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RE: Slavery, Past and Present - 50 Word Story Contest
Great story, @creatr. And the backstory is an excellent read. I really enjoyed following your discovery process about Abigail and how you made some connections and filled in the blanks with your imagination. Making the connection to today’s political climate is interesting. I think about where we are in history and the current “powers that be” a lot, but had not as yet considered any similarities to the slavery years!
Thanks, Jayna. I am so glad you enjoyed my story and found it interesting and thought-expanding.
It is of course not in the best interests of the "PTB" to allow us to draw parallels between the dark years of American slavery and the present day. They like to keep us distracted and confused with all kinds of "news" about modern celebrities, global crises, party conflicts, and other assorted misdirection.
However, when we step back and look at the common elements between our situation and that of the shipped-in human traffic in the 19th century, the conclusion is unavoidable.
There are many antonyms for freedom, but one tops the list. What else but "slaves" can you call any group of people who are forced to work one third to one half of the year for the government? And I consider the Tax Foundation estimates of "Tax Freedom Day" to be quite conservative because they do not consider all the hidden taxes that we pay, and even then no one seems to consider that with every purchase of goods and services that we make, we are paying the taxes bundled into those prices by the suppliers of those goods and services.
I like the meme below, because it offers a "quick grasp" of our present-day, direct parallel to slavery:
Income Taxation is Slavery... CLICK the image for the article.
That meme came from this pretty good article on the subject.
If you care to read a more thoroughgoing, scholarly argument that compulsory taxation is slavery, here is an excellent treatment by Edward Feser.
While it is certainly depressing and discouraging to consider the truth of our bondage in servitude to human governments, I would rather be consciously aware than blissfully ignorant. Government as we know it, based on the initiation of force, is clearly not the only way to organize society.
In stark contrast to our oppression by the PTB, i.e. the way things are presently, I see considerable hope for humanity in the development of decentralized money (e.g. cryptocurrencies) to replace government fiat and in the advent of DAOs (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) to replace government corporations. Steemit itself is an instance of that trend. But of course, the PTB are fighting every effort to loosen their control; the incarceration of Jared Rice, Sr. for working on key instances of these "liberty tools" is but one recent instance of the concerted efforts of the PTB to continue our abuse.
In any case, I will continue to resist and to attempt to raise awareness. I hope this isn't too much more than you wanted to hear!
I wish you and yours a very Happy New Year, and may we see a palpable decrease in de-facto slavery in the coming year.