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RE: Elizabeth Warren Calls for a 'Full-Blown' Conversation About Reparations
I take it that by your definition 'imprisonment' as punishment from crimes is slavery.
Fine...bring back the pain. Either death or some form of torture for crimes. Lashes, whipping, embarrassment (stocks in the town square)...etc.
Shirely you don't think a million dollar fine is significant punishment to a billionaire?
(the USA has more millionaires than Sweden has people....thought you'd like to know)
but a million dollar fine would devastate anyone NOT a multimillionaire...how is THAT fair?
Equal punishment for the crime?
(bring on the pain)
I agree with what you said about the democrats. They have been and ARE the party of slavery.
Not exactly. Slavery is pretty much forced labor without nominal compensation. The 13th Amendment doesn't mandate imprisonment, but actual slavery. I oppose this unreservedly. Not only is slavery barbaric, unlawful (whether or not it is claimed to be legally permissible), and a crime against humanity, it is a direct financial incentive to imprison people.
I believe this has contributed to America becoming the nation in the history of the world with the highest per capita incarceration rates ever. If an argument supposes that Americans are simply more criminal than every other people, then our incarceration rates would have always been so elevated. This is clearly not the case.
While some lag between the adoption of the 13th Amendement and the horrific increase in incarceration rates is shown, the increase followed that legalization of slavery for those imprisoned by the states and federal government, and is not evident in other nations that do not use their prisoners as slaves.
I'm not even seeking to reform the American Penal Industrial Complex otherwise (although almost no one thinks it requires no reform) but only to eliminate that financial incentive to imprison people.
I hope we can agree on that one thing I seek here: the permanent and total abolition of slavery in the Land of the Free. I am disgusted by the very thought that we have become instead the Home of the Slave.
Thanks!
Edit: I wanted to add that the penal reforms you discuss are all far preferable to me, and I would be open to any consideration of penal reform - subsequent to the abolition of slavery.