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The 13th amendment specifically allows slavery when incarcerated.
Legal ≠ Right.
This literally happened en masse after slavery was abolished in the South. They would just charge black people for minor offenses (e.g., “looking at a white woman”), jail them, and lease them to middle-class landowners who treated them worse than slaves. This country was built on slave labor and the legacy of slavery still continues to this day.
Yep, slavery was largely re-instituted (in a less dominant form) during the reconstruction era.
The US still has a significant portion of its economy based on slave-labor, including at least 54 state-run prison farms, and US-state-run companies like Federal Prison Industries which operates a multi-billion dollar industry with ~ 52 prison factories, where prisoners produce furniture, clothing, circuit boards, products for the military, computer aided design services, call center support for private companies. 1, 2, 3
The US also has the highest incarceration rates in the world, with states like Louisiana basically being slave states. Most individual US states outrank all other countries.
That last link…“freest country in the world” just means “most indoctrinated country in the world, and also slavers.”
Not to diminish how messed up prison labor is, or how private prisons shouldn’t be a thing at all, to say that prison labor makes up a significant portion of the US economy is a pretty big stretch.
FPI/UNICORE only has about a half billion in gross revenue, and the entire private prison sector is around ~$8 billion.
The US economy is in the $25 trillion range. Arby’s is about half the size of the private prison industry, and eight times larger than FPI. ($4 billion)Neither should exist in the modern era, and getting rid of them would be an almost unnoticeable impact on the economy.
“neither” you mean prison labour and Arby’s, right?
I suppose I should have said “none”.
Even though Arby’s has personally hurt me more than private prisons, I still think that privatized cruelty that somehow manages to be worse than our already pretty shitty penal system is worse that the gastrointestinal nightmare that Arby’s has given me.
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It’s not a great ruling, but it doesn’t serve to be hyperbolic. They said that fines or punishment for “camping” (existing while homeless) on a cities public lands aren’t de facto unconstitutional.
Not forbidden to fine or evict the homeless isn’t the same as making homelessness illegal.
and they teach us in school (ohio) that it’s totally great and makes sense that slavery is legal for prisoners. they make no mention of the record our. nation has for jailing people on bullshit charges.
And there is the real reason they made it OK to make homelessness illegal.
After they realized deporting illegal immigrants left fields to rot (see Florida, Georgia, and Alabama) they had to come up with a plan to make up the loss of labor, somehow.
I’m sure they figure 2 birds, 1 stone. Clean up the streets and make sure they have enough slaves to tend the fields. If you can’t pull yourself up by your bootstraps, we’ll tie those straps to your feet and drag you with em.
I mean, yes. The constitution explicitly carves out one exception to the “no slavery” rule. People who proudly proclaim America was the “first country to abolish slavery” don’t even realize America didn’t abolish slavery. So even if they were right, they’d still be wrong.
Didn’t England do it first?
A number of other countries did it first.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom
And only as recently as 2022 did we have a few states (four) abolish, without exception, the state constitution version of “except as punishment for a crime”. For the first time in US History!
I don’t understand, in that article it points out that Alabama allows this without pay, but then later in the article said Alabama is one of four that doesn’t allow this…?
Yes, it’s odd. I think this snippet from the second article about the four states might shed light:
“The approved measures will not immediately change the states’ prison systems, but they could lead to legal challenges about prisoners being forced to work or facing sanctions or loss of certain privileges if they don’t.”
Meanwhile the conservatives complain the IlLeGaLs are taking all their jobs.
Either stay in your country or go through the proper channels. Or work as a field laborer for pennies on the dollar…sounds like there are a couple choices here, no one is forcing people to cross illegally. Edit I read no good, my b
Either stay in your country or go through the proper channels. Or work as a field laborer for pennies on the dollar…sounds like there are a couple choices here, no one is forcing people to cross illegally.
In your rush to dunk on folks who have made a difficult decision at a low point in their likely quite difficult lives, you failed to actually read what you replied to. But I’m guessing your response is now “they are criminals so they have no rights, and so who cares about their humanity.”
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So you didn’t read the meme still, or are we changing topics now? I’m interested to hear your defense of slavery.
First, riddle me this and I’ll decide whether to engage with you or not. Is breaking the law a choice? I’m not debating whether the laws are right or wrong.
First, riddle me this and I’ll decide whether to engage with you or not.
Don’t worry, I’ve already made that decision for you. Good Day!
Will u b my fren
This is what total total institutionalization looks like, folks.
Since there is literally no activity one can engage in without breaking some law or another in the US? No.
R u a bad boy/girl
They’re literally illegalizing porn and being gay
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I did read it wrong 😂 my bad
It’s not OK to treat the undocumented like slaves either FWIW.
We treat our own people like slaves, what makes them so special?
We treat our own people like slaves, what makes them so special?
You are super close to seeing the actual point.
You’re close to the point, just keep on down that path a little farther
That it’s ok to let prisoners work to pay for their own housing and food instead of the taxpayers?
Profits are being made off of prison labor! That can only mean the amount they produce is greater than what they receive from the state. So they’re not just working for food and housing - they’re working to make someone else richer.
That maybe we shouldn’t be treating anyone like that and that if we are going to have people work, yes even prisoners, should be paid a fair rate instead of pennies on the dollar.
You realize that this can happen to your uncle Cletus and not just illegal immigrants, right? Lol I’m going to assume not, based on your answer. I’m sorry that your parents, yourself, and your school district failed to educate you - there’s still information out here though, just look around. Ask for help if you need to, there’s lots of adults around.
I’ve been to prison and to be honest… When you have a job in there that pays usually 60 to 70 cents an hour, it’s so much better than sitting on your ass and calling your friends/family asking for a handout…It sounds crazy, but after a while you literally crave a purpose/job.
A purpose != a job. Capitalism has tried to equate the two, but it is incorrect
I’m going to break it down into easier concepts. You get bored out of your god damn skull and you want to do anything to pass the time and get out of your cell.
I definitely understand that and I’ve seen that sentiment over and over in news/documentaries about such topics. People like to be busy, work, have meaning, purpose. Activate the mind, pass time. It does not mean that the people should be exploited even if it’s beneficial to them.
I have spent just several days in jail and I know that time. fuckin. crawls.
What do you think about community service?
I think that you need to bring a person understanding and reasoning first and foremost when it comes to crime and punishment. Rehabilitation and education come to mind. If the offender hasn’t mentally changed or grown, it may be unlikely that any benefit from the service time is realized, though it could still lead to it. Change can be prompted from different angles.
People don’t need to be subject to “extended community service” simply because there may be a silver lining somewhere. There are many people locked up for crimes they didn’t commit, and many punishments do not fit the crime, so allowing a grand exploitation scheme is still fucked up and not some Disney magic where people learn lessons and find some quirky meaning.
The point is that because of the lack of illegal immigrants, they now need to use prisoners as slaves instead.
I’m not opposed, yeah I read the post wrong
What about children who were brought across the busted with their family illegally. They were forced.
They aren’t thrown in prison or forced to work either now are they?
