on slavery as punishment

  The thirteenth amendment to the US Constitution reads, "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."

  By any measure, this amendment does not abolish slavery - it makes slavery into an acceptable, official form of punishment. If my memory serves me correctly, however, few if any convicted criminals have been sentenced recently to slavery or indentured servitude. The use of slavery as a punitive measure would be more useful in some situations, less in others. A petty thief is fairly likely to renounce his life of crime after a few hard seasons under the lash, while a corporate officer convicted of fraud and embezzlement, a white man accustomed to the finest treatment his ill-won gains could bring him, such a man might just emerge from his grueling months toiling in the hot summer sun a humble and reformed person. Similarly, a man-slaughtering cuckold is unlikely to find redemption in tall swaying fields of sugarcane (a modern industry in which slavery is still widespread today), while the bankers who were allowed to profit enormously from the sale of fraudulent mortgage-backed securities would truly understand the meaning of labor if put to task making self-guided V2 rockets in the caves of central Germany.

  Perhaps is is because so many Americans have enslaved themselves willingly to the whore-gods of small-scale capital gain and conspicuous materialism that slavery is not used more frequently as a punitive measure: the slave is already under the yoke, so allowing her to max out her credit cards and providing her with no better outlet at which to express her abounding creativity and endless potential – in her pursuit of food, shelter, and clothing, the Three Fundamental Components of Safety – no better outlet than some menial, repetitive job, her self-imposed and self-maintained slavery ensures that the fruits of her hard labor are not afforded to her but to the very few persons who sit atop America's pyramid-scheme of capitalism. The slave will be in debt until the day she dies, always struggling to make the minimal payment for things she did not truly need, and could not truly afford.

  I abhor slavery. I do not think any person should ever be put (or put themselves) in chains, but as long as our Constitution states that slavery can be utilized as a way to punish criminals, we should consider using it to bring the false princes of capitalism down a peg or two. The humble are not just the backbone of civil society, they are its savior.

  Until next time, I remain, your most humble and loyal servant, &c.

Ultima Ratio Regum - 場黑麥 John Paul Roggenkamp