You can't subjectively judge anyone...that is not our place.
No, but that is exactly what is happening with each attack on Southern culture and heritage. People are making subjective judgments based on a minunderstanding of history.
Owning another human being is simply intrinsically evil, end of story.
Slavery was once part of the social construct. The institution itself was neither evil nor good. If it was inherently evil, then how would you explain the fact that the Bible, while not endorsing slavery, doesn't condemn it? The Apostle Paul even sent a slave back to his master.
And the point about pagan cultures is spont-on. Pagans, by definition, don't follow biblical guidelines, and slaves were (and in some countries still are) often worked to death, starved and brutalized in any number of ways. Scripture recognized the reality of slavery, but gave specific instructions as to how slaves were to be treated.
The problem in understanding the historical reality of slavery is that we're separated from it by 140 years. It's difficult to comprehend a society in which one person "owns" the labor of another. It's like women's suffrage. We find it hard to accept that women were denied the right to vote, but they were. Was that evil as well? Or was it simply part of the social construct that we eventually moved beyond?
It's difficult to comprehend a society in which one person "owns" the labor of another. An owner did not just own the labor of a person, but the person him or herself could be bought, sold, mortgaged, or traded. If a so-called "good" master went into debt, his slaves could be sold to the highest bidder irregardless of family ties. As a woman, the idea that my offspring could be sold away to who knows where at my master's whim or misfortune illustrates slavery's evil. And unlike many pagan cultures, it was a condition you were born into, died in, and was the fate of their children.
I can say all that because Greco-Roman slavery was much more like indentured servitude than American chattel slavery. That is why Paul doesn't condemn it outright. I agree with Paul. Paul would have condemned American chattel slavery.
To say that "Slavery was once part of the social construct. The institution itself was neither evil nor good" is one of the most profoundly deconstructionist, relativistic, anti-Christian things I have ever seen on Free Republic. Congratulations!
PS - To say that Paul didn't condemn the slavery of his day and therefore the slavery of American origin is also not to be condemned is to make the same mistake that American theologians who used the Bible to justify slavery did.
PSS - I have yet to subjectively judge anyone. I have not yet condemned a slave owner. Most of them were caught up in something in which they did not have the capacity to transcend. But we are certainly called to condemn or not condemn any person's actions, including entire cultures.
Southern slavery is worthy of condemnation and the fact that we still have people saying that the institution was a social construct neither good nor bad shows that we still have work to do.
PSSS - With regards to how slaves who are brutalized should be treated, you are right. Scripture gives guidelines on what to do. They should be let go or run the risk of getting the treatment of plagues from the Lord of Hosts. Let the people go!
Why is this so hard?