint: That the discussion was deep, dispassionate and rational to begin with.

It really was. Years ago, slavery and racism offended me so much I could barely if at all discuss them dispassionately. I was simply emotionally/viscerally moved more so than I was interested in having dispassionate/reason-based discussion. Now, I have calmed down and I think it is more fruitful to have constructive discussion by leaving emotions and passion at the door when discussing these things.

Nothing about remaining emotionally dispassionate requires you to take unethical stances. You can calmly discuss potential benefits of slavery without suddenly becoming brainwashed into supporting it. It's just a question of reviewing information and contemplating what is bad and good for everyone involved, including potential slaves, with respect to different methods of organizing and controlling labor and other economic resources.

Quote:

That was not the kind of slavery that the 13th Amendment abolished. That kind of slavery was hereditary, and the slaves wouldn't have been able to enforce any contracts and guarantees against their slavers. The courts simply would simply not let them file a case.

Who is arguing about ante-bellum slavery here? You are implying that I am somehow defending or making subtle claims about ante-bellum slavery with this discussion. I don't think Kanye West was validating ante-bellum slavery by bringing up abolishing/amending the 13th amendment. He was simply suggesting that we should think critically and discuss the issue. Maybe his ultimate point was to renew public interest in reforming labor/economic practices at a global level. The point is that it's an interesting topic worth discussing on various levels.

Quote:

But even without that problem, every alleged benefit you describe could be accomplished without slavery, through WPA-type jobs programs by the government. And it actually has been accomplished by the actual WPA, the CCC, and other New-Deal progams. There is thus no advantage to abolishing the 13th Amendment in the real world.

No, because there are various obstacles that make it difficult (expensive) to employ people, even if the goal is to employ them for their own benefit. Minimum wage and other fees/taxes for hiring, for example, mean that poor people can't simply employ each other in a productive enterprise. They can cooperate voluntarily and probably get away with it in some ways, but if they wanted to start producing a product together and selling it, they would probably get shut down for any number of reasons.

Quote:

Well, certainly not me!

Are you poor and limited in your options for employment? Have you ever thought about organizing some productive economic activity where you can't afford the labor costs and other costs involved?

Quote:

Lots of rhetorical questions, no conclusive reasoning that acutally shows that slavery would improve the working people's lot in the real world.

The simple reasoning is that poor people might have ideas for employing each other productively, which would be a more productive use of their time than the opportunities that are otherwise available to them. Another is that there might be potential employers who could and would put people to work doing something productive if the financial risk was lessened, and time-limited unpaid contracts might be a way to facilitate that.

Quote:

That one is easy. Cruel sarcasm.

That sounds plausible, but there was also propaganda promoting the camps as good places to live, maybe just to pacify people who might otherwise be questioning what was happening to people after they left the local communities where they were living. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas was a very interesting fictional story that dealt with that issue; i.e. where a young boy gets so convinced that the camps are nice that he begs a Jewish boy to take him inside and ends up getting killed. It's a chilling story but an interesting take on a side of the holocaust that I haven't heard much else about in mainstream popular culture.

Quote:

As I said, there is no deep philosophical discussion to be had there. But if you would like to work yourself to death in a concentration camp, by all means go to North Korea and do it. Both North Korea and the United States might be better off if you did.

Thanks, but I didn't need (or deserve) a spit shower for anything I've said. I don't know what's wrong with people who say things like this. Have you lost your mind and forgotten the purpose of free speech and civil discourse?

Once again to be clear, I am in no way trying to brainwash people into re-instituting slavery. I am just trying to promote fresh critical discussion about labor practices and economics.

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I think the 13th should be amended to mandate that the powerless among us be lobotomized so that they accept lives of subservience and dumb labor in exchange for three and a cot.

1 Reply

@edgarblythe,

edgarblythe wrote:

I think the 13th should be amended to mandate that the powerless among us be lobotomized so that they accept lives of subservience and dumb labor in exchange for three and a cot.

So you're a proponent of legal marijuana?

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@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

Thomas wrote:

Oh sure, no problem, I'll enslave you! That's what you started this thread to volunteer for, right?

It's really irritating when people say things like this because it makes the discussion so superficial and emotionally-reactive.

...

How many people would want that in the present day? How many people support socialist politicians precisely because they expect life to be like that once they are in power? How many people went voluntarily to work camps during the WWII era believing that they would have a better life than the one they were having as a result of the Great Depression(s) in North America and Europe? I've always wondered why the words, "arbeid macht frei," were on the front gate of Auschwitz. Was it just cruel nazi sarcasm or at some point did someone actually believe that the poor would just go to work in the camps for a few years until the economy recovered and then they would go free?

Except if you are advocating something you personally would not do, then that's a hypocritical position to take.

And no one -- no one, ever -- voluntarily went to the nazi camps to work. They were sent there in cattle cars, rounded up at gunpoint. And if they survived the trip, they were put into selection. And if they passed selection, they were forced to work -- no pay, nearly no food, nearly no clothes, virtually no medical care (being "experimented on" by Dr. Mengele wasn't medical care; it was sadism in a lab coat), no rights, and no way to leave. Lots of those folks were forced into being the smiling, pleasant face of the camp when other people arrived, and were forced to get that next batch into the selection process. There are people who were forced to deal with the bodies in the gas chambers, and fill and stoke the ovens.

If you got sick, no matter how good a worker you were, you ended up in the gas chamber. Got injured? Same thing. Mouthed off too much? The same, or you were hanged. Tried to escape? Same thing, or you were hanged.

At the end of the war, when the allies were closing in, the nazis stepped up the executions. They wanted the camps empty of Jews, Roma, homosexuals, people with Down's syndrome, Communists, dissidents, and anyone else unfortunate enough to be held in the camps.

This wasn't work for the sake of anything other than a machine to kill more and more and more people.

Arbeit Macht Frei was a cruel nazi joke. It had no other meaning except to delude and demoralize people.

If you think anything else, then start reading. Start with Anne Frank's diary and Elie Wiesel's Night. Watch Schindler's List, or Shoah.

Get some education before you spout off any more exceptionally offensive and ignorant nonsense such as this, please.

Yes, I am taking it personally. And so should anyone and everyone else. It's naiveté at best to think this. And at worst, it's Holocaust denial. So where are you on the spectrum?

As for your pronouncements about the oh so awesome institution of slavery? My point about the wrongness of it being directly related to people owning other people? That still stands.

And asking you if you would volunteer is exactly on point.

Because guess what? If you wouldn't do it, but you would gladly push others into it, then it shows a lack of empathy that is disturbing. Young children often have very little empathy, and some of them need to be taught it. But once they have it, then everyone keeps having empathy unless they have a mental illness.

So if you're over the age of six and you have no empathy, then I suggest you see a doctor.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-resilience/201004/are-you-suffering-empathy-deficit-disorder
https://www.healthline.com/health/bipolar-disorder/lack-of-empathy#4
http://albertellis.org/personality-disorders/

1 Reply

@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

Thomas wrote:

There is an unstated premise in your complaint: That the discussion was deep, dispassionate and rational to begin with.

....

Who is arguing about ante-bellum slavery here? You are implying that I am somehow defending or making subtle claims about ante-bellum slavery with this discussion. I don't think Kanye West was validating ante-bellum slavery by bringing up abolishing/amending the 13th amendment. He was simply suggesting that we should think critically and discuss the issue. Maybe his ultimate point was to renew public interest in reforming labor/economic practices at a global level. ....

Ha ha ha man that's rich. Kanye, I am sure, can't even spell antebellum (there's no hyphen. See: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/antebellum) and has no idea what critical thinking is. He admits he doesn't read. He just spouts off nonsense to get people talking and sell more ****.

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@livinglava,

Slavery is actually legal in the US. Not in all forms but the 13th amendment actually explicitly states that it is legal as punishment for a crime. It has been claimed that this accounts for the fact that blacks are incarcerated at a far greater rate than whites, and often for minor crimes. There has also been a shift toward privately run prisons. So if you own a Southern cotton plantation and want to staff it with slaves, all you need to do is get a permit to call it a private prison, and not only do you get the slave labor, you also get taxpayer dollars for performing the "valuable service" of keeping these slaves.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/private-prisons-inmates-working.jpg

I'd also point out that child slavery is legal in the USA as well in some forms. One can for instance have 11 kids, and require them to work on your farm without pay. Amish farms for instance avoid the use of machines, and much of the heavy work is done by children who don't have a choice in the matter. And Federal laws explicitly exempt farms from child labor laws.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2013/08/30/children-as-young-as-10-can-do-farm-work-in-some-states

1 Reply

@jespah,

jespah wrote:

Except if you are advocating something you personally would not do, then that's a hypocritical position to take.

We all do various forms of work voluntarily for no pay. In some ways we also do involuntary labor for no pay, such as paying taxes, doing jury duty, etc. Well, jury duty does actually pay a little but it doesn't add up to minimum wage. Anyway, the point is that it's possible to have a drama-free discussion of these things.

Quote:

Arbeit Macht Frei was a cruel nazi joke. It had no other meaning except to delude and demoralize people.

If you think anything else, then start reading. Start with Anne Frank's diary and Elie Wiesel's Night. Watch Schindler's List, or Shoah.

First of all, Anne Frank's diary doesn't continue beyond the time they were in hiding, does it?

Second of all, I am not making any claims about what actual concentration camps were like. I wasn't there so I have only secondary accounts to base my opinion on. The example I gave of the Boy in the Striped Pajamas only addresses the ideas that some people might have had based on propaganda that was spread about the camps being actual work communes or something to that effect. I never said that the actual camps were like that. I don't know why you keep attacking me instead of just having a neutral discussion. I don't deserve to be attacked like a nazi sympathizer for anything I've said or thought. Do you understand that?

Quote:

Get some education before you spout off any more exceptionally offensive and ignorant nonsense such as this, please.

Stop attacking me. People have the right to discuss things they've heard or read about without being told they haven't read enough to discuss the subject. Free speech and discussion doesn't have a threshold for participation. The only requirement is to behave civilly toward one another, and you are pushing the limit on that with things you are saying to me in this discussion.

Quote:

Yes, I am taking it personally. And so should anyone and everyone else. It's naiveté at best to think this. And at worst, it's Holocaust denial. So where are you on the spectrum?

How could I be denying the holocaust when I have been talking about the holocaust with you? It is so irritating to talk to people who just want to go off on power trips accusing others of things that draw ridicule and hatred.

Quote:

As for your pronouncements about the oh so awesome institution of slavery? My point about the wrongness of it being directly related to people owning other people? That still stands.

Look, ownership is just another word for control. People are controlled in various ways, including capitalist/corporatist economics. Feudalism was replaced by capitalism and the transition is worshiped as a transition from pre-modern to modern, but there have been many critiques of modernism that make many valid points about fascism/supremacy/etc. done in the name of modernism. You need to be able to have a civil critical discussion about the relationship between labor, management, and resources with regard to various economic models, such as capitalism, communism, socialism, and feudalism to be able to have discussions like this one. If you go off on one you feel is a personal crusade to demonize anyone who dares to think outside of the box you expect them to think inside of, you might not be listening to what they're actually saying.

Let me be clear about something else I said earlier in the discussion: I made the point that racism was a huge problem with ante-bellum slavery in the contemporary colonial period. No one gets offended when discussion slavery in the Roman empire or Egyptian slavery of the Hebrews, for example, because white-black racism is not associated with those older forms of slavery.

Also, if you don't remember I said that I am a strong proponent of people organizing their economic participation independently by taking responsibility for how they use their liberty in a free society. That said, I also acknowledged that everyone isn't satisfied and/or happy economically as a result of how liberty is being managed, so this is just a way of thinking critically about liberty and slavery in historical perspective and how the US and global history of forced African migration and enslavement might cause any discussion of the potential for non-racist forms of slavery to be biased.

Quote:

Because guess what? If you wouldn't do it, but you would gladly push others into it, then it shows a lack of empathy that is disturbing. Young children often have very little empathy, and some of them need to be taught it. But once they have it, then everyone keeps having empathy unless they have a mental illness.

I never said that I would gladly push others into slavery. I also never said I was totally adverse to participating in unpaid labor myself for the sake of achieving some higher economic goals. I also never said that slavery must be unconditional or permanent, or that 'slaves' couldn't receive money upon completion of their indentured contracts. What I did say was that in a modern context it would be pretty likely that slave colonies would be abused for monetary gain even if their explicit purpose was for the benefit of the people contracting away their freedom for a limited period of time. You can see evidence of this in the way that various forms of debt are managed and traded by paper traders.

Quote:

So if you're over the age of six and you have no empathy, then I suggest you see a doctor.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-new-resilience/201004/are-you-suffering-empathy-deficit-disorder
https://www.healthline.com/health/bipolar-disorder/lack-of-empathy#4
http://albertellis.org/personality-disorders/

Don't post things like this. It's just condescending and arrogant. How dare you presume to assess someone else's mental health because you dislike their POV or politics? Have you ever heard of civil democracy and free speech?

1 Reply

@Banana Breath,

Banana Breath wrote:

Slavery is actually legal in the US. Not in all forms but the 13th amendment actually explicitly states that it is legal as punishment for a crime. It has been claimed that this accounts for the fact that blacks are incarcerated at a far greater rate than whites, and often for minor crimes.

Yes, I am familiar with that but what reason would modern slavers have for favoring blacks as slaves if they could arrest anyone and enslave them by doing so? Wouldn't they just arrest and imprison whomever they could most cheaply/easily without caring about the race/ethnicity of the people being enslaved?

Quote:

There has also been a shift toward privately run prisons. So if you own a Southern cotton plantation and want to staff it with slaves, all you need to do is get a permit to call it a private prison, and not only do you get the slave labor, you also get taxpayer dollars for performing the "valuable service" of keeping these slaves.

You don't have to privatize prisons to make money on them any more than you have to privatize schools to make money off them. Various contractors and professionals make their careers serving these non-emancipated populations, i.e. convicted criminals and school-age children. Some of it actually benefits the populations 'served.'

Quote:

I'd also point out that child slavery is legal in the USA as well in some forms. One can for instance have 11 kids, and require them to work on your farm without pay. Amish farms for instance avoid the use of machines, and much of the heavy work is done by children who don't have a choice in the matter. And Federal laws explicitly exempt farms from child labor laws.
https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2013/08/30/children-as-young-as-10-can-do-farm-work-in-some-states

And students in schools everywhere are given mandatory job-market preparation training, required to meet educational standards, study certain core subjects, etc. Who says that students shouldn't be liberated from learning math, science, and reading/writing? . . . well I do, but since everyone seems to think this thread proves I'm a slaving apologist, I guess my opinion that education should be mandatory is regarded as feudal despotism.

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@livinglava,

Boy oh boy it does hurt to be offended now, eh?

1) The stuff we do involuntarily? E. g. pay taxes, etc.? That's not personal ownership. You do realize the difference between sending a % of your income to Uncle Sam and being forced to stay where you don't want to -- forever, have your children forcibly taken from you, etc.?

2) No, Anne's diary doesn't go beyond when they were in hiding. Why do you think they were in hiding? They knew the nazis were not going to throw them an ice cream social.

3) The Boy in the Striped Pajamas? Seriously? Is that your sole understanding of the Holocaust? Then again, I suggest you take some time and get some more information. Isn't more information a good thing?

Shoah is a documentary. It's a very different animal.

But if you don't want to commit to that, consider my own family. My grandparents knew damned well that the nazis were out to kill us. In 1942.

4) Uh no - you're denying the Holocaust wasn't so bad or at least people didn't think it was. It was. There's a reason why people see nazis and the Holocaust as a standard of evil.

5) And once again, ownership is not equal to control. If you can't tell the difference between the act of buying and selling human beings and someone telling me I can't leave the company grounds during my coffee break, then I just plain don't know what to say to you.

Are we controlled by our employers? Well, sure we are. They want us making widgets on their time, not watching Netflix. We are also compensated for what we do. That's how the system works.

Working for nothing when you don't want to isn't anything like that.

And as for volunteering to work for nothing, that's also not slavery. Someone coming down to the soup kitchen to hand out snacks because they want to is not the same as someone being owned.

6) Now you're just moving the goal posts. Claiming that slaves will be paid at the end isn't slavery. It's a contract where people are paid at the end instead of at the beginning.

Please get your terms straight.

7) I am well aware of free speech, etc. Talk all you want to. But if you want to be taken seriously, then maybe stop spouting off this kind of junk.

In point #6, above - if your position is for people to be paid at the end, then that's not slavery.

Anyway, I'm done.

If you want to keep talking, hey, have at it.

But don't expect people to agree with you, pat you on the back, and tell you how awesome your ideas are.

And yes, I stand by the position that this shows a total lack of empathy -- if we continue with the correct definition of slavery, which is the ownership of other people and their loss of personal autonomy.

If you cannot empathize with people, then I feel sorry for you.

And of course I am no doctor. But again, I would advocate that a lack of empathy is a troubling thing.

But hey, you're the one who didn't want to get personal.

1 Reply

@livinglava,

Quote:

What if there were places you could go sign a contract to work for a certain number of years and you wouldn't get paid and you'd be required to do whatever work was assigned to you, but peace and prosperity were guaranteed and you received a certain sum of money when you were set free?

1. What if the person changed their mind only a few days into their contract and says they quit and walk away?

2. Will physical harm come to that person for not fulfilling their end of the contract?

1 Reply

This member reminds me of Hawkeye, whining about free speech while he continually spouted off in post after post, thread after thread. Once again, this member seems to think that discussion only means agreeing with his premises, all others need not apply.

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@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

Now, I have calmed down and I think it is more fruitful to have constructive discussion by leaving emotions and passion at the door when discussing these things.

Dude, you're far from leaving your emotions at the door. While you're happy to suggest slavery for other people, the slightest threat to your own status wounds you so much that you start whining like a crybaby when receiving pushback on a public forum.

livinglava wrote:

Who is arguing about ante-bellum slavery here?

You are, whether you're aware of it or not. Antebellum slavery is what the 13th Amendment was enacted to abolish. Accordingly, antebellum slavery is what America would re-legalize if it abolished the 13th Amendment, as per your suggestion. If that's not what you want, I suggest you stop trying to read Kanye West's mind, stop hiding behind him altogether, and start getting specific about the change in the constitution that you're actually advocating. Can you offer me a draft amendment, perhaps?

livinglava wrote:

Are you poor and limited in your options for employment?

Oh, you only want other people to get enslaved, not people like you and me? I wish you had mentionrd this earlier, it makes all the difference in the world --- NOT!

livinglava wrote:

Have you ever thought about organizing some productive economic activity where you can't afford the labor costs and other costs involved?

I have done more than yhink about it. In a previous post, I have pointed out a solution to the problem that has worked in the past. See "WPA" and "CCC", above.

livinglava wrote:

No, because there are various obstacles that make it difficult (expensive) to employ people, even if the goal is to employ them for their own benefit.

Please name the specific obstacles that would make a revival of the New Deal less workable for America's lower classes than a revival of slavery.

livinglava wrote:

Have you lost your mind and forgotten the purpose of free speech and civil discourse?

No, I haven't. Their purpose is to make sure that good ideas flourish, and bad ideas go out of business, on the marketplace of ideas. And that's exactly what is happening here in this thread.

1 Reply

Abolish/amend 13th amendment?

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