Abolish/amend 13th amendment?

@jespah,

jespah wrote:

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.?

Yes, of course. Do you understand that slavery doesn't cease to be slavery if you give the slaves free time when they're not working, or because you allow them to keep their families with them, or because you give them choice in where to live?

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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.

You implied it was a source of information about the camps.

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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?

I never said it was my 'sole understanding' of anything. I said it slightly addressed the topic of propaganda about the camps being attractive communities to work and live. It is a work of historical fiction, as far as I know. But my only point bringing it up is that it is possible for people to imagine and hope for such a thing as a benevolent labor commune to escape the debt slavery of capitalism. Why do you think there are communists and hippies in the world? They hope for a life beyond capitalism. Isn't it within their political rights to think and speak about such ideas?

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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.

When did I even imply that? You are taking things I said out of context and twisting the meaning in your own interpolation. If you think I mean something by something I say, please ask me how I meant it before assuming I am denying the holocaust and propagating nazi beliefs or something sinister like that.

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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.

I didn't say ownership and control were simplistically equivalent concepts. I said that ownership is a form of control and that there are other forms of control that don't involve explicitly designating one human as another's property.

Ownership is a designation. Without the power to recognize and enforce property rights, it is meaningless. I can claim anything is my property but that doesn't make it so. Only if others concur and defer to my authority over the thing claimed as my property do I gain control over it. In fact, you can try claiming wild animals as your property all day long but until you can control them, they won't submit to your 'ownership.'

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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.

Technically, we own ourselves. We are our own owners/masters. We rent ourselves out as employees and there are contracts and regulations governing the business relationship.

There are people who are not emancipated, such as children and prisoners. Technically, slaves would have the same status. The 13th amendment prohibits people from revoking their emancipation, except as punishment for crime - so their are people who sell themselves into slavery by committing crime; the same way some people commit suicide by cop, as the expression goes. It would be better if people chose life and liberty, but sadly some people cannot find the means to pursue happiness to their satisfaction so they seek to sell their liberty in various ways. It happens despite the 13th amendment in various ways, though it is technically illegal - just as people commit suicide despite that being illegal.

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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.

Who says it's not slavery if the slave receives money at the end of their contracted indenturement? Who says it's not slavery if they have the option to buy their own freedom?

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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.

Why don't you stop being arrogant and assumptive?

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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.

As I said, 'ownership' is a designation, a status. Personal autonomy is relative. Some employees have no autonomy and they're not considered slaves.

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

I wouldn't be having this discussion if I didn't empathize with people. There are two reasons to raise discussion of slavery:
1) you want to exploit people economically by enslaving them.
2) you want to raise consciousness of exploitation in economic relationships in order to implore people to innovate more ethics into their economic behaviors.

The only sense in which I would benefit from slavery is that prices would be less inflated if not subsidized by fiscal stimulus GDP growth. That would benefit everyone who saves money, though, including people who accepted a limited period of indenturement for the sake of getting out of debt and/or receiving a sum of money upon completion of the contracted term.

Creating a minimum wage and then fiscally stimulating jobs causes inflation and thus taxes the poor into working forever instead of saving up and working less when they can afford to. In short, social capitalism forces people into working more than they would need to if inflation was kept in check and/or deflation of prices allowed to occur.

Do you think it's good to enslave everyone to inflation in order to prevent people who overspend from running out of money?

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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.

You are the one who has passive aggression issues here. Plus you are so arrogant as to assume I lack empathy. Obviously you're the one who lack empathy or you wouldn't accuse others of it, because you would recognize that it is hurtful to do so.

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@Real Music,

Real Music wrote:

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

That's a great question and I'm glad you raise it. It is the really contentious moment when you have signed a contract with no collateral but yourself. At that point, how can the lender/investor collect on the collateral except to force you to continue working? That's where it becomes slavery. I.e. you're not free to default on your contract, except maybe by accepting terms of contract breach, filing bankruptcy, etc. At that point, it is up to the courts to order you to reconcile with your creditor(s).

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

Does physical harm come to people who file bankruptcy? What about people who take out personal loans from, say, organized crime? Is organized crime and gangs enslaving people by enforcing control over labor and business deals with physical violence? If so, should gangs, organized criminals, drug dealers, etc. be charged with slavery?

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

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.

I don't mind contemplating slavery as an option for myself. I would have to consider the benefits and drawbacks the same as with any other contract. Now, would I consider submitting to involuntary slavery based on my race/gender/ethnicity/nationality/etc.? No, of course not but that's also not something that I'm even considering as a reasonable form of slavery here. That would be pure discrimination, as it was in the case of ante-bellum slavery.

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You are, whether you're aware of it or not. Antebellum slavery is what the 13th Amendment was enacted to abolish.

The 13th amendment doesn't specify anything about what kind of slavery it abolishes, as far as I'm aware. It says that it is banned except as punishment for crime.

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Accordingly, antebellung slavery is what America would re-legalize if itabolished the 13th Amendment, as per your suggestion.

Not necessarily. It could be amended to include provisions about non-discrimination where people couldn't be enslaved except under certain circumstances and by fulfilling certain criteria. In other words, the 'except as punishment for crime' clause could be expanded to include 'except as part of debt forgiveness/relief' or 'except by contractual consent' or 'except for the benefit of the enslaved persons and not for the sake of economic exploitation for profit.'

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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?

I'm not a lawyer or politician . . . or mind-reader. I am just trying to discuss the issue without hostility and belligerence.

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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!

Look, I keep saying that my ideal is an economy where people use their liberty to take economic responsibility and cooperate voluntarily. The issue is what to do when that's not working and people and the environment are getting shorted because of economic exploitation, greed, waste, etc.

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Not only have I thought 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.

Those were federal programs. Unless poor people can gain access to federal governmental power, they aren't going to be able to create programs like that.

In order to get programs like that today, you have to vote for the party that stimulates the stock market to enrich everyone and their mother globally to levels that are destroying the planet. It would be good to circumvent that party.

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Please name the specific obstacles that would make a revival of the New Deal less beneficial for workers than a revival of slavery.

Did you see what happened to health care costs after ACA was implemented? Do you see what happens to housing costs where housing subsidies are available? Do you know that Clinton's plan for the national parks and forests including putting windmills and solar arrays, which would have required connecting them to the grid without doing anything to mandate conservation? Do you realize that everything the social democrats do is geared more toward stimulating the economic activity that is destroying the planet and causing economic waste and exploitation in the first place than it is toward toning down the economy and thus solving the problems?

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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.

No, the purpose is to openly express your opinion and ideas, including your opinion which should flourish and/or 'go out of business;' not to 'make sure' they do.

You have the right to not pay for what you can't ethically/morally support, but if you want to stop bad ideas from coming to fruition, you have to make laws against them, not (cyber)bully people until they submit to your will.

Don't take this an an invitation to debate Ayn Rand or her ideas generally, but this is a pretty good quote about civilized discourse:

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The precondition of a civilized society is the barring of physical force from social relationships—thus establishing the principle that if men wish to deal with one another, they may do so only by means of reason: by discussion, persuasion and voluntary, uncoerced agreement.
http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/civilization.html

In other words, you should try to persuade people using reason, not coerce them into agreement or abandoning ideas by other means than reasoning with them. I'm not libertarian, so I do think there is a place for legitimate use of authority and coercion/force where warranted, but it's not in civil discourse, except maybe when people are abusing free speech as a means to obstruct and obfuscate good, reason-based discussion.

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@livinglava,

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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. Why would anyone choose to work for a few years and have to wait until the end of a specified number of years to get a one lump sum pay check?

2. Wouldn't it be better if that person were to get fully paid for their labor weekly?

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How many people would want that in the present day?

I can see why a company or corporation might like this deal, because of greed. But, I cannot see under any circumstance of why an employee or worker would ever consider such a horrible deal.

Only a gullible sucker would accept such a deal. I don't know anyone who would choose to wait a couple of years to get full payment for their labor. I would want all of my money now every week, so that I can invest my money and earn interest. Not waiting for a few years, while in the mean time the company is the one earning interest on my money.

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@Setanta,

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Kanye West is a moron.

AGREED

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@Real Music,

Real Music wrote:

1. Why would anyone choose to work for a few years and have to wait until the end of a specified number of years to get a one lump sum pay check?

Because it would guarantee that they would build their savings and/or pay off their debts in the course of their contract, because things like rent, food, and clothing would all be included free of charge. They would not have disposable income, or if they did, it would be limited and they couldn't blow it, lend it out, give it away, etc.

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2. Wouldn't it be better if that person were to get fully paid for their labor weekly?

No, because that makes them vulnerable to losing/blowing/mismanaging it in all sorts of ways, which is why people aren't able to make ends meet with low wages. Rents go up, vehicles and appliances break and need maintenance and repairs, family members and 'friends' 'borrow,' beg, and steal money, etc. etc.

If you live within walking distance of work, food and board are included free of charge and all you have to do is show up at work and get the work done, it could be easier to avoid mismanaging your finances and otherwise being exploited for your money.

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How many people would want that in the present day?

I can see why a company or corporation might like this deal, because of greed. But, I cannot see under any circumstance of why an employee or worker would ever consider such a horrible deal.[/quote]
Actually it's better for higher earners and investors to have the poor blowing their money so that it goes back into GDP growth that disproportionately benefits people with higher wages and more investment income.

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Only a gullible sucker would accept such a deal. I don't know anyone who would choose to wait a couple of years to get full payment for their labor. I would want all of my money now every week, so that I can invest my money and earn interest. Not waiting for a few years, while in the mean time the company is the one earning interest on my money.

Maybe there are some people who can manage and invest money well, but many can barely keep up with their bills and their bills are high because they overspent their income and went into debt.

So if you indenture yourself to a contract that takes over your debt and renders net savings after a few years, you would being coming out ahead of what your net worth would be if you made various credit purchases and took/spent loans that required you to make monthly payments instead of building up savings.

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People often have trouble making ends meet because prices are higher in poor neighborhoods--and I mean prices at the grocery store, at the corner store, utility rates. The corporate dodge is that insurance rates are higher, but not nearly as high as the differential in prices for groceries. Those corporate jokers know that people in the middle class neighborhoods and in the suburbs won't pay those prices--they'll just get into the car and drive to a different store. Home insurance rates are higher in poor neighborhoods, auto insurance rates are higher--I moved to a suburb from a city neighborhood which was merely near a poor neighborhood, and my auto insurance dropped by $350/year. One of the reasons that corporations are confident that they can get away with higher prices in stores and higher insurance rates is because poor people often rely on public transportation, and it just isn't worth it in travel time and bus fares to go across town or to shop for food and lower insurance rates.

Poor people aren't a bunch of irresponsible drunks, you know. You're peddling capitalist stereotypes which are used to justify a host of inequities. Do you know what red-lining means in the insurance business?

Wealthy people not only get breaks on prices which aren't available to poor people, especially in inner-city neighborhoods, they also pay much less in taxes. People who primarily make their money from investments are paying the capital gains tax--15%. Only the lowest wage earners pay less than that in income tax. Wealthy people can also deduct large amounts of their tax--especially if they employ tax accountants, whose fees are deductible. You really have no clue how the economy works, and how the deck is stacked in favor of the wealthy.

Buying a washing machine is a major expenditure for a poor family. A wealthy family can more easily afford a washing machine, it's an insignificant fraction of their annual income. If the poor man drives 30 miles a day to work, and a wealthy man drives the same distance, gasoline is a major part of the working class man's budget, while it's chump change for the wealthy man. All excise taxes, use and consumption taxes, are regressive--poor people pay the same amount as wealthy people. The poor can hardly afford it, the wealthy don't even notice the excise. Really, it's as though you don't live in the real world.

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@livinglava,

livinglava wrote:

Thomas wrote:
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?

I'm not a lawyer or politician . . . or mind-reader. I am just trying to discuss the issue without hostility and belligerence.

. . . and, it appears, without any clear statement of what the issue specifically is, what specific policies you're proposing to address it, and how these policies can't be enacted in compliance with the 13th Amendment as it currently stands. You are pretending you want a sophisticated discussion, yet you're refusing to give us anything specific to discuss. That's unlikely to work for you.

livinglava wrote:

Thomas wrote:
Not only have I thought 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.

Those were federal programs. Unless poor people can gain access to federal governmental power, they aren't going to be able to create programs like that.

And yet, they did manage to do it in 1932, and you have not stated a single reason, other than the passage of time, why they couldn't do it again.

livinglava wrote:

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Please name the specific obstacles that would make a revival of the New Deal less beneficial for workers than a revival of slavery.

Did you see what happened to health care costs after ACA was implemented? Do you see what happens to housing costs where housing subsidies are available? Do you know that Clinton's plan for the national parks and forests including putting windmills and solar arrays, which would have required connecting them to the grid without doing anything to mandate conservation?

Yes to all these rhetorical questions, none of which demonstrate that the tax increases necessary to make it work would be worse than slavery --- which was my question to you.

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Do you realize that everything the social democrats do is geared more toward stimulating the economic activity that is destroying the planet and causing economic waste and exploitation in the first place than it is toward toning down the economy and thus solving the problems?

No to the premise of your question. This is not what Social-Democratic policies are doing.

livinglava wrote:

In other words, you should try to persuade people using reason, not coerce them into agreement

I'm not coercing anyone, I did not ask for any of your posts to be pulled, I did not spam your inbox with obscene private messages, I did not reveal your real name or street address, or anything like that. I did not do the slightest thing that would come even close to coersion. All I'm doing is state my opinions,

This includes my impression that you're a bullshitter and a crank. You make a big show of caring about reason and "fresh thinking" about social problems, yet you provide a remarkable dearth of evidence and logic to show that alternative solutions to them would be worse than slavery. That's not fresh, that's pretty stale. Unless your next post give me some specific evidence to address, backed up by credible sources, I'm going to follow Jespah's lead and be out of this thread, too.

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5 Excuses for Slavery That Need to STOP |
Decoded | MTV News.

Published on Aug 17, 2016

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

People often have trouble making ends meet because prices are higher in poor neighborhoods--and I mean prices at the grocery store, at the corner store, utility rates. The corporate dodge is that insurance rates are higher, but not nearly as high as the differential in prices for groceries. Those corporate jokers know that people in the middle class neighborhoods and in the suburbs won't pay those prices--they'll just get into the car and drive to a different store.

I've also read what you are saying here, but it's not the case everywhere. Some places have discount stores and dollar stores in poorer neighborhoods and people with more income shop at higher end stores with more expensive brands, decor, higher wages for employees, benefits, etc. I'm not sure what all that has to do with the discussion, though.

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Home insurance rates are higher in poor neighborhoods, auto insurance rates are higher--I moved to a suburb from a city neighborhood which was merely near a poor neighborhood, and my auto insurance dropped by $350/year. One of the reasons that corporations are confident that they can get away with higher prices in stores and higher insurance rates is because poor people often rely on public transportation, and it just isn't worth it in travel time and bus fares to go across town or to shop for food and lower insurance rates.

Ok, but the catch-22 is that once you buy a car to drive to where prices are lower, you've committed to all the costs of driving. Automotive-dependency is the biggest tea-tax of the modern era, second only to mortgage payments, but at least you don't have to trade in your house for a new one every few years the way you do a car. You also aren't legally mandated to pay for insurance on a house the way you are for driving.

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Poor people aren't a bunch of irresponsible drunks, you know. You're peddling capitalist stereotypes which are used to justify a host of inequities. Do you know what red-lining means in the insurance business?

Yes I know what red-lining means. It is not the only method of driving up housing prices in some areas by driving people out of more affordable ones.

Saying that "poor people aren't a bunch of irresponsible drunks" does nothing but frame the issue as one of stereotyping when it was never meant that way. Poor people do live in neighborhoods and have families/friends that might mooch/borrow/steal/etc. from them, however, which is easier when they have freedom of how to allot their money.

This is an obvious issue and it's unclear why you would debate it. If your brother or neighbor is a bum who managers to get money, food, etc. from you, that is less money you have to spend. If you don't have to pay rent, food, utilities, etc. then no one can get that money from you before you pay your bills; i.e. the money-leaches can't attach if the money never passes through your hands. Do you get what I am saying here or not?

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Wealthy people not only get breaks on prices which aren't available to poor people, especially in inner-city neighborhoods, they also pay much less in taxes. People who primarily make their money from investments are paying the capital gains tax--15%. Only the lowest wage earners pay less than that in income tax. Wealthy people can also deduct large amounts of their tax--especially if they employ tax accountants, whose fees are deductible. You really have no clue how the economy works, and how the deck is stacked in favor of the wealthy.

It's irritating that you're making this into a class-ego competition between the poor and wealthy. People like you ruin discussions about economics by focusing on defending the honor of the poor and attacking the rich. The issue is how to solve problems, not how to blame classes for them. When you blame the rich as a class, you just promote tax/redistribution, which gets spent and goes back into their pockets at the expense of the poor. Slavery is a way to interrupt that capitalist exploitation that takes place by making the poor responsible for managing their own money.

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Buying a washing machine is a major expenditure for a poor family. A wealthy family can more easily afford a washing machine, it's an insignificant fraction of their annual income. If the poor man drives 30 miles a day to work, and a wealthy man drives the same distance, gasoline is a major part of the working class man's budget, while it's chump change for the wealthy man. All excise taxes, use and consumption taxes, are regressive--poor people pay the same amount as wealthy people. The poor can hardly afford it, the wealthy don't even notice the excise. Really, it's as though you don't live in the real world.

Your post is a boring recitation of sociology 101. Why don't you engage in real discussion instead of reciting dogma from your sociology classes?

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

. . . and, it appears, without any clear statement of what the issue specifically is, what specific policies you're proposing to address it, and how these policies can't be enacted in compliance with the 13th Amendment as it currently stands. You are pretending you want a sophisticated discussion, yet you're refusing to give us anything specific to discuss. That's unlikely to work for you.

I have, but you're denying it. Your thread response is simply not conducive to good discussion, and what I am responding to here and now is another example of that.

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And yet, they did manage to do it in 1932, and you have not stated a single reason, other than the passage of time, why they couldn't do it again.

This is like banging my head against a wall. I already told you that gaining control over the entire federal government is not an easy or cheap method for starting an enterprise for poor people to invest their own labor without spending money.

The problem is that the democratic party and its supporters are too greedy. They don't want to accept lower economic growth and cut back industrial consumerism to austere levels that would be sustainable for the environment. They pretend to be solving environmental problems and climate while actually only generating more and more fiscal stimulus for the economy that causes the problems in the first place. Until they are willing to make real reforms to consumer culture, such as cutting automotive ownership rates to a fraction of the population and restoring/reforesting paved infrastructure and the built environment in a way that resembles their original natural state, it is a terrible idea to give them more economic power as a bribe to help the poor or otherwise.

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Yes to all these rhetorical questions, none of which demonstrate that the tax increases necessary to make it work would be worse than slavery --- which was my question to you.

Inflation enslaves people by taxing saved money and thus requiring people to continue working indefinitely or until they receive welfare benefits, which are restricted to force them to seek paid employment.

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No to the premise of your question. This is not what Social-Democratic policies are doing.

If you just deny and ignore things that don't suit your whitewashed views of the Democrats and socialism, there's no point in trying to discuss it with you.

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I'm not coercing anyone, I did not ask for any of your posts to be pulled, I did not spam your inbox with obscene private messages, I did not reveal your real name or street address, or anything like that. I did not do the slightest thing that would come even close to coersion. All I'm doing is state my opinions,

There have been posts accusing me of everything from holocaust denial to wanting to revive ante-bellum race slavery. Strawmanning people with ideologies that put a target on them for hate is a form of harassment.

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This includes my impression that you're a bullshitter and a crank. You make a big show of caring about reason and "fresh thinking" about social problems, yet you provide a remarkable dearth of evidence and logic to show that alternative solutions to them would be worse than slavery. That's not fresh, that's pretty stale. Unless your next post give me some specific evidence to address, backed up by credible sources, I'm going to follow Jespah's lead and be out of this thread, too.

I don't think you have anything that can further the discussion. The only thing I really want to discuss is specifics of how slavery could be re-instituted, regulated, etc. to make it non-discriminatory and protect slaves' (human) rights. I am not opposed to discussions of how slavery as an institution would be abused and facilitate exploitation in a modern context as well; but to have that discussion you have to be able to think in terms of specific hypothetical configurations and realistically flesh out what would happen with them in a modern context.

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@livinglava,

I never took a sociology class, it wasn't required for history majors. All you offer is anecdotal crap. I've shopped in poor neighborhoods and in affluent neighborhoods and in suburban neighborhoods. The prices for the same product are higher in the poor neighborhoods. You seem to just want to argue, and you are not armed with reliable information, or even an understanding of what I am pointing out. It is precisely because poor people often cannot afford a car that supermarkets and other corporate theft operations in poor neighborhoods can get away with it.

You are the one who is framing stereotypes. Really, you don't know how other people live, and you just want to argue. Once again, you are arguing from ignorance--although it's not as bad as that crypto-nazi **** you came up with about the German death camps.

You are ignorant, opinionated, hide-bound by the lowest common denominator in conservative stereotypes--in short, you are a complete waste of time.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I never took a sociology class, it wasn't required for history majors. All you offer is anecdotal crap. I've shopped in poor neighborhoods and in affluent neighborhoods and in suburban neighborhoods. The prices for the same product are higher in the poor neighborhoods. You seem to just want to argue, and you are not armed with reliable information, or even an understanding of what I am pointing out. It is precisely because poor people often cannot afford a car that supermarkets and other corporate theft operations in poor neighborhoods can get away with it.

Different areas are different. I have been to supermarkets where I couldn't believe the selection and prices were so different from what I was familiar with elsewhere.

Either way, your point is that local stores can charge exploitative prices when their customers have no choice. Your solution is that poor people should drive cars to force local retailers into better price competition. My response to that is that cars are expensive and driving expenses take more out of a family budget than expensive groceries.

A great solution is to get a bicycle, but I've seen the quality of bikes and bike parts rise and fall through the years in ways that punish poor people by giving them more flat tires on bikes, etc. If good quality bikes were available for the poor, it would be a much better solution than cars are. Cars are actually a primary way that people are put in debt and thus enslaved financially. A slave living where they work and walking away after ten years debt free and with a bonus payment would be doing better than many 'free' people who are always kept in debt by means of everything from car loans to credit cards to mortgage payments to borrowing/stealing/mooching by 'friends' and family.

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You are the one who is framing stereotypes. Really, you don't know how other people live, and you just want to argue. Once again, you are arguing from ignorance--although it's not as bad as that crypto-nazi **** you came up with about the German death camps.

By 'crypto-nazism,' I assume you are talking about people who don't just come out and explicitly advocate nazism/fascism but instead subtly suggest it is good. Believe me when I say that kind of subtle ass-holery makes me as angry as it does you. That's not the reason I am talking about any of this. If anything, I would like people to see how modern 'freedom' doesn't prevent financial/economic institutions from exploiting people and undermining their freedom in various ways. Ideally, we could end all forms of economic exploitation and servitude and have a totally voluntary liberty-based economy, but to have that everything would need to be able function without borrowing and debt, and that is almost unthinkable in the current economy.

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You are ignorant, opinionated, hide-bound by the lowest common denominator in conservative stereotypes--in short, you are a complete waste of time.

You have projected your hate/anger onto me by associating me with nazism that you hate. That's not me and by strawmanning me that way you are blaming me for the exact type of thing that I am trying to raise consciousness about and stimulate progress away from.

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I do not hate you, and you don't make me angry. You're just not that important. If you have a problem with what you call my attitude toward Nazism, then don't paint an entirely unrealistic portrait of the death camps and then whine when you get slapped down for what is, essentially, a crypto-nazi fairy tale and what also amounts to holocaust denial.

You're just not worth the effort. Keep your ignorance and classist bigotry to yourself. Really, talking to you is a waste of time. Bye.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

I do not hate you, and you don't make me angry. You're just not that important. If you have a problem with what you call my attitude toward Nazism, then don't paint an entirely unrealistic portrait of the death camps and then whine when you get slapped down for what is, essentially, a crypto-nazi fairy tale and what also amounts to holocaust denial.

You're just not worth the effort. Keep your ignorance and classist bigotry to yourself. Really, talking to you is a waste of time. Bye.

I think you are just a person who uses these kinds of ideological labels as ammunition against people who don't submit to the political ideologies you want them to. Tossing the label, 'holocaust' denial around is in itself a crypto-nazi method of making it seem less significant than it is. People deny the holocaust to psychologically provoke others and harass them. You are basically harassing me by labeling me as a holocaust denier, which simultaneously makes holocaust deniers seem more like victims than perpetrators, which isn't the case. If your concern is with holocaust denial, why don't you go find some neo-nazis who are using holocaust denial to spread anti-semitism and fight against them? I am just trying to have an open-minded political-economic discussion.

If you find it a waste of time to talk to me by all means please stay away from me. I don't enjoy being called a nazi apologist for discussing labor economics in a way that questions assumptions about slavery and modern capitalism being mutually exclusive categories where capitalism can never exploit people. I don't deserve to be called a nazi-supporter for questioning modern capitalism and thinking about what liberty would truly mean in relation to economic participation if we took it seriously as a basis for governance.

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Abolish/amend 13th amendment?

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