7 ms·

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United Sta

"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." Legally speaking seems like in the US that prisoners are slaves. SOURCE: https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.html https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/13thamendment.htm...

pessimizer 9y ago
Yup, it's literally and constitutionally slavery.
wallflower 9y ago
13th is a Netflix documentary about this. Warning: It may be quite difficult to watch. https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741 https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741
- yjgyhj 9y ago
  Is there a DRM-free way to watch this?
  - kefka 9y ago
    That appears to work. https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/16102495/13th.2016.NF.WEBRip https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/16102495/13th.2016.NF.WEBRi...
- Spellman 9y ago
  Arguably also very liberal biased (speaking as a liberal-leaning individual). Much of this theory is based on The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander which first popularized the idea of how we utilized the prison system to intentionally discriminate and keep locked up (for free labor) the african-american populations. There recently was a book discussing a different explanation. In this book, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform by John Pfaff, Pfaff argues it's the perverse incentives of prosecutors and judges that are pushing up the prison population. I don't know enough to say which is true, just wanted to get awareness of the competing ideas on the topic. But definitely there's some really perverse incentives to lock people up for free labor. And, as the documentary accurately points out, it's all built in to the Constitution.
  - anigbrowl 9y ago
    Just because they're different doesn't mean they're incompatible. How do you think those perverse incentives came to exist in the first place? I'm amazed at the mental gymnastics some people will go through to avoid engaging with the fact that some other people are bigoted, selfish, and outright evil. Nor does the existence of perverse incentives mean that those presented with them are helpless to do otherwise than go along with them. That is an abdication of moral responsibility. If you are presented with a perverse incentive that you feel is incompatible with your personal moral calculus, then it is your duty to reject it. To go along with it and then say you had no other choice is no different from the behavior of the 'good Germans' described by Hannah Arendt in The Banality of Evil. It's literally the exercise of privilege. Liberalism only works so long as people are invested in the integrity of the institutions which underpin it. When those institutions are corrupted, liberalism becomes complicit in oppression. This is how democracies devolve into autocracies.
- smartbit 9y ago
  Thank you. Great tip.
danielam 9y ago
If hard labor is the punishment, and the punishment is commensurate with the crime, then no, it's not slavery. Slavery obtains under different conditions.
- grasshopperpurp 9y ago
  If the boots taste like candy, you're really licking a lollipop! If locking people up and forcing them to work is making people billions, it's slavery. Period.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  It's certainly involuntary servitude, and I'm not sure there's a meaningful difference between that and slavery. Also, the word "except" is our key hint here.
  - danielam 9y ago
    It is involuntary (all punishment is!), but it's not servitude in the same sense that slavery is. If you want to call that "slavery" nonetheless, that's up to you, but you'd be equivocating. There is a difference between slavery as an institution of unjust forced submission and "slavery" as just punishment for crimes committed.
    - hajile 9y ago
      The fundamental issue is that the majority (or the oligarchy) decide what is "wrong". I seriously doubt (and see no evidence for the idea) that the US is so lawless that we can have almost a quarter of all prisoners in the entire world while only having a fraction of its population. This speaks strongly to the idea that huge amounts of wrongful imprisonment occurs and (as a logical consequence) these people are slaves against their will without their having done anything worthy of punishment.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      > There is a difference between slavery as an institution of unjust forced submission and "slavery" as just punishment for crimes committed. The difference is solely the standing law. During the nazi regimen (godwin's law, but really) many of the appalling things they did were legal. It was legal to execute, and it was legal to do forced labor. Slavery was always legal, that was the problem all along! A slave could not physically escape without the fear of unpunished retribution.
logfromblammo 9y ago
From my strict reading of the amendment, persons convicted of crimes are not automatically slaves, but could become such if the judge saw fit to include that in sentencing. That's why the Hollywood version sometimes has the judge say, "I sentence you to ten years hard labor at Camp Rockcrusher." If they just said "ten years confinement in Oubliette Prison," then the prisoner would not be compelled to do anything against their will. Instead, we oversentence criminals, and use the low-wage prison jobs as a carrot to reduce their prison time. You can work for peanuts and get out early, or you can serve your entire sentence. The net effect is the same. The rent-seeking profit motive makes the criminal justice system more cruel and exploitative.
bighi 9y ago
Well, it's not like the justice system in the US cares for the constitution. Or even the laws.

pessimizer 9y ago

Yup, it's literally and constitutionally slavery.

wallflower 9y ago

13th is a Netflix documentary about this. Warning: It may be quite difficult to watch. https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741 https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741

yjgyhj 9y ago
Is there a DRM-free way to watch this?
- kefka 9y ago
  That appears to work. https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/16102495/13th.2016.NF.WEBRip https://thepiratebay.org/torrent/16102495/13th.2016.NF.WEBRi...
Spellman 9y ago
Arguably also very liberal biased (speaking as a liberal-leaning individual). Much of this theory is based on The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander which first popularized the idea of how we utilized the prison system to intentionally discriminate and keep locked up (for free labor) the african-american populations. There recently was a book discussing a different explanation. In this book, Locked In: The True Causes of Mass Incarceration and How to Achieve Real Reform by John Pfaff, Pfaff argues it's the perverse incentives of prosecutors and judges that are pushing up the prison population. I don't know enough to say which is true, just wanted to get awareness of the competing ideas on the topic. But definitely there's some really perverse incentives to lock people up for free labor. And, as the documentary accurately points out, it's all built in to the Constitution.
- anigbrowl 9y ago
  Just because they're different doesn't mean they're incompatible. How do you think those perverse incentives came to exist in the first place? I'm amazed at the mental gymnastics some people will go through to avoid engaging with the fact that some other people are bigoted, selfish, and outright evil. Nor does the existence of perverse incentives mean that those presented with them are helpless to do otherwise than go along with them. That is an abdication of moral responsibility. If you are presented with a perverse incentive that you feel is incompatible with your personal moral calculus, then it is your duty to reject it. To go along with it and then say you had no other choice is no different from the behavior of the 'good Germans' described by Hannah Arendt in The Banality of Evil. It's literally the exercise of privilege. Liberalism only works so long as people are invested in the integrity of the institutions which underpin it. When those institutions are corrupted, liberalism becomes complicit in oppression. This is how democracies devolve into autocracies.
smartbit 9y ago
Thank you. Great tip.

danielam 9y ago

If hard labor is the punishment, and the punishment is commensurate with the crime, then no, it's not slavery. Slavery obtains under different conditions.

grasshopperpurp 9y ago
If the boots taste like candy, you're really licking a lollipop! If locking people up and forcing them to work is making people billions, it's slavery. Period.
throwawayjava 9y ago
It's certainly involuntary servitude, and I'm not sure there's a meaningful difference between that and slavery. Also, the word "except" is our key hint here.
- danielam 9y ago
  It is involuntary (all punishment is!), but it's not servitude in the same sense that slavery is. If you want to call that "slavery" nonetheless, that's up to you, but you'd be equivocating. There is a difference between slavery as an institution of unjust forced submission and "slavery" as just punishment for crimes committed.
  - hajile 9y ago
    The fundamental issue is that the majority (or the oligarchy) decide what is "wrong". I seriously doubt (and see no evidence for the idea) that the US is so lawless that we can have almost a quarter of all prisoners in the entire world while only having a fraction of its population. This speaks strongly to the idea that huge amounts of wrongful imprisonment occurs and (as a logical consequence) these people are slaves against their will without their having done anything worthy of punishment.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    > There is a difference between slavery as an institution of unjust forced submission and "slavery" as just punishment for crimes committed. The difference is solely the standing law. During the nazi regimen (godwin's law, but really) many of the appalling things they did were legal. It was legal to execute, and it was legal to do forced labor. Slavery was always legal, that was the problem all along! A slave could not physically escape without the fear of unpunished retribution.

logfromblammo 9y ago

From my strict reading of the amendment, persons convicted of crimes are not automatically slaves, but could become such if the judge saw fit to include that in sentencing. That's why the Hollywood version sometimes has the judge say, "I sentence you to ten years hard labor at Camp Rockcrusher." If they just said "ten years confinement in Oubliette Prison," then the prisoner would not be compelled to do anything against their will. Instead, we oversentence criminals, and use the low-wage prison jobs as a carrot to reduce their prison time. You can work for peanuts and get out early, or you can serve your entire sentence. The net effect is the same. The rent-seeking profit motive makes the criminal justice system more cruel and exploitative.

bighi 9y ago

Well, it's not like the justice system in the US cares for the constitution. Or even the laws.