Article 1. [All persons born free; their natural rights; slavery and indentured servitude prohibited]
That all persons are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety; therefore slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited.
Article 1 of the Vermont Constitution of 1777. Vermont is awesome.
Also, article 3 specifically establishes freedom from religion:
Article 3. [Freedom in religion; right and duty of religious worship]
That all persons have a natural and unalienable right, to worship Almighty God, according to the dictates of their own consciences and understandings, as in their opinion shall be regulated by the word of God; and that no person ought to, or of right can be compelled to attend any religious worship, or erect or support any place of worship, or maintain any minister, contrary to the dictates of conscience, nor can any person be justly deprived or abridged of any civil right as a citizen, on account of religious sentiments, or peculia[r] mode of religious worship; and that no authority can, or ought to be vested in, or assumed by, any power whatever, that shall in any case interfere with, or in any manner control the rights of conscience, in the free exercise of religious worship. Nevertheless, every sect or denomination of christians ought to observe the sabbath or Lord’s day, and keep up some sort of religious worship, which to them shall seem most agreeable to the revealed will of God.
In this context? Probably so that prisons pay for themselves. Or the loophole was intentional – it seems rather obvious that Southern states could pass arbitrary laws and enforce them willy-nilly, targeting minorities or whoever fell out of favor of the ruling class.
In the 19th century, it was widely believed that people were criminals because of moral deficiency, and that hard labor would have a positive effect in reforming them into good, upstanding members of society.
This is not really connected to reality in any way, but fits with the popular protestant theology of the time.
Logically, slavery as punishment for crime is actually pretty reasonable and theoretically good. The criminal isn’t just taken care of by the state, thus costing the people even more, instead, they actually have to pay for their crime by working it off.
But reality intrudes upon this theoretical situation. Since someone benefits from the criminal’s work, there’s now incentive to imprison as many people as possible. It creates perverse incentives that cannot possibly be avoided.
But almost as bad a perverse incentive is the for profit prison system, even if they aren’t allowed to force prisoner labor. Because for profit prisons again have the incentive to imprison as many people as possible since that makes them more money; anything that reduces incarceration rate means less money for them.
Of course, we have both of these going for us. For profit prisons that make more money off the state the more prisoners they have, and the permission to force labor from them since the Constitution specifically allows it, thus letting the prisons make money twice off each prisoner. Yay!
Yeah even theoretically it’s a bad idea. You can’t revoke the fundamental rights of people, even criminals, or the fundamental rights are not fundamental anymore, thus endangered for everyone, not just criminals.
As reasoning for its decision, laws of the following governments of sovereign states were given as listed in The Statesman’s Yearbook for 1917 as enforcing military service
The justices were literaly looking for any reason to keep the draft (for an unwinnable war that the pentagon lied about for years)
And yes, the draft is by definition servitude/slavery and is illegal under the 13th.
The “Protestant Work Ethic” of the 19th century demanded that prisoners work for the sake of their own ‘moral development’. Turns out it was a really great excuse to turn prison wardens into labor contractors.
“Huh, I wonder why these Good Ol’ Boys put so many former slaves on this chain gang? It must be a coincidence. Good thing this doesn’t resemble anything unfortunate!”
Verily, let us garb them akin to zebras, so as to confound the discernment of whether they be black thralls with white stripes or white thralls with black stripes!
I mean tbf there are things you can have prisoners do that seem to help develop them in the prison, working with animals is the one I remember most recently, but in the Nordics they actually have these guys chop down the timber they use for the community stove and the woodshop.
Maybe we just gotta ask if the job is analogous to anything that a kid in grade school would have willingly signed up for.
Indeed. The first amendment right. Apparently criticizing Israel in any way shape or form is antisemitism… and antisemitism has a fluid definition. Virtually the first amendment would be eroded if the new anti-Semitism law is passed.
Also the fact that at gun point, we’re forced to give up a portion of our income to Israel so that they can afford arsenal, free health care for all, and other living expenses for their citizens.
Just bitching about Israel whether it’s relevant or not isn’t antisemitism, but it makes you look like an antisemite. Go and find a conversation about the war and complain about Israel there.
… And by resounding, you’re extending this tangent. And, before accusations of hypocrisy fall from your fingers, I’m not the one who is complaining about this.
Dude, what? You’re so lost. Anyways, I don’t think anyone is hating on you, it’s just hilarious how you tried to get the Israel conversation going, like it was such a fail.
The United States has the largest known prison population in the world, it has 5% of the world’s population, and 20% of the world’s incarcerated persons. China, with four times more inhabitants, has fewer persons in prison.
China, with four times more inhabitants, has fewer persons in prison.
China, being well-known for its honesty and upstanding record-keeping. That’s why they punished Al-Jazeera English for investigating their prison system, and why nothing at all is going on in Xinjiang.
Welll, there’s also 1.8 million Uyghurs being reeductated, which is more than the 1.2 million in the prison system. So, one number is bigger than another and doesn’t even count the Chinese prison system.
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