Comment on The "Threat" to America.
quill7513@anarchist.nexus 1 day agoTo 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
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 22 hours 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.
LocalAreaMan@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
How you can you say sooooo much know sooooo little?
I feel stupider just reading this.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 hours ago
This is a person who has a hard on for punishment in the judicial system instead of rehabilitation. Not understanding it’s unequally applied along race and often those of possession of drug charges.
LocalAreaMan@lemmy.world 16 hours ago
What else could it be if not profit? Are Americans really that much more crimalinalistic than any other country? Is that what they believe ? Big mean ol’ China has five times more people with less prisoners. Kamala Harris intentionally held people back from release, citing “budget shortfalls”.
It’s slavery.
cardboardboxfort@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
So you feel like Vladimir Putin? The stupidest “man” in the history of the world.
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