Justice as fairness: we can do better than we are

[Cin]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

So according to you, Snow, and Miss Tick the fact that slavery happens *anywhere* means that slavery is *legal* in the United States and Western Europe. Because that is the point of contention. I did not say that slavery was gone from the face of the Earth. I said that slavery was *illegal* in almost every single country.

I think people got it from when ruffryder said:
"The world and the U.S. still has slavery."

And you said;
"Okay, here you have gone way too far, ruffryder"

I guess we don't think he went way too far.

[betenoire]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

I think people got it from when ruffryder said:
"The world and the U.S. still has slavery."

And you said;
"Okay, here you have gone way too far, ruffryder"

I guess we don't think he went way too far.

But the point is that degree matters. The whole point that I was making (since I'm not willing to speak for Aj what with her being a grown woman and all) was that the fact that what was once legal is now illegal IS EVIDENCE that the world is a changing place.

It just seems to me that people are tackling this with an "all or nothing" approach. Like some people seem to believe that the only signifier of progress or improvement is if ALL evil is drained from the world. Like maybe some people here believe that nothing has changed until everything is ALL better.

But degree does matter.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Miss Tick

I think people got it from when ruffryder said:
"The world and the U.S. still has slavery."

And you said;
"Okay, here you have gone way too far, ruffryder"

I guess we don't think he went way too far.

Okay, so let's work on some definitions. When *I* use the term slavery, at least vis a vis the United States I mean this:

the LEGAL system where people of group X were forcibly removed from their homes, put on ships, brought to another country, and held in a lifetime of servitude which was--and this is the important bit--sanctioned by both law and society. So when roughryder said "the world and the U.S. still has slavery" what was being said--given the definition above--is "the United States still has LEGALIZED slavery". Legalized, Miss Tick. Anything outside of that definition may be slavery but it is not *legal* slavery. The society is not set up to *preserve* slavery. I was talking--and I thought I had made myself clear that this was what I was talking about--the system of chattel slavery that existed in the United States from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Roughryder was saying that this system still exists.

Every single one of you arguing that slavery still exists in the United States is saying "legalized slavery in the USA is still in force and the society still is arranged by both law and custom to maintain that system". I never said that illegal slavery was gone, I was talking about the legal system of slavery.

The fact of sexual slavery in the world is something we should all be concerned about but it is *ancillary* to the point I was making. Yet, people are arguing this ancillary point and since I was talking about legality, not existence, and since I see the fact that a system that plagued humanity since *at least* the time of agriculture (so 12000 years) became ubiquitously illegal over 99% of the globe is an improvement. That is the point I was making. That is the point that you, roughryder, Apoc and Snow all disagree with.


Cheers
Aj