posted on Jan, 2 2010 @ 05:47 AM
My loathing of power seems to grow daily. In theory and as much as possible in practice I reject any authority not fully consented to by those subject
to it. I don't even believe in chewing out subordinates at work. So no, I would not buy a slave if slavery were legalized again. More likely I'd
hold up the slave market and build my own private (volunteer) army from the willing among those I liberated. But while both well intentioned and
potentially profitable on the side, I'm sure that wouldn't turn out all good. Afterall the slave market will be guarded so you'll need to bring in
some criminal assistance- probably the organized kind. So now you've got an army with mafia ties to balance against the interests of a burgeoning
civil war II, so almost immediately the guy who started it gets whacked, and with me out of the picture I'm guessing the guy in charge is going to
end up being some alcoholic cowboy who fancies himself William T Sherman.
In short, let's not legalize slavery or stuff's gonna get nasty.
BUT and here comes the devil's advocate,
Can we really take the question of slavery being legalized in a vacuum? Can we rely on our current concept of slavery though? For it to be legal, one
of several things would have been necessary. Either the constitution was amended (requiring an almost impossible supermajority or massive political
disenfranchisement to achieve) or a certain arrangement or practice that could constitute slavery was examined by the SCOTUS and found in their eyes
NOT to be slavery.
You would never have to go to a slave market and buy a slave. They would never call them slaves, and they certainly would not be trudging along in a
field in shackles, showing whip scars through their tattered rags. They would have white teeth, and good looking short hair cuts and wear cheap khakis
and a uniform polo shirt (though sometimes you'd be able to tell it was the second or third day they've worn it and you'd be a little disgusted and
make jokes to your friends about it). On a good day they might even smile and speak very smartly and enthusiastically, though probably not early
monday morning, which again you'll be a bit disgusted with, and this will probably result in disciplinary action. They'd even have just a little bit
of light at the end of the tunnel maybe, and they'd be earning an admittedly very modest but honest living. (It's not that far fetched is it? They
sound like low to mid quality minimum wage employees don't they?)
Here's what's gonna happen. They're going to come to America in droves by their own free will to seek a better life after we topple their dictator
or fail to stop an invasion or a genocide in their country. There are going to be more of them than we know what to do with, piling up in our ports of
entry, unable to be let go, but with not enough space to keep them all. And we're going to be freaking out about this and arguing about it when its
on the news, and between one and two thirds of us are going to just wish they'd never come, but most of us will feel like it is cruel to send them
back.
The president is going to give them refugee status and have FEMA move them to camps, and the army will be tasked with guarding them. Things will go
badly, there will be food and water and sanitation shortages in some of the camps, and the pressure is going to be on. So a shadowy voice somewhere
inside of FEMA which may or may not have gotten an email from the white house (as we will learn a year later) will bring in a private company with
ties to a senior member of the presidents administration in on a no bid contract to fix things up.
So in comes this giant corporation we have all heard of but never remembered or really known anything about to document all these people and get them
to work. So they'll do a half-way ID/background check on at least some of these people and completely blow that part, then they're gonna issue them
all documents (the failure rate here will probably be a bit lower) and have them fill out a resume (near total failure here, resulting in very low
worker classifications).
And they're going to spit out a report in just a few weeks saying
"we've got five million adults, 2 million children with them, 300,000 orphan children, and 75,000 long-term medical cases.
Of the adults 1 million of them are fit for the service industry, but unlikely to all find full time work unless the minimum wage for them can be
lowered, which will of course probably put at least half a million citizens out of jobs.
2 million of them are fit for manual labor, but completely unskilled and physically not well prepared. Most are likely to become day laborers.
200,000 are qualified for military service
25,000 of them have an expressed an interest.
1.5 Million of them are not fit to work for one reason or another."
Now there's going to be another round of freaking out on the news, and congress is going to be in all kinds of trouble, and there will be gangs of
various numbers roaming the beltway after dark threatening all kinds of novel maneuvers, until somebody with a lot of nerve and a nose for profit says
essentially what everyone's always saying about people who need money, "let em dig ditches" etc. He'll figure out some mundane undesirable thing
that isn't being done for profit in the private sector and fix a really low value on it and come up with a way to make that low value support these
people.
Congress will call this person in to give his testimony on the matter, and he will tell them that this extra labor and our willingness to support them
while they get adjusted here allows us to catch up on a whole lot of work that we haven't been able to pay for.
Congress will fight for a while about the details, everyone protecting their constituents and looking for their dollar, and of course, as the media
will paint it, "a few of the usual race baiters and flag burners" will speak up about the moral implications and how much their heart bleeds for
these people, but an awful lot of people are gonna say, "well then let Jesse Jackson support all those people".
And in the end they'll come up with a plan to disperse them to less restricted camps for long term settlement until they get jobs, at which point
they get to move out. To these camps they'll bring temporary staffing agencies who, will give them "job training" at a training wage of a dollar an
hour. And they will do that until such time as they can get a full time job of their own and get started earning their citizenship by whatever means
congress has enacted.
So now the question is, do you dial the 800 number when you hear that this housekeeping company can give you a thorough job in just one hour for about
half the price, because they send 5 people and all but one is only getting paid a dollar? Do you report them when finally the 4 immigrants show up to
work for their dollar an hour training wage, with no citizen supervisor still "training" them? How bout when 5 years later those same 4 are still
coming back, still no full time jobs or real wages or citizenship. Just trailers in a segregated community 30 miles away they bus in from every day,
and insufficient portions of cheap staple foods provided on a no bid contract that you continually here horror stories about (though "everyone
knows" that they are finding ways to bring in more money, often illegally, and supplementing what the government gives them- the ones that get just
that are real down and outers- no ambition- not even criminal ambition).
More people than we'd probably like to believe would almost certainly go right along with that, never even considering that there was anything like
slavery about it. When you hear sympathetic stories about slavery afterall, it usually has to do with how nice the owners were, and how some wanted to
stay but couldn't even be afforded as a slave anymore by their masters after the war. Apparently slavery doesn't look the same from up close- from
up close you apparently see desperate people working and not starving to death and lose the bigger picture that they are trapped at the very bottom of
our society for reasons they didn't choose and can't do anything about.
See if that doesn't make you distrust yourself just a little bit.