Justice as fairness: we can do better than we are

[The_Lady_Snow]

So one form of slavery out trumps the other? Really?

WOW they are selling GIRLS so men can dismember them for fun. You're right only one kind of slavery should count.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

So one form of slavery out trumps the other? Really?

WOW they are selling GIRLS so men can dismember them for fun. You're right only one kind of slavery should count.

Yes.

What is happening today.

Becasue what is happening right now is the only thing we can do anything about!

[The_Lady_Snow]

Originally Posted by Apocalipstic

Yes.

What is happening today.

Becasue what is happening right now is the only thing we can do anything about!

AND continued to get swept under the rug, not to mention sweat shops, farm work, sex rings, hotel workers, so on and so on mostly women being enslaved everyday.

I really don't see progress just because the Government has a special task force, I don't see this progress when I see Latinos picking lettuce for 125 bucks a day.

That's what I read that just because "America" has a law we're more civilized cause I don't see it this way as a woman who continues to see, help, and scream for those who haven't felt this change.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

So one form of slavery out trumps the other? Really?

WOW they are selling GIRLS so men can dismember them for fun. You're right only one kind of slavery should count.

Wait, are people *really* going to put the *illegal* kidnapping of girls and the *illegal* selling of same in the same category as legalized slavery and then say that slavery is still LEGAL in the United States? Is that actually the argument you are making here, Snow? Because that sounds *precisely* what you are saying and I am absolutely stunned that any person intelligent or educated person--and I assume everyone here is both--actually thinks that legalized slavery and illegal sex trafficking are the same things. By this logic, the prisons are filled with people who should not be in prison because murder is still legal.

Here's the argument that is being made:

Me: Slavery is illegal throughout the Western world and also in most other nations (I think there's one or two laggards.

Others: Slavery is still practiced in the United State because sex trafficking happens *therefore* slavery is still legal in the United States.

Here's that logic applied to people in prison for murder:

Murder still happens. What happens is legal. THEREFORE, murder is still legal. By that argument--and not a single one of you can argue that this is not a logical consequence of your statements--we should free every single rapist and murderer held in prisons world wide because until rape doesn't happen, rape is legal. Until murder doesn't happen, murder is *legal*.

So let me challenge all of you arguing that slavery is still *legal* in the United States.

1) Find me a historically valid account of a slave ship captain being arrested for transporting slaves out of Africa. Not a slave ship captain who was arrested for some other crime, but for the actual act of taking captured slaves from Africa to America.

2) Find me a historically valid account of a slave taker who was charged with the crime of kidnapping for capturing blacks in Africa and selling them to the slave ship captain.

3) Find me a historically valid account of a slave owner who was prosecuted for EITHER murdering one of his own slaves OR for raping one of his own slaves.

4) Find me a state in the United States that still enforces slave return laws.

5) Find me a state in the United States where blacks can be summarily executed for learning to read or teaching others to do the same. Please provide the last known date, after 1865, that a black person was legally executed for the 'crime' of learning to read.

6) Find me a state in the United States where it is *legal* to own a person such that if that person is a woman, and that woman has a child, the person who owns the woman also *automatically* owns the child. Here, ownership means "that which you can dispose of as you please". If I wanted to, I could take a sledgehammer to my Audi and destroy it and as long as I did it on my property and disposed of the waste properly, there's not a damn thing anyone could *legally* do to stop me. IF slavery is still legal in the United States then one of you should be able to provide me with an example, within the living memory of at least one person on this board (so, within, say, 60 - 70 years) where someone was born in this nation, the child was immediately sold--at a profit--to another person and became that person's property such that they could *sell* that person to another human being. The example needs to be such that if our hypothetical person were to run away, they would have committed a crime. If someone aided them in running away they would have committed a tort OR a crime or both. Bonus points if you can, in your example, provide the trial transcripts of the fugitive slave.

Once again, the statement I made was NOT that there was no sexual slavery in the United States or any other nation. I said that throughout the world slavery is now illegal. It is most definitely illegal in the United States. A couple of people have now stated that slavery is still legal in the United States because of the presence of sexual slavery. The burden of proof is now squarely on your heads to provide a specific example where legalized, chattel slavery is being practiced in the United States and backed up by the force of the state.

If you cannot provide those examples (and I'm this side of certain you can't) please explain the logic where the presence of sexual slavery in the United States means that slavery is legal and explain why people here are not screaming to have *actual* murderers and rapists released since the logic being deployed leads to the conclusion that murder and rape are also legal and should not be punished since their practice means they are legal. Thank you.


Cheers
Aj

[ruffryder]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Wait, are people *really* going to put the *illegal* kidnapping of girls and the *illegal* selling of same in the same category as legalized slavery and then say that slavery is still LEGAL in the United States? Is that actually the argument you are making here, Snow? Because that sounds *precisely* what you are saying and I am absolutely stunned that any person intelligent or educated person--and I assume everyone here is both--actually thinks that legalized slavery and illegal sex trafficking are the same things. By this logic, the prisons are filled with people who should not be in prison because murder is still legal.

Here's the argument that is being made:

Me: Slavery is illegal throughout the Western world and also in most other nations (I think there's one or two laggards.

Others: Slavery is still practiced in the United State because sex trafficking happens *therefore* slavery is still legal in the United States.


Cheers
Aj

What I was saying with my comment about slavery is that it existed. I didn't know we were talking about legal or illegal one way or the other. It exists. Perhaps that was what snow was getting at too. I cannot speak for her.

As for things being legal and illegal, why bother? People do illegal shit all the time. It is legal for them in their mind to do illegal things till they get caught then it becomes illegal and they face whatever punishment is deemed for the crime committed.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by betenoire

Trafficking of children and women does happen in the US today, no doubt.

But, you know. To compare actual legal slavery which did happen in the US (out in the open, legally, socially acceptable, ENCOURAGED, in gigantic numbers - if I remember correctly there were over 4 MILLION owned slaves in the US at the time slavery was abolished) to modern-day sex trafficking in the US (which is hidden, illegal, and there are several actual task forces in your country devoted to finding and freeing these women and children) is just kind of....wow.

I mean, the biggest evidence of change in human nature is the fact that what was considered normal and okay then is not considered normal and okay now. You can't deny that.

I do agree that crucifying people along the freeway is frowned upon these days. Agree 100%.

However, there here and now is what matters. International slavery is a huge problem and one we try our best to sweep under the rug and ignore because in our eyes its not as bad as it used to be. In my book its worse. Why? We know better now.

We still are OK with war and torture and political killings and secret prisons and thats just the US government.

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

So one form of slavery out trumps the other? Really?

WOW they are selling GIRLS so men can dismember them for fun. You're right only one kind of slavery should count.

Are you intentionally misreading me?

The point is: there has been progress. What was once perfectly okay, legal, encouraged is now the sort of thing that your government spends hundreds of millions of dollars to try to stop. That's progress. That's evidence of a shift in what "normal" means. That's evidence that the people we were 200 years ago are not the people we are today.

The point is not: Brandy clearly thinks that sex trafficking is no big deal and that only one kind of slavery counts.

[Apocalipstic]

I think in some areas there has been progress in others not.

I will get it in my head that we value human life more than we did 100 years ago...and then I turn on the news.

[Cin]

Originally Posted by betenoire

Are you intentionally misreading me?

I don’t think anyone is purposely misunderstanding what is said here anymore than anyone purposely misunderstood when it was being said that people in the U.S. should take the time to consider what it sounds like to other people from other countries who also live in America when we say things like “This is America love it or leave it” and instead understood what was being said, despite explanations to the contrary, that the United States should change its name, perhaps even use its longitude and latitude address.

[Apocalipstic]

I totally get that looking at things differently is difficult. Change is difficult.

[ruffryder]

There will be a drug war if the latin countries got together. All of them will want to be the head honcho. You all are going to tell me there will not be? Look at El Paso Tx, Mexico border and look at Columbia. . not to mention Puerto Rico and Cuba. Drugs. I'm not being racist. I'm being realistic. Forget I said latin countries. That was brought up prior to my statement. I used it to make a point that no matter what countries you try and put together to live as one. There will be war.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by betenoire

Trafficking of children and women does happen in the US today, no doubt.

But, you know. To compare actual legal slavery which did happen in the US (out in the open, legally, socially acceptable, ENCOURAGED, in gigantic numbers - if I remember correctly there were over 4 MILLION owned slaves in the US at the time slavery was abolished) to modern-day sex trafficking in the US (which is hidden, illegal, and there are several actual task forces in your country devoted to finding and freeing these women and children) is just kind of....wow.

I mean, the biggest evidence of change in human nature is the fact that what was considered normal and okay then is not considered normal and okay now. You can't deny that.

Unfortunately, people can and people do deny it. This morning's derail is proof that they do not see this as a *vast* improvement.

Cheers
Aj

[ruffryder]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Well, if the immigrant is a US citizen then they stay here. If that person is a resident alien they can be sent home. That is how it should be. If someone commits murder, don't you think they *should* be thrown in prison? I do.



Why do we have to agree on religion in order to live in peace and comity?

Cheers
Aj

Thrown in prison for committing murder.. I believe in the death penalty not someone riding out their life in prison getting to read and lift weights and have a life.

We don't agree on religion. That is the point. And we will never live in peace because of it.