Comment on The "Threat" to America.
Z745812939054@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
the lies began with “all men are created equal,” quickly followed by “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
the common good has always been a threat to the ruling class
LocalAreaMan@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Originally, it was John Locke’s “life, liberty, and property”, which I think still sticks.
And despite this “all men” stuff, we had slaves, only further codifying it under the 13th Amendmen as legal.
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We are the property.
cardboardboxfort@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
To be fair requiring people who have been convicted of a crime by a jury of their peers through a fair and just legal system to do labor isn’t itself a form of slavery. Also worth noting that in some cases prisoners work these jobs to generate income for themselves (usually so they can buy snacks and things from the prison commissary.)
For-profit jails are the exception since such an arrangement encourages false imprisonment but this is more a matter of making sure our legal system operates justly and fairly. Have some places used bogus charges to imprison people to use as labor? Sure, but again we need to make sure that we don’t conflate that with all prisoners doing labor when it’s only some of them. The citizens ensuring that their justice system is working properly and free of corruption is the solution to this.
And we have historical examples of it working to remove corruption. There was a for-profit juvenile detention center that got caught trumping up charges in order to lock up kids which generated more fee’s and money for the jail and they found out the judge who had sentenced the kids was corrupt and working for the company than ran the jail. The individuals who engaged in this were caught, tried and imprisoned and fined millions of dollars for their crimes.
Of course the kids shouldn’t have been scammed like that to begin with. However, I’d remind you that our justice system punishes people who have committed crimes when we can prove it to a jury of our peers. A justice system isn’t designed to prevent crimes, we can try to deter them but thats merely our hope, the actual purpose is to remedy an injustice. While we’d like to not have had kids overly punished for minor crimes (most of the kids had done stuff like getting caught smoking weed and other misdemeanors) whats more important here is that the people who abused our justice system for personal gain were eventually punished for their abuse.
But at the heart of it the majority of prison labor isn’t really slavery. Heck, lots of prisoners enjoy such jobs, not only because it gives them a few bucks but it also gets them out of the monotony of being in prison all day. When done properly it can actually help to rehabilitate some of these prisoners.
quill7513@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
umm… yes? yes it is? it’s just that our perception of what “slavery” is has been drastically altered by the curious institution of chattel slavery, which in all of human history is a VERY recent development. before this the main forms of slavery were prisoner of war labor camps and punitive labor camps. slavery is any labor in which the laborer is coerced into unfair labor terms against their will. a jury of your peers press ganging you into labor as punishment for a crime is slavery even if it is defined as legal in societal institutions
cardboardboxfort@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No, slavery generally is considered forcing someone to work for free and the person is generally enslaved as a matter of prejudice: sometimes because their considered inferior by race, sometimes because they’ve been captured in war, sometimes because they are considered inferior for some other reason like belonging to a different tribe. Some slaves are born into slavery, but the prejudice that enslaved their parents tends to be why they themselves are considered slaves as well.
The key here is it’s forced upon them and they aren’t usually paid for it.
Prison labor doesn’t fit that description. For one thing they’re almost always paid, granted at a reduced rate but this is typically because a portion of their earnings are used to offset their costs (prisons aren’t free to operate.) A prisoner might be forced to work but many prison labor programs are voluntary, at least the better jobs require some amount of cooperation by the prisoner.
Finally, a prisoner has been imprisoned because they violated a law, a jury of their peers found them guilty of that crime and the judge believed a fair and equal punishment was to incarcerate the individual. Though not always perfect in the USA criminal court is designed to favor allowing a guilty person to go free if the evidence is lacking verse punishing a potentially innocent person-the so called 99% certainty rule. This is much different than how slaves were generally come by.
countrypunk@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
For one, the conviction rates for the exact same crime wildly differ based on your race. If you are black, latino, or indigenous you are more likely to be convicted of the same crime than a white or asian person. Not to mention that your chances of getting stopped or arrested to begin with are dramatically higher if you’re black or latino.
The more pertinent point, though, is prison conditions. Did you know that it’s very common for prisons to either provide very little or no menstruation products? Did you know that some prisons will sell them in the commissionary at crazy high upcharged prices while inmates make pennies on the dollar? Does that sound like a choice to you?
Here’s something that’s allegedly a choice: food. Prison food (with very few exceptions) is borderline inedible. There are a lot of states who have incentives to cut costs in prisons wherever possible, and they will buy the cheapest, lowest quality food possible. This food is often prepared in unsanitary conditions by workers who are not trained in food safety because they are also inmates. Oftentimes it is extremely difficult to stomach and people will get food poisoning. I personally know somebody who was in prison for a while and worked in the kitchen and there were multiple times that spoiled, rotten food was cooked and served, and there was even a time where a rat got into the food and the kitchen staff just cooked the rat along with everything else and served it anyway. This person would often just not eat as a result. The prison commissionaries sell junk food like chips and cookies for a crazy upcharged price. Anything is better than what you get served in prison.
One last thing: is the bail system “fair and just”? Is it fair that if you have money and pay you don’t have to go to jail, while somebody who does not have money has no other choice? What about other fees that they charge you? Court debt is a thing. What about the laws themselves? Being homeless is illegal in many parts of the US. You will get arrested for sleeping under a bridge or in your car.
Highly recommend reading the book the Warehouse by James Kilgore and Vic Liu if you want to learn more about how the American prison system works. It’s an incredibly disturbing read, but it’s the reality we live in.
LocalAreaMan@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
TL;DR
What a worm.
No one cares what you “think”. It’s defined. You could have saved us both time if you just read the 13th. It’s says “slavery”. SLAVERY.
Big surprise, we have the highest incarcerated population in the world.
cardboardboxfort@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So many members have contacted me to warn that LocalAreaMan is in fact a Russian shill.
Are you mad that your internet got disrupted this week?
Doomsider@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
As long as they enjoy (forced labor) it, then it is not slavery is not a very good argument. Even outside of prison wage slavery is a real problem. Having someone work in prisons for decades and then released with barely anything to show for it is the very definition of exploitation. Likely leading to more recidivism since without the capital crime is the easiest way to support oneself after missing out on society for decades.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Wow, this sounds a lot like right wing or red fascist talking points. Nevermind that it’s punishment this is used for and not rehabilitation. We punish drug offenders while we let white collar crime to run rampant.
cardboardboxfort@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Lots of time work programs for prisoners are used for rehabilitation.