>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.
Did I maybe miss a supreme Court case where that bit of it was neutered?
Combine it with these observations:
1) Trials are increasingly rare, most criminals in prison never had one, they made a plea deal
2) The difference between a maximum sentence and a plea deal can be an order of magnitude (2 years instead of 20)
3) Dark skinned people can rationally expect that they won’t receive a fair trial, given bias in police investigations, DA practices, and juries.
... That adds up to a lot of innocent dark skinned people in prison, who quite rationally traded their civic rights for a smaller variability in their risk profile.
I guess what’s “better” about that than chattel slavery is that person had a possibility of release. So instead of 100% chance of incarceration and loss of civil rights, they had only an 80% chance of incarceration. Is that your position?
Personally, that doesn’t feel like a qualitative difference. Seems like the same situation just moved to a different psychic plane. But, interested in your thoughts.
These systems aren't as bad as chattel slavery because there is a strict legal requirement of when they must end (usually within a year), the citizen remains a citizen (albeit a military one as well) and thus still gets due process (outside of military punishments for, say, defecting or pointing a gun at a superior officer), the citizen can own property while doing their service, they get to do whatever they want with their own money, etc etc etc.
I still think they're wrong, for many reasons, but also because I don't believe there should be militaries designed for human-human conflict.
What I stated was a fact. Too bad, that you don't like facts, or that you try to dismiss the fact that it is slavery by comparing it to chattel slavery.
This isnt some bigoted law in some Southern state legislature. This is enshrined as federal constitutional law, and is also why the USA is not a signatory to numerous anti-slave treaties.
> If we're going to call any instance of the government forcing you to do a job you don't want "slavery", then here's a list of countries where the majority of the population has been forced into "slavery" without even being found guilty of a crime.
No, "I" didn't call it slavery. The 13th amendment did. Too bad the constitution isnt enough of a authoritative source. And then, you dismiss it with whataboutism. I live in the USA, and am dscussing USA constitutional law; Im not discussing your whataboutism of countries I dont live in.
We can discuss controversial subjects. Happens quite often. But you're wanting me to respect the fact that people are OK with slavery. Put it this way: I have ethics, and this is beyond the pale.
This "argument" is nothing more than a decorum complaint. Slavery, in all its forms, is Wrong. Anybody who supports slavery is Wrong. No ifs, ands, or buts.
And we fought a war over this very issue, and the 'compromise' was that criminals could be enslaved. Who'da thought that the majority of those who were chattel slaves would end up as "criminals", and back where they started? Its high time we excise that criminals part from the 13th.
You can't really have it both ways. Forced labour in prison creates a colossal conflict of interest for the state, even in a world where the law is just, and is applied fairly. (We don't really live in that world.)
The Supreme Court does not have the authority to "neuter" parts of the Constitution.