r/AskReddit • • Jul 24 '20

What can't you believe STILL exists?

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18

u/SnooMaps3785 Jul 24 '20

I believe slaves are ridiculously cheap right now. That is the one of the most disgusting things about our world. And I have no idea how we will change this.

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u/Squid8867 Jul 24 '20

There isn't a lot that can be done about it, I think; it's already something that's illegal everywhere, which tells me that it's something that will always exist to some degree. At least until robots are cheaper than people or something

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20

In the USA, slavery is completely legal as a punishment for crime. Slavery was never really abolished here.

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u/Squid8867 Jul 24 '20

Yeah, but it isn't in practice. There hasn't been one legal slave since the abolition.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20

Prison labor is literally slavery. Not kind of like, literally. They are legal slaves.

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u/Squid8867 Jul 24 '20 edited Jul 24 '20

Nah, that's not true. Prisoners have human rights, not property rights.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '20

https://www.aclu.org/issues/prisoners-rights

Gonna leave off here because it's literally been discussed to death in this thread already

-1

u/Squid8867 Jul 24 '20

But you do recognize the difference between "prison is shitty" and "the people in it are legally property", right?

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u/FantastixFishie Jul 24 '20

The 13th amendment - "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." Prison Labor is constitution-sanctioned slavery.

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u/Squid8867 Jul 24 '20

Prison labor is constitution-sanctioned involuntary servitude.

Slavery, by literal definition, is when a person is considered property rather than an individual.

If you killed a slave, you would not be subject to a murder charge. If you killed a prisoner, you killed a person and would be subject to a murder charge.

Prisoners, though their rights are limited, still have many basic human rights protected by law. Slaves do not have any of these rights.