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The US was certainly “gentle” in how it reunited, which I am not sure was the correct move. Doesn’t mean progress wasn’t made and it doesn’t mean prison == slavery.
Similarly, Japan and Germany post Second World War.
For contrast, look at how well our De-Ba’athification policy went in Iraq, disenfranchising a largely uninvolved military trained, fighting aged male population for the crimes of few at the top of the pyramid.
For the life of me I don’t understand the fools intent on retrying a 150 year old conflict they no party to.
> Otherwise you would have seen an insurgency worse than the Klansman.
Klansmen didn't gain much influence until 50 years later when they had captured the imagination of a certain US President.
> crimes of few at the top of the pyramid.
Okay, we're going to have to debunk this again. Slavery was bad and a lot of southern white people were involved to keep that system in place. A majority owned, controlled, or rented the enslaved. So it was not a few who benefitted slavery, there weren't a few Germans in the Nazi party, and there weren't a couple of French who supported the Vichy regime while everyone else was in the resistance.
While the klan itself didn't gain influence until later, it was one of a litany of paramilitary groups engaged in similar acts. Those groups were very influential, using intimidation to secure Democratic control of the South for decades.
Calling them all the KKK is technically incorrect, but basically right
The "second place in the presidential election becomes VP" system ended with the Twelfth Amendment in 1804.
Johnson was VP because Lincoln and the Republicans picked him as a compromise candidate to show solidarity with the South. Something that somewhat backfired after Lincoln's assassination.
>> Okay, we're going to have to debunk this again. [Examples of the South, Nazi Germany, France]
Weren't they talking about Iraq?
Well… it’s pretty simple: lots of people are racist fucking losers who think it was the war and not their own moral failures that kicked their “glorious lineage” into the mud.
Prison in these cases is slavery, but that doesn't mean slavery == chattel slavery.
Those who whine about how putting them to work amounts to slavery seem to do so out of pure reflex, and it's just tiresome. You're ok with locking them in a dungeon, but god forbid that they be put to work. You realize that most actually earn wages, and that none of them are doing it for free, right? There's just no point, the assholes usually sabotage products if forced.
No, under threat of *torture*.
Solitary confinement is torture.
What are authorities to do when they demand compliance, and the criminal says "oh, no thank you, I kindly refuse to submit to your authority"? When the convict says "no, I don't think I will accept this punishment"?
So sure. Threat of torture. I'm feeling ok about it. Glad we cleared that up.
PS You make a good case for suspending executions. Imagine 40 or 50 years of solitary. Could even use robots to deliver meals, so that they can't even pretend that there's another human being on the other side of the vault door once a day or so. Really, what do you think prisons are?
Some pre civil war era slaves were also paid.
Getting paid is not a differentiator in the definition of a slave.
We could make up an infographic about how convicts in most states can't even afford a 3 bedroom, 1 car garage apartment on their prison wages just to show everyone how evil it is.
There are abuses in prison that decent people should be offended by and work to prevent, but the idea that they are offered work for wages and the dollar amount's not up to the standards of the "let's unionize Starbucks" crowd just isn't one of them.
The problem with specifically stating in the Constitution that slavery is abolished EXCEPT as punishment for a crime is that in today's day and age, it incentivizes punishment.
Can you or I say with any certainty that fish suppliers will be able to survive if they don't utilize legalized slave labor to farm their fish? We've just created an incentive for "Slave Fish Co." to lobby their local government to not fund rehabilitation services, or community outreach programs, and reduce investment in social programs. Create a local community that doesn't offer affordable rehab facilities and now the only option is going to prison.
Work as a form of rehabilitation makes sense when utilized correctly. But this is work as a form of punishment and we tied it in with economic factors. As I said, this just incentivizes local governments and lobbyists to ensure a growing supply of dirt-cheap labor.
It can't ever work correctly as rehabilitation. In the early 20th century, maybe those reformers had an excuse to believe that criminals just didn't have any honest options. But we know better today. Too many counter-examples of those who do have honest options, but commit crimes anyway. Why? They get a thrill out of it. Criminality becomes its own culture, one in which they can achieve a high status. It's simply a better career path to participate in that culture than to try to become adopted by another that you'd be a "foreigner" in for decades before you could ever find a path in that new one?
And in the meantime, it must be so thrilling. Lots of adrenaline. Lots of cash. Being chased, but feeling like you're too clever to be found or too strong to being taken down.
There's no rehabilitating that, not with work programs or anything else.
> Create a local community that doesn't offer affordable rehab facilities and now the only option is going to prison.
Haha. I know there's alot of shit being posted on reddit and other places like it about the poor guy who got caught with a joint and is sent to prison for 20 years, but do you really believe that? The junkie doesn't want rehab, and if he does (it must happen once in awhile, I suppose), rehab's not the difference between him quitting and falling down further into the spiral.
Most of the people there are guilty of violent crimes, the rest are guilty of selling large quantities of heroin and making things worse for that poor junkie you're so concerned about. The numbers bear this out, if you care to check.
There are a few borderline instances here and there, but prison labor isn't incentivizing any sort of corruption of the sort you're claiming to any degree we should be worried about. At least in this country. Who knows about China.