Would you condemn all pet owners because a few beat there pets or some fight them against each other? Should the states that allow pet ownership be justifiably burnt to the ground as someone suggested was deserved of the South earlier in this thread?
“Whenever I hear any one arguing for slavery I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.”
If it’s such a wonderful condition, why don’t you sign yourself and your family up? There are a number of Muslim countries that would probably accept volunteers.
Good God - aren’t you embarrased that you just wrote that?
Are you honestly saying that there is any comparison between owning a human being as property and owning a dog or a cat?
Pets. Ok. I know we cannot compare the social norms of today against those of 150 years ago. We can agree to that.
But if we love our slaves as we do “pets”, I would hate to be your sweet Golden Retriever bitch.
My point is that just the term slave should be enough to turn your stomach, today, 50 years ago, 5000 years ago.
I know there “have always been slaves.” But it has always been morally wrong. I appreciate our founding fathers had to swallow some of their feelings about this. They should have split right away, after the revolution. Settled it then and there.
You all can try to have it make sense. But it will never be right. You do not have the right to own another person. And, if you sleep with it, it is either a person or you are an abomination of the worst kind.
What is it?
Those who treated their slaves with dignity, freed them after reasonable periods, and didn’t rape, torture, or kidnap them certainly were admirable.
The law, sadly, did not distinguish between those who raped, and those who didn’t. The law made it progressively more difficult to free slaves. As slave law evolved, even freed slaves lost rights.
As an example, North Carolina permitted freedmen to vote until 1835, and after that, forbade it. Freed slaves were in some cases forbidden to live in the same state as their family that had not been freed.
Some resorted to clever legal approaches. Some created corporations, so they were still slaves (to the corporation that they owned) and could continue to live near their families. Black owned corporations had more rights than freed blacks. Their corporations would often turn a profit, and they could buy more family members, effectively into freedom. When the family was all owned by the corporation, they could at their discretion sell their shares, buy themselves, and head out for a free state.