The question that makes fundies hostile

[Zazzy]

Drich has a point that slavery exists in the Western world in all but name. The poor classes are roped to the the rich in ways they cannot get out of. Look at the US military. Who joins? The poorer classes, overwhelmingly. Once they are in, the US government essentially owns their bodies. My friend who was in the Marines during Desert Storm was not allowed to donate a kidney to his brother, because his kidney was, at that time, the property of the USMC. Sexual slavery exists in every town large enough to have prostitutes. We don't call these things slavery, but they look an awful lot like it.

What on Earth that has to with homosexuality is beyond me, though. We have a choice to better conditions for our working poor, and to help stamp out sexual slavery, but we don't have a choice as to whether or not to live with homosexuality in our society.

[Ben Davis]

Drich has a point that slavery exists in the Western world in all but name... We don't call these things slavery, but they look an awful lot like it.

Indeed he does. That's also unethical & I'm opposed to that, too. Given modern technology and production, management & logistic methods, there should be no barrier to equitable provision for all, at no cost to the user, of the modern 'basics':

- food
- water
- shelter
- healthcare
- energy
- education
- transport

That provision would all but end 'wage slavery'. Combined with certain legal changes to address issues such as the Prison Industrial Complex and abuse of sex-workers, we could see an end to the vast majority of quasi-slavery. The main problem is that the various current forms of Free-market capitalism are in direct opposition to those ideals and the banks & big corps meddle with our governments all the time.

I dedicate what time I can to fighting for equitable distribution of 'the 7 resources' and fighting against damage to any existing provision (e.g. NHS budget cuts).

...but I'm starting to rant. The point is that even though these things look a lot like slavery, indeed could be construed as institutionalised slavery, they do not provide one individual with the legal right to own another.

[Raven]

I don't know that we want to credit Drippy with being more than a barely sentient life form. OK, I will grant you that the working poor have it rough, that's where my wife and I both came from. It isn't easy. We both have friends from our youth who didn't make it. My father was a semi-skilled factory worker, and that was not a good thing to be at that time. The company left to go to Tennessee to take advantage of those Orwellianly-named “right to work” laws, he had the rug pulled out from him. He got lucky and found a job elsewhere, but that only lasted a few years before that happened again. Both companies have since left the US, again in search of cheap labor. He got lucky and was able to somehow wrangle himself a job with the transit authority and hang on to what little he had.

If you wanted to you could call that situation “wage-slavery”. I certainly would not argue. He was stuck. Most people are. Some are stuck in a more economically viable place than others. But unless you're blessed in the inheritance department, you are going to have to do something to earn your daily bread. In my own case, I went to college and still ended up with a blue collar job. I spent 30 years as a licensed exterminator. The company was only hiring people with a college education. We had to take classes every year to keep our licenses current. There is a lot more to it than most people think. I liked a lot about the job, but there was certainly a lot not to like about it. It allowed me to raise 4 kids to adulthood, in decent circumstances. It allowed me to get my family out of Brooklyn, which meant a great deal to me. But I was stuck, I was just stuck in a better place than my dad was.

But everybody in the 99% is stuck. So why should I complain? I got to retire after 30 years while I am still young enough to enjoy it. Yes, you do have people who are stuck in really crappy jobs at Walmart, etc. But at least they get to choose who is going to exploit them. We all get exploited. No worker gets paid the full value of their labor, therefore we are all being ripped off. Capitalism is a very predatory economic system. Would you rather do things the way the ancient Israelites did? Maybe we should go back to the Ante-bellum South? Didn't think so.

Damn near all of us are going to be stuck no matter what we do. Marxism seems like such a great idea on paper, but it has never worked well in actual practice. Soviet workers were in an even worse place than my dad was. Drippy was just engaging in some semantical obfucating because he needed to do so in order to appear to be less stupid than he actually did.

[Drich]

My father was a semi-skilled factory worker, and that was not a good thing to be at that time. The company left to go to Tennessee to take advantage of those Orwellianly-named “right to work” laws, he had the rug pulled out from him. He got lucky and found a job elsewhere, but that only lasted a few years before that happened again. Both companies have since left the US, again in search of cheap labor.

I did read you whole post and I believe you missed the point I was making. I wasn't talking about domestic slavery persay. I was talking about the 'cheap labor' your dad lost his job to. If a semi skilled factory worker (I am assuming he was union) lost his job to 'cheap labor' it went to mexico or China. As bad or as little as your dad had, how much less does the guy who got your dad's job have? This guy is the slave I am shinning the light on. Because even if we do not have a job here, we still can get something to eat through goverment assistance. The guy is China can't. If he gets hurt or looses his job he depends on his family or he is done.

What I also pointed out was that it is our partisipation in days like the up comming black friday that forces companies into places like china and mexico so they can compete in black fridays and every other day of the year. Because people claim to abhore slavery, but mow each other down to get the products of modern day slavery when ever the oppertunity presents itself.

Maybe if you took your head out of the sand and weren't so into looking for a way to feel sorrow for yourself and the rest of the 99% who benifit from true modern day slavery, you would have seen everything I said here in my previous post, and I would not had to have repeat it here just for you.

That said I will underscore my orginal point, because I'm sure you missed that too. The Idea of Slavery should be taken out of the 1700's and rightfully applied anywhere the conditions fit. Slavery should not be abolished, as this soceity and every soceity since the beginning of organized soceity has needed slavery. That said it should be heavily regulated, and the owners of said slaves should be held to high standards, or their products (whatever they are) should be bann in the freemarket, until they meet realistic living conditions for the people they 'employ.'

[Minimalist]

To say that the bible supports slavery is like saying that government funded safe injecting rooms for heroin users amounts to...encouraging ppl to use heroin.

Bullshit.

Christians who are slaves should give their masters full respect so that the name of God and his teaching will not be shamed. If your master is a Christian, that is no excuse for being disrespectful. You should work all the harder because you are helping another believer by your efforts. Teach these truths, Timothy, and encourage everyone to obey them. (1 Timothy 6:1-2 NLT)

Society has progressed, Lyin. Your fucking bible is a relic from a primitive age. Time to throw the fucking thing in the shitter where it belongs.

[Drich]

Drich has a point that slavery exists in the Western world in all but name... We don't call these things slavery, but they look an awful lot like it.

Indeed he does. That's also unethical & I'm opposed to that, too. Given modern technology and production, management & logistic methods, there should be no barrier to equitable provision for all, at no cost to the user, of the modern 'basics':

- food
- water
- shelter
- healthcare
- energy
- education
- transport

That provision would all but end 'wage slavery'. Combined with certain legal changes to address issues such as the Prison Industrial Complex and abuse of sex-workers, we could see an end to the vast majority of quasi-slavery. The main problem is that the various current forms of Free-market capitalism are in direct opposition to those ideals and the banks & big corps meddle with our governments all the time.

I dedicate what time I can to fighting for equitable distribution of 'the 7 resources' and fighting against damage to any existing provision (e.g. NHS budget cuts).

...but I'm starting to rant. The point is that even though these things look a lot like slavery, indeed could be construed as institutionalised slavery, they do not provide one individual with the legal right to own another.

Education is not the answer to slavery. Soceity needs to have the Haves and Have nots in order for it to work. If everyone 'has,' then who will do the meanial jobs only the 'have nots' normally did?

Look at what 20+ years of pushing higher education has done for this country. Everyone has a collage degree, which makes a collage degree worthless. why? because everyone has on. (Everyone 'has.') One would be luck to get a job as a 'bug man' with a collage degree now. Because the market is now flooded with worthless degrees. It's like printing money, the more you print the less value it actually has.

The only way what you are suggesting will work is in a communist soceity, and even then as per China and the USSR's example we know that does not work either.

We NEED slaves inorder for the current model of soceity we know to work. There is no way around that. The only option we have is to pretend that we don't, and shun those who suggest otherwise. (To bury our heads in the sand.) Which means those who do work as slaves have to work for people who go completely unregulated. Which if history is any indicator, is not a good thing.

[Jacob(smooth)]

Respectfully, that's bollocks.

There is a fundamental difference between a slave and someone who works a low pay job because they have to earn to eat. That being that the employer of the latter is subject to market forces because the low pay worker can get a low pay job somewhere else. Or even a higher pay job. Or he can Unionise. Or an education. He might not LIKE his choices, but he does HAVE choices.

Where as a slave, by definition, does not have those choices. They can't choose to leave and their owner can thus treat them however he likes within the law.

Society needs workers at all level, but a free man has upward mobility and choice. A slave does not.

[Drich]

Respectfully, that's bollocks.

There is a fundamental difference between a slave and someone who works a low pay job because they have to earn to eat. That being that the employer of the latter is subject to market forces because the low pay worker can get a low pay job somewhere else. Or even a higher pay job. Or he can Unionise. Or an education. He might not LIKE his choices, but he does HAVE choices.

Where as a slave, by definition, does not have those choices. They can't choose to leave and their owner can thus treat them however he likes within the law.

Society needs workers at all level, but a free man has upward mobility and choice. A slave does not.

Now all you have to do is demonstrate that the slaves in China and mexico who work in sweat shops do indeed have a choice in what they do. That their children elect to work in these factories rather than attend school, that if they do not work they still get to eat, that the factory owners do not purchase or by out lots or years of the workers time in order for them to hire on. Meaning they can't leave till a quote has been met or a time limit has expired.

[Godlesspanther]

Respectfully, that's bollocks.

There is a fundamental difference between a slave and someone who works a low pay job because they have to earn to eat. That being that the employer of the latter is subject to market forces because the low pay worker can get a low pay job somewhere else. Or even a higher pay job. Or he can Unionise. Or an education. He might not LIKE his choices, but he does HAVE choices.

Where as a slave, by definition, does not have those choices. They can't choose to leave and their owner can thus treat them however he likes within the law.

Society needs workers at all level, but a free man has upward mobility and choice. A slave does not.

Now all you have to do is demonstrate that the slaves in China and mexico who work in sweat shops do indeed have a choice in what they do. That their children elect to work in these factories rather than attend school, that if they do not work they still get to eat, that the factory owners do not purchase or by out lots or years of the workers time in order for them to hire on. Meaning they can't leave till a quote has been met or a time limit has expired.

That is a valid point. Sweat shops are, indeed, for all practical purposes like slavery. And American corporations are outsourcing labor to these countries in which human rights are not granted, nor valued. And that is intrinsically immoral just like slavery as most of us define it (without playing childish word games.)

Yes, slavery -- like it or not -- is intrinsically immoral. You can go on and on about this special (and non-existent) slavery that is right and good and made baby Jesus coo and giggle and get a stiffy -- but such a thing is and always has been imaginary.

[Simplyalex]

And you did not answer the question. Which, in your opinion, is worse -- slavery or same sex marriage?

Does your refusal to answer the question mean that both are equally bad? Would you just flip a coin?

I don't understand why it has to be one or the other?

I would rather live in a society with same sex marriage. I may not like it, but it's a million times better than the abomination of slavery.