Just to be clear here, you're directing us towards your comment history as evidence of unjust persecution by "non-intellectual" opponents. What a shocking coinc

Just to be clear here, you're directing us towards your comment history as evidence of unjust persecution by "non-intellectual" opponents. What a shocking coincidence the people who disagree with you are non-intellectual. Did you ever perhaps consider that you are the one being non-intellectual? I see this tactic all the time on the right, people claiming they only want a "frank, honest discussion", but it seems words like "frank" "honest discussion" are so often code words for "a discussion where I can say anything I please no matter how nasty or offensive or how little I understand the issue, without any evidence, argument, or support, and nobody calls me out on it". On slavery, I don't really know that anyone cares if it's economically beneficial, because it's morally disgusting -- its economic benefits are moot and pointless to discuss, since it's simply not an option for a civilized society. So by arguing in support of its benefits you are trying to lend credence to the idea that it should be instituted, which is why all the hate. Or so the argument goes. I think the problem here is not with presenting a defense of its economic benefits, it's with the central neoliberal fallacy rather that suggests "good economically" == "good", or even suggests "good economically" is a thing that can exist and be defined without considering perspectives, e.g. "good economically for the owning class" whereas I'd argue the entire notion is nebulous and murky and undefinable, and even if it were not, wholly irrelevant to the issue since it's a moral one not an economic one.