Escravatura nos dia de hoje

Slaves to the Past, by Butler Shaffer

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The practice of slavery derives from collectivist premises; from the idea that the lives and property of individuals may rightfully be claimed by others. Slavery does not depend on racism: historically, those vanquished in wars were often made slaves of the conquering tribes or city-states.
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I suspect that George Bush loses about as much sleep over the "sins" of slavery as he does for the "heartbreak of psoriasis." But in case I am wrong, and he is truly desirous of eradicating slavery’s wickedness from our social system, I would invite him to take steps to end the current system of state slavery in America, whereby over 45% of the wealth produced each year by Americans is taken via taxation. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution did not end slavery: it nationalized it, giving the state a monopoly on the practice!

He might also proceed to dismantle an ever-grasping state regulatory system that dictates how people are to live their lives, raise and educate their children, what food and other substances to consume, etc. Such controls, coupled with the extraction of wealth from the producers, represents the essence of any slave system. So deeply has the slave mindset worked its way into our culture and thinking that we continue to refer to ourselves as "assets" or "resources" to our community, while many states declare "our children" to be "our most precious commodity."

In the 1905 U.S. Supreme Court case, Lochner v. New York, Justice Harlan made the point about as explicitly as one could expect from a state official. A New York statute limiting the number of hours people could work in bakeries was struck down by the Court. In dissenting, Harlan stated that excessive hours of work "may endanger the health, and shorten the lives of the workmen, thereby diminishing their physical and mental capacity to serve the State, and to provide for those dependent upon them" (emphasis added).

Though the institution of slavery has been modified in form over the years, its exploitative premises remain intact in the apparatus of the state. It is well to understand its nature and, to this end, a reading of history is essential. But for history to be of value, its lessons need to be made relevant to the present. To search the rosters of modern collective groupings for both "victims" and "wrongdoers" of past wrongdoings is but to continue energizing the vicious game, all to the benefit of the state.

As wars, slavery, genocides, and other oppressive practices teach us, it takes a long time for the entropy generated by political systems to work their way out of society. But if we are to end such inhumane destructiveness, either we must confront its modern ugliness, or hope that someone else, at some time in the future, will exhibit the sense of responsibility that we prefer to avoid. We cannot continue to find comfort in empty, mindless bromides babbled by empty-headed politicians, and imagine that we are "doing something" about the destructive world we have created. We should rise to the task, if for no other reason than to save ourselves from having to apologize to our children and grandchildren.