Justice as fairness: we can do better than we are

[ruffryder]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Then what are you arguing about, Apoc? Here's how this started from my perspective:

Me: Slavery is now illegal in just about every nation.
Ruffryder: Slavery still exists in the United States
Me: That may be the case but slavery is still *illegal*.
You and Snow: Yes, slavery still exists in the United States.
Me: Yes, but it is still *illegal* in every Western nation and most every other nation on the planet.
Chorus: But sexual slavery still exists!
Me: That is the case but I did not make an argument that slavery was non-existent, I made an argument that slavery was *illegal*. The existence of slavery may be legal, but for slavery to exist it need not be legal.
Chorus: Sexual slavery still exists!
Me: but it's not LEGAL!

Now, it is perfectly reasonable, given the opening premise that slavery is illegal for me to interpret the arguments of you, roughryder, et. al. as being that if slavery exists anywhere then slavery is still *legal* therefore nothing has changed. Because I wasn't saying a damn thing about whether or not sexual slavery exists--I'm nowhere near stupid enough to entertain that possibility. From my perspective, the illegality of slavery in the vast majority of nations is a *vast* improvement over human history. The argument y'all seem to be making is that it either isn't an improvement or it's still legal for no OTHER reason than that sexual slavery still exists.

I'm sorry Apoc, you know I have a great deal of respect for all of you but either I can't read, someone decided to derail the thread, or y'all are saying that because sexual slavery still exists nothing has changed vis a vis slavery even though it was perfectly legal throughout the world until the 19th century and now is illegal pretty much everywhere.

Cheers
Aj

Wow this is what I said copied and pasted from my first post here .. this is the derailment. Not sure what anyone said after me but this is what I said:

"The world and the U.S. still has slavery." That's all. Nothing to do with legal or illegal. Your last post is talking about the U.S. forgive me, but that was my post about slavery. Whether you are only talking about the U.S. or not I mentioned it because their has been talk about countries joining together and my point was made about slavery existing still whether it's legal or illegal. Some places it is legal! .. and if you consider joining some of these countries with the U.S. then who is to say it will stay illegal in the U.S? It was just an observation by everyone that "slavery still exists." If you only want to talk about illegal slavery, then ok. In the U.S. slavery is illegal. We all agree.