Justice as fairness: we can do better than we are

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by guihong

First, we've had affirmative action and the leg-ups for several generations, and we still have generational poverty, maybe more entrenched now than before. Schools are not making the mark. How long do we keep up such an experiment before we say "Enough. Here are the standards; do it or not".

As for my school idea, I had in mind something like the Finland model. It's still far less expensive than all the fads that America wants to try.

I actually have to put in a couple of things. We've had affirmative action for *at best* two generations. Consider: so before 1965 (my sister was 2, I was 2 years from being born) there was no affirmative action. In fact, there was no equal employment opportunity what-so-ever! Both my parents were very intelligent and accomplished people and there were large numbers of universities that would not have hired either of my parents, even if my mother had been the second coming of Jacques Barzun or my father the reincarnation of John Dewey they couldn't have taught at, just to take one, Ol Miss.

So, the United States does not have legally enforced equal employment opportunity until 1965. We did not have what is considered affirmative action until Nixon and that was, if memory serves, in 1972. So at its very best we are talking two generations and a bit of change assuming a 20 year generational turnover. Secondly, as far as generational poverty being, if anything, more entrenched than before I don't think that is true. I probably will not have time or energy to hunt down and work the numbers until this weekend but I suspect what I'll find is that, certainly within black communities, there is less generational poverty. In fact, I know that to be the case because the black middle-class is larger now than it has *ever* been.

Anecdotally, here's the educational attainment between my grandmother, born at the beginning of the 20th century, and my generations (I'm not including my son at this point because he is still serving in the Army). My grandmother got to about the fourth grade. My father, her youngest, attained two Masters and a PhD. On my mother's side, her father had no schooling to speak of and I'm unsure if he could read and write his own name, my grandmother had maybe a sixth grade education. My mother attained a Master's and a PhD. My half-sister has a PhD and M.D. My eldest sister has a J.D. I am the slacker having not yet attained a M.S. (but I'm working my way there). That is three generations. My father's brother did not serve in WW II and so did not have the G.I. Bill. Because he didn't have the G.I. Bill he didn't go to college. Out of his kids (four to my parent's two and a half) only one of them went to college.

So saying that we've run this experiment for several generations doesn't really work. We can, for all practical purposes, write off the first half of the 20th century as far as equal opportunity in America. There was none. This is not to say that there was not a black middle class, there was but it was much smaller. What there wasn't was any pretensions that anyone could grow up and run, say, GM or become President. No black person in 1950 was going to have a corner office at the GM headquarters. I would be shocked to find out that GM had *any* black or female executives in 1950. We cannot even begin talking about it until 1948 when Truman desegregated the military.

As far as poverty alleviation programs, we can now write off the first quarter of the 20th century. Social Security, recall, doesn't come into existence until 1935. The Great Society programs all came into existence in the middle part of the 60s. By 2000 they were all, with the exception of Head Start, functionally non-existent by the term of the century. So we can't even really say we've had poverty alleviation programs for very long.

I don't have the data before me right now, but I can say that both observationally and anecdotally, the most generous thing I can say about poverty alleviation programs in the United States is that we made something that, if one were feeling particularly generous, could be called an effort. In fact, probably the two best poverty alleviation programs I can think of are the public school system (or it used to be) and the G.I. Bill.

I am deeply unconvinced that government is as inefficient and the private sector is as efficient as set out to be. Now, I haven't worked in the governmental sector in a quarter century after I took off my uniform for the last time. I have worked in the private sector most of the last 20 years and I've seen a lot of things, very few of them I would call something resembling efficiency. At any rate, I think that like the roads I think that education is altogether too socially critical to leave up to the vagaries of the private market. Corporations have one mandate and only one mandate and that is to make the largest profit possible. If corporations are left to run educational systems, they will squeeze every dollar out they can. On paper it may look more efficient but keep in mind that Edu Corp Inc. has to make a profit. No one in the boardroom and none of the stockholders will mind if, on the way to ever greater profits some kids are educated, but they will require the CEO and executive team to keep their eye on the ball and that ball has a big dollar sign. If the question comes down to another few points on the stock market or art programs, well, we don't want to turn out a bunch of artists anyway. This can all be true even IF every single teacher in the system is well paid and dedicated to being an educator. By mandate, a corporation must maximize its profits for the shareholders. Delivering a product is just a happy byproduct of that maximization. I think that education, along with public safety, defense, physical infrastructure are too vital to our society to be left up to the profit motive. They are intrinsic public goods.

Also, one other thing on the inefficiency of corporations. I give you Microsoft. I have worked with Microsoft products since 1991. They are, whether they deserve to be or not, the gold standard for office productivity applications. They are the default operating system but no one who works in the industry or intimately with computers as part of their day-to-day work (I mean working IT or software development within some other context) thinks that Windows is a great product. DOS was good. Hard to use but good. Windows 3.1 was, well, it was okay. Pretty much a direct lift from Xerox PARC but decent enough (Apple lifted from Xerox PARC too). Windows 95/98 were fairly decent operating systems but insecure as all hell. Windows ME was a travesty. Windows NT 4 was good as a enterprise/business operating system but buggy as all hell and, like 95/98 very insecure. Windows 2000 and Windows XP were the high water marks until recently but they were both bloated, buggy and, sing it with me, really damn insecure. Windows Vista was Windows ME with a nicer interface, 'nuff said. Windows 7, which I've had at work for about 3 or 4 months now, is actually a decent operating system. I'm rather impressed. However, until Windows 7 was put on our desktops I was bringing in my personal laptop (a Macbook Pro) and using that for my day-to-day work except where I had to use those tools we have that *only* run on Windows and even then I would run a remote session to my Windows box. My email, IM, browser, text editor, presentation and word processing, were *all* done on my Mac. I'm not the only one who did something like that.

Yet, Microsoft *still* owns the desktop and everyone in the industry knows they don't deserve it. It's just that they made themselves indispensable and the overhead to change from a Windows to a Mac or Linux environment is prohibitively expensive. So by sheer inertia they maintain their market position. Is Windows the number one operating system in use today? Yes. Is it the best operating system in use today? Not by a long shot. Yet, they *own* the home and end-user operating system business.

I'm not saying corporations can do nothing right. I am saying that government *can* do things correct. I don't think governments are good at, for instance, making consumer electronics and I think it is beyond its core competencies. Likewise, I don't think that private sector corporations are good at running things like educational system, it's beyond their core competencies. Education in America is broken but it as not always this broken. We *can* fix it but I don't think turning it over to the tender mercies of the market is the way to do it.

Cheers
Aj

[Greyson]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I actually have to put in a couple of things. We've had affirmative action for *at best* two generations. Consider: so before 1965 (my sister was 2, I was 2 years from being born) there was no affirmative action. In fact, there was no equal employment opportunity what-so-ever! Both my parents were very intelligent and accomplished people and there were large numbers of universities that would not have hired either of my parents, even if my mother had been the second coming of Jacques Barzun or my father the reincarnation of John Dewey they couldn't have taught at, just to take one, Ol Miss.

So, the United States does not have legally enforced equal employment opportunity until 1965. We did not have what is considered affirmative action until Nixon and that was, if memory serves, in 1972. So at its very best we are talking two generations and a bit of change assuming a 20 year generational turnover. Secondly, as far as generational poverty being, if anything, more entrenched than before I don't think that is true. I probably will not have time or energy to hunt down and work the numbers until this weekend but I suspect what I'll find is that, certainly within black communities, there is less generational poverty. In fact, I know that to be the case because the black middle-class is larger now than it has *ever* been.

Anecdotally, here's the educational attainment between my grandmother, born at the beginning of the 20th century, and my generations (I'm not including my son at this point because he is still serving in the Army). My grandmother got to about the fourth grade. My father, her youngest, attained two Masters and a PhD. On my mother's side, her father had no schooling to speak of and I'm unsure if he could read and write his own name, my grandmother had maybe a sixth grade education. My mother attained a Master's and a PhD. My half-sister has a PhD and M.D. My eldest sister has a J.D. I am the slacker having not yet attained a M.S. (but I'm working my way there). That is three generations. My father's brother did not serve in WW II and so did not have the G.I. Bill. Because he didn't have the G.I. Bill he didn't go to college. Out of his kids (four to my parent's two and a half) only one of them went to college.

So saying that we've run this experiment for several generations doesn't really work. We can, for all practical purposes, write off the first half of the 20th century as far as equal opportunity in America. There was none. This is not to say that there was not a black middle class, there was but it was much smaller. What there wasn't was any pretensions that anyone could grow up and run, say, GM or become President. No black person in 1950 was going to have a corner office at the GM headquarters. I would be shocked to find out that GM had *any* black or female executives in 1950. We cannot even begin talking about it until 1948 when Truman desegregated the military.

As far as poverty alleviation programs, we can now write off the first quarter of the 20th century. Social Security, recall, doesn't come into existence until 1935. The Great Society programs all came into existence in the middle part of the 60s. By 2000 they were all, with the exception of Head Start, functionally non-existent by the term of the century. So we can't even really say we've had poverty alleviation programs for very long.

I don't have the data before me right now, but I can say that both observationally and anecdotally, the most generous thing I can say about poverty alleviation programs in the United States is that we made something that, if one were feeling particularly generous, could be called an effort. In fact, probably the two best poverty alleviation programs I can think of are the public school system (or it used to be) and the G.I. Bill.

I am deeply unconvinced that government is as inefficient and the private sector is as efficient as set out to be. Now, I haven't worked in the governmental sector in a quarter century after I took off my uniform for the last time. I have worked in the private sector most of the last 20 years and I've seen a lot of things, very few of them I would call something resembling efficiency. At any rate, I think that like the roads I think that education is altogether too socially critical to leave up to the vagaries of the private market. Corporations have one mandate and only one mandate and that is to make the largest profit possible. If corporations are left to run educational systems, they will squeeze every dollar out they can. On paper it may look more efficient but keep in mind that Edu Corp Inc. has to make a profit. No one in the boardroom and none of the stockholders will mind if, on the way to ever greater profits some kids are educated, but they will require the CEO and executive team to keep their eye on the ball and that ball has a big dollar sign. If the question comes down to another few points on the stock market or art programs, well, we don't want to turn out a bunch of artists anyway. This can all be true even IF every single teacher in the system is well paid and dedicated to being an educator. By mandate, a corporation must maximize its profits for the shareholders. Delivering a product is just a happy byproduct of that maximization. I think that education, along with public safety, defense, physical infrastructure are too vital to our society to be left up to the profit motive. They are intrinsic public goods.

Also, one other thing on the inefficiency of corporations. I give you Microsoft. I have worked with Microsoft products since 1991. They are, whether they deserve to be or not, the gold standard for office productivity applications. They are the default operating system but no one who works in the industry or intimately with computers as part of their day-to-day work (I mean working IT or software development within some other context) thinks that Windows is a great product. DOS was good. Hard to use but good. Windows 3.1 was, well, it was okay. Pretty much a direct lift from Xerox PARC but decent enough (Apple lifted from Xerox PARC too). Windows 95/98 were fairly decent operating systems but insecure as all hell. Windows ME was a travesty. Windows NT 4 was good as a enterprise/business operating system but buggy as all hell and, like 95/98 very insecure. Windows 2000 and Windows XP were the high water marks until recently but they were both bloated, buggy and, sing it with me, really damn insecure. Windows Vista was Windows ME with a nicer interface, 'nuff said. Windows 7, which I've had at work for about 3 or 4 months now, is actually a decent operating system. I'm rather impressed. However, until Windows 7 was put on our desktops I was bringing in my personal laptop (a Macbook Pro) and using that for my day-to-day work except where I had to use those tools we have that *only* run on Windows and even then I would run a remote session to my Windows box. My email, IM, browser, text editor, presentation and word processing, were *all* done on my Mac. I'm not the only one who did something like that.

Yet, Microsoft *still* owns the desktop and everyone in the industry knows they don't deserve it. It's just that they made themselves indispensable and the overhead to change from a Windows to a Mac or Linux environment is prohibitively expensive. So by sheer inertia they maintain their market position. Is Windows the number one operating system in use today? Yes. Is it the best operating system in use today? Not by a long shot. Yet, they *own* the home and end-user operating system business.

I'm not saying corporations can do nothing right. I am saying that government *can* do things correct. I don't think governments are good at, for instance, making consumer electronics and I think it is beyond its core competencies. Likewise, I don't think that private sector corporations are good at running things like educational system, it's beyond their core competencies. Education in America is broken but it as not always this broken. We *can* fix it but I don't think turning it over to the tender mercies of the market is the way to do it.

Cheers
Aj

Thank you. When I read "several generations" I was stunned to see that people really think the civil rights movement of the 60's was several generatons ago. Affirmative Action was not implemented until after the civil rights movement.

I too believe that we should not throw out democracy and capitalism in its entirity. And no, I have never voted Republican and I know what it is like to be really poor.

Some government regulation, intervention is needed. I don't believe if humans were entirely left without "rules" of any sort that we would choose to share and be civil with one another. I am for building up the village even if it means at times my individual wealth will be static. But not by destroying the entire village, infrastructure we have in place.

Similar to poverty, wealth can also be generational. This means some people are born with advantage. If we do not share some of the wealth, give people hope, do you really think the masses will say Okay forever more?

[ruffryder]

Need to read more in this thread, however here is some ideas to throw out there and ponder with this perfect society where we can have people agree on principles.

I wouldn't say Russia and Germany are experiencing the most peace since the height of the Roman Empire.. If anything it's under raps. Considering history repeats itself, Nazism is still ongoing and growing again.
All the support for Syria and all I have to say is Al Qaeda.
If all the latin countries united together, the citizens would all battle and kill each other.
Let's not forget the Indigenous Australians, the Aborigines. They are thinking of adding them as a whole new race. They are some of the first inhabitants according to some. Whether they are in the U.S. Or Australia or wherever, add them to the melting pot. What do you do with them now?

Violence is down in the U.S. Could it be because all the fighting is in other countries where our military is deployed? And what is considered violence? It could have different meanings to different people. If American spies are found or a U.S. Citizen kills someone in another country, more than likely they get death right then and there, no questions asked. If an immigrant or even an alien comes to the U.S., breaks the law or murders an American on American soil, they get thrown in prison or sent back to their country.

I think the social hierarchy has always existed in every country throughout the world.

The world and the U.S. still has slavery.

In my opinion there will never be fair justice. Something or someone will inevitably change. Change is constant and ongoing with people not being happy for one reason or another and feeling something isn't fair for someone. People agreeing on rules and laws, that will never happen. Hence, voting on amendments, petitions, additions to laws.

I won't even talk about religion. No one country or even within a country agrees with that one.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by ruffryder

Need to read more in this thread, however here is some ideas to throw out there and ponder with this perfect society where we can have people agree on principles.

I wouldn't say Russia and Germany are experiencing the most peace since the height of the Roman Empire.. If anything it's under raps. Considering history repeats itself, Nazism is still ongoing and growing again.

Wait, are you saying that there has been a shooting war between Russia and Germany *after* WW II and no one has noticed? Because I didn't say that Russia or Germany were having the longest period of *internal* harmony I said that ALL of the European powers were at peace for the longest continuous period since the the Roman Empire. That doesn't say anything what-so-ever about internal strife. It's simply that after the Pax Romana passed European nations went to war with one another with startling regularity. The last convulsion of major European powers shooting at one another ended in 1945. Since then, no major European power (Germany, France, England, Russia, Spain, Portugal, Italy) has shot at any other major European power. This is the first time in 2000 years that the Europe has been this peaceful. That doesn't say anything about internal strife. So, what shooting war has taken place between any of 7 nations on that list since 1945? (The 1956 and 1968 Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia don't count because neither the Hungarians or the Czechs were major powers *and*, given the realities of the Warsaw Pact all of the nations east of the Russian borders could fairly be termed provinces or colonies of the USSR at the time so an argument could be made that these were internal strifes. Which is decidedly *not* what I'm talking about)

All the support for Syria and all I have to say is Al Qaeda.

I don't follow you here.

If all the latin countries united together, the citizens would all battle and kill each other.

Probably so.

Let's not forget the Indigenous Australians, the Aborigines. They are thinking of adding them as a whole new race. They are some of the first inhabitants according to some. Whether they are in the U.S. Or Australia or wherever, add them to the melting pot. What do you do with them now?

Umm, again, I'm not sure I follow you. The Aborigines may or may not be genetically unique enough to be considered their own racial group but there's no doubt that they were the first humans in Australia. As far what to do with them, you call them 'citizen', hand them a ballot, and let democracy take its course.

Violence is down in the U.S. Could it be because all the fighting is in other countries where our military is deployed?

No, absolutely not. There are far too *few* people in uniform such that even if every single member of all five armed forces were deployed constantly and never rotated back into the United States, that *still* couldn’t account for the dip in violent crime that started in the early 90s.

And what is considered violence?

Murder, armed robbery, rape, assault, lynchings, arson.

It could have different meanings to different people.

I am using violence in the way that sociologists and criminologists use violence.

If American spies are found or a U.S. Citizen kills someone in another country, more than likely they get death right then and there, no questions asked.

Actually no. Not even at the very height of the Cold War. The KGB, the CIA and MI-6, all had an informal agreement designed to keep their national governments from having a reason to start a shooting war. It was this: we will not kill your spies in our country and you don't kill our intelligence officers in your country. For the most part that agreement was held to for forty years.
There's only a handful of nations that still use the death penalty and I can think of three instances, within the last 24 months, of Americans caught in nations who were not subject to summary execution. That woman in Italy who just came home, those hikers in Iran and some journalists in North Korea.

If an immigrant or even an alien comes to the U.S., breaks the law or murders an American on American soil, they get thrown in prison or sent back to their country.

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.

I think the social hierarchy has always existed in every country throughout the world.

Yes, and it always will.

The world and the U.S. still has slavery.

Okay, here you have gone way too far, ruffryder. I am descended from *property*. PROPERTY ruffryder. Whoever they were, my ancestors came in against their will and were considered property. Like the chair you are sitting on. Like your car. Like a horse or any other piece of *livestock*. Point out to me anywhere in the United States, where people who have done no wrong or harm, are put in chains, put on *sale*, bought up like so much cattle, forced to work without pay, any children they have are considered the property of the owner of their parents, and the penalty for disobedience is physical violence and the penalty for attempting to run away is either mutilation or death. Find me ANYWHERE in the United States where this is happening and is backed up by the force of law. If your can't, then out of respect for the 30 million or so Americans whose ancestors were ALSO property please stop spitting on the lives and legacies of our ancestors for rhetorical purposes. I don't like it when people try to make, for instance, needing to have a job or pay taxes the same as being OWNED by another human being and knowing that your children will also be OWNED as will their children and their children after them. I take a very, very dim view when people piss all over the graves of black slaves because they want to ratchet up their 'America is singularly evil' rhetoric one more notch to show that they are truly on the side of the oppressed.

Slavery ended in the United States in 1865. It was made illegal by the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution which are, last I checked, still in force. Maybe OTHER black people are sanguine about people pulling out slavery and saying it is still in force today but I'm not. I honor my ancestors and like a number of Jews I know who get completely pissed off when people compare this or that injustice to the Holocaust when there's no death camps, no masses of civilians being taken to gas chambers, no roving squads of soldiers rounding up random civilians and shooting them right then and there in the streets, I get pissed off when people mistake whatever injustice they are exercised about with legal slavery.

Btw. why is it that so few people can see improvement? Can someone explain to me why the fact that 10,000 murders < 15,000 murders doesn't register with people as improvement? I get the feeling--I may be wrong--that if the United States got down to one murder a year, people would STILL say "there's still murder, nothing at all has changed!" I don't understand it. Two people on this thread have all but said that and I don't get it. What part of a decrease in violent crimes, while still staying above zero isn't improvement?

In my opinion there will never be fair justice. Something or someone will inevitably change. Change is constant and ongoing with people not being happy for one reason or another and feeling something isn't fair for someone. People agreeing on rules and laws, that will never happen. Hence, voting on amendments, petitions, additions to laws.

There will never be *static* justice but that does not mean there will never be *justice*. My great-grandparents on both sides of my family were born slaves. My grandparents all lived under conditions of ruthless segregation. My parents lived about two-thirds of their lives under that same system. Segregation for me is a hazy memory. Segregation for my son was something he heard me and my parents talk about and was a subject covered in history class. Segregation for my granddaughter will be something she will only ever read about or see portrayed in movies. If that isn't progress, please explain to me what progress is.

I won't even talk about religion. No one country or even within a country agrees with that one.

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

Cheers
Aj

[The_Lady_Snow]

cause all Latinos hate one another so if they get together as one they'd kill one another? Really!?

Oh brother..

I also think that the sex trade enslavement of children and women in this world exists

I think for us to have a Utopia you'd have to wipe a lot of shit from this world and start all over cause humans can't help themselves.

"all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;"
"the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;"
"the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties;" and
"work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children."

[The_Lady_Snow]

an estimated 27 million people are enslaved globally, more than at any other time previously;
thousands annually trafficked in America in over 90 cities; around 17,000 by some estimates and up to 50,000 according to the CIA, either from abroad or affecting US citizens or residents as forced labor or sexual servitude;
the global market value is over $9.5 billion annually, according to Mark Taylor, senior coordinator for the State Department's Office to Monitor;
victims are often women and children;
the majority are in India and African countries;
slavery is illegal but happens "everywhere;"
slaves work in agriculture, homes, mines, restaurants, brothels, or wherever traffickers can employ them; they're cheap, plentiful, disposable, and replaceable;
"$90 is the average cost of a human slave around the world" compared to the 1850 $40,000 equivalent in today's dollars;
common terminology includes debt bondage, bonded labor, attached labor, restavec (or de facto bondage for Haitian children sent to households of strangers), forced labor, indentured servitude, and human trafficking;
explosive population growth, mostly to urban centers without safety net or job security protections, facilitates the practice; and
government corruption, lack of monitoring, and indifference does as well.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

an estimated 27 million people are enslaved globally, more than at any other time previously;
thousands annually trafficked in America in over 90 cities; around 17,000 by some estimates and up to 50,000 according to the CIA, either from abroad or affecting US citizens or residents as forced labor or sexual servitude;
the global market value is over $9.5 billion annually, according to Mark Taylor, senior coordinator for the State Department's Office to Monitor;
victims are often women and children;
the majority are in India and African countries;
slavery is illegal but happens "everywhere;"
slaves work in agriculture, homes, mines, restaurants, brothels, or wherever traffickers can employ them; they're cheap, plentiful, disposable, and replaceable;
"$90 is the average cost of a human slave around the world" compared to the 1850 $40,000 equivalent in today's dollars;
common terminology includes debt bondage, bonded labor, attached labor, restavec (or de facto bondage for Haitian children sent to households of strangers), forced labor, indentured servitude, and human trafficking;
explosive population growth, mostly to urban centers without safety net or job security protections, facilitates the practice; and
government corruption, lack of monitoring, and indifference does as well.

Yeah and this. Slavery alive and rampant. When and where will it end. The world is NOT a better place now, there are no "good old days" when the world was safe.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Apocalipstic

Yeah and this. Slavery alive and rampant. When and where will it end. The world is NOT a better place now, there are no "good old days" when the world was safe.

Ummm, so may I ask why it is I am not enslaved since only the last few generations of my family have been free? I'm rather mystified by this. YOUR words are that the world is NOT a better place. I agree that there are no good old days when the world was safe. THESE are the good old days and I'm absolutely shocked that so many intelligent people draw no distinction between legal, sanctioned, open behavior and illegal, prohibited, hidden behavior.

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. At least four people on this thread have now made this connection and not one of you have, as yet, offered an explanation for how you get to that conclusion. Again, if I had said that slavery was everywhere gone from the United States you could take me to task for not seeing sexual slavery but I didn't say that. I went back and checked to make certain I didn't say that and I didn't. I was talking about legality. So now, since we are having an argument that slavery anywhere means slavery is legal *everywhere* (or if not everywhere at least in the United States) then I think the burden of proof is on those of you making this argument to demonstrate that slavery is LEGAL--the key phrase here is LEGAL.

Again, the chain of logic looks like this:

Slavery is still practiced in the world-->The United States had slavery--->THEREFORE slavery is legal in the United States-->THEREFORE the United States still has slaves being held legally.

The substrate logic is this:

If X happens then X is legal and socially sanctioned. Because if that's not the argument being made then this whole thing is some kind of very strange derail. Since your logic is sexual slavery is still taking place, therefore chattel slavery is still legal in the United States you *must* be using the construction "that which is done is legal, regardless of what the law might say". So, since slavery is legal in the USA because sexual slavery happens *anywhere*, then murder must *also* be legal in the United States. So explain to me why you are not advocating for all convicted murderers and rapists to go free since the mere fact that someone goes out and murders means that it is both *legal* and *socially sanctioned*. If it applies to slavery (and if it doesn't what are you arguing) then it must also apply to rape, theft and murder. Since it manifestly does not, why the one and not the others?

As a rule, liberal democracies do not put people in prison for actions that are legal. If liberal democracies are putting murderers in prison but murder is illegal because people commit murder, then murder is not a *crime* and since we do not put people in prison if they have not been convicted of a *crime* every single murderer is being held illegally because their actions were neither illegal or socially proscribed.

Cheers
Aj

[SoNotHer]

If you took all of the money spent on every sporting event across the world in one year, that number would be still subsumed by the amount of money spent on pornography. And yes, there is a correlation to pornography and trafficking.

I have worked in this issue trying to affect change, and what I have too often found is everything from ignorance to denial to laughter about the "world's oldest profession" and complacency and complicity from the street to the highest levels. And the beat goes on, and women, men and children are marketed and sold for sex. So I sit up and pay attention when someone actually writes passionately about this issue and posts statistics because that's all too rare. Human trafficking will not change until we all become passionately involved in ensuring justice and force that complacency and complicity out into the light.

And to the other point - people have a right to call themselves whatever they wish, and if a continent has the word "America" in its name, why wouldn't it take umbrage if another continent, or country, lays sole claim to the word?

Both seem pretty clear to me.

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

an estimated 27 million people are enslaved globally, more than at any other time previously;
thousands annually trafficked in America in over 90 cities; around 17,000 by some estimates and up to 50,000 according to the CIA, either from abroad or affecting US citizens or residents as forced labor or sexual servitude;
the global market value is over $9.5 billion annually, according to Mark Taylor, senior coordinator for the State Department's Office to Monitor;
victims are often women and children;
the majority are in India and African countries;
slavery is illegal but happens "everywhere;"
slaves work in agriculture, homes, mines, restaurants, brothels, or wherever traffickers can employ them; they're cheap, plentiful, disposable, and replaceable;
"$90 is the average cost of a human slave around the world" compared to the 1850 $40,000 equivalent in today's dollars;
common terminology includes debt bondage, bonded labor, attached labor, restavec (or de facto bondage for Haitian children sent to households of strangers), forced labor, indentured servitude, and human trafficking;
explosive population growth, mostly to urban centers without safety net or job security protections, facilitates the practice; and
government corruption, lack of monitoring, and indifference does as well.

[The_Lady_Snow]

I may have fucked up by saying stuff cause I'm not as good with academic wording and I don't have your educations but I'm a Mexican woman living here in America as a non citizen, I have my past history on these issues to and continue to see my kin, people shit on and continue to be over worked under payed and sometimes killed. I'm ok with using my voice even if it's a voice from someone who didn't even finish highschool. Thanks for allowing me to participate.

[Apocalipstic]

I have comments to make all around, I had quoted so many posts, this was endless, so here goes sans quotes.

I have a huge problem with us saying that if the nations to our South united they would kill each other. To me, that sounds pretty racist.

I also have a problem with us making fun of the fact that it bothers other Americans living in countries on the American continent that the US insists that only we as US citizens are American. Corkey, not talking about you, we agree on this. All of us are American. People live in South America, people who think we are ass hats for insisting we are the only Americans.

Bete, yes North and South America. However, like Eurasia, North and South America are connected. Some people separate them, some don't. I am fine with using the terms North Americans and South Americans.

I know our calling ourselves Americans will not change, especially when the most intelligent among us are not even willing to think about how it might feel to an average person living in South America to be told only US citizens are American...

Again, to say or agree that people in South America would kill each other of they united makes my head want to explode. Do y'all really think we are so superior??? Becasue that is what it sounds like.

Using the longitude is cute...but very sarcastically dismissive.

Love and respect you guys, but maybe I have not had enough coffee to find this amusing.

When you have been and spent time in South America, maybe you will see how small this seems.

[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.

[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!

[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

[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.

[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.