07-09-2016, 09:02 AM
I just want to add as a clarification, that here in the US, when we actually outlawed slavery, the thirteenth amendment specifically made a caveat for criminals - if cleared physically, incarcerated folks get threatened with even worse than a beating if they refuse to work - solitary confinement. Our prison-industrial complex is a direct offshoot of our previous slave-driven economy, in fact there are "prisons" in the south that are located on old cotton plantations where the inmates are forced to literally pick cotton in the sun while men on horseback watch over them.
So, I didn't mean to complicate your moral dilemma more, but at least here in America, prisons are definitely a cheap, exploited labor force, and in fact I would think that modern prisons cause more yellow-ray blockages (as opposed to slaves in the 1850s dealing with orange ray) due to the "system" that we have set up that says that black men aren't punished more severely yet they still are. In 1865, I believe it was easier for one to accept their role as "slave" because there wasn't much else to dream of as an experience. Now, we just use our judicial system to create this cheap/free labor force of minorities.
So, I didn't mean to complicate your moral dilemma more, but at least here in America, prisons are definitely a cheap, exploited labor force, and in fact I would think that modern prisons cause more yellow-ray blockages (as opposed to slaves in the 1850s dealing with orange ray) due to the "system" that we have set up that says that black men aren't punished more severely yet they still are. In 1865, I believe it was easier for one to accept their role as "slave" because there wasn't much else to dream of as an experience. Now, we just use our judicial system to create this cheap/free labor force of minorities.