Vision Forum Wide Stance on Slavery

[YPestis]

The pro-slavery tilt of right-wingers and fundies is an area I never understood. These are the same people who hate on any form of social programs because it's a form of theft of unearned services/goods. They wax poetry about capitalism and bemoan the country filled with welfare queens who never learned to work. Well.....isn't slavery the ultimate form of laziness? You got someone doing the work and someone else reaping the benefits of that labor. Isn't that theft? Isn't that the ultimate anti-capitalistic system?

Of course, fundies favor the slave owners because they introduced Christianity to the African slaves. These slave apologists think abuses were an anomaly and that most slaves were "well cared for". This brings me to another point. Hypothetically, those good Christian slave owners were so good that they ensured their slaves all had their needs "taken care of", then they admit to approving a system that is akin to a form of socialism. Your master provides you with everything you need because they are superior beings who knows better.

Honestly, how can people have this cognitive dissonance?

[Ellimenopy]

The pro-slavery tilt of right-wingers and fundies is an area I never understood. These are the same people who hate on any form of social programs because it's a form of theft of unearned services/goods. They wax poetry about capitalism and bemoan the country filled with welfare queens who never learned to work. Well.....isn't slavery the ultimate form of laziness? You got someone doing the work and someone else reaping the benefits of that labor. Isn't that theft? Isn't that the ultimate anti-capitalistic system?

Of course, fundies favor the slave owners because they introduced Christianity to the African slaves. These slave apologists think abuses were an anomaly and that most slaves were "well cared for". This brings me to another point. Hypothetically, those good Christian slave owners were so good that they ensured their slaves all had their needs "taken care of", then they admit to approving a system that is akin to a form of socialism. Your master provides you with everything you need because they are superior beings who knows better.

Honestly, how can people have this cognitive dissonance?

I think that VF and fundies like them just in general dream of a society where they are on top. So patricians in Rome, or plantation owners in the South, wherever the upper class seems idyll, that's where they want to be. In their minds they were predestined to be rulers. Are they really into slavery or they into all the trappings of the upper class, including slaves (which they then have to justify)? There is a difference.

[salex]

They wax poetry about capitalism and bemoan the country filled with welfare queens who never learned to work. Well.....isn't slavery the ultimate form of laziness? You got someone doing the work and someone else reaping the benefits of that labor. Isn't that theft? Isn't that the ultimate anti-capitalistic system?

Hypothetically, those good Christian slave owners were so good that they ensured their slaves all had their needs "taken care of", then they admit to approving a system that is akin to a form of socialism. Your master provides you with everything you need because they are superior beings who knows better.

The two highlighted sections are tied together with the following rascist explanation (the guy I heard it from was not religious)-- Slavery gave people the benefits of welfare, except they had to work for it, so it was more "fair". Not my understanding of the process, but whatever.

I think that VF and fundies like them just in general dream of a society where they are on top. So patricians in Rome, or plantation owners in the South, wherever the upper class seems idyll, that's where they want to be. In their minds they were predestined to be rulers.

This is a theme I see in so many people who think that "after the revolution/ when we take over/ after the big plague- My TRUE worth will be seen, an I will be KING-- and all those evil others will be under my heel."

It is a lifelong and fully developed fantasy for a lot of people it seems.

[DarkAnts]

I have a friend who things that we need a good plague to wipe out 1/3 of the word population. She has no grad idea of becoming queen. She just thinks we would all be better off if there were fewer people here fighting for the limited resources.

[CelticGoddess]

Thank you. My next question is whether there's any closet in the world big enough to hold both those guys and their egos.

Somehow I doubt it. I don't think a black hole is big enough to hold their egos. :lol:

[salex]

I have a friend who things that we need a good plague to wipe out 1/3 of the word population. She has no grad idea of becoming queen. She just thinks we would all be better off if there were fewer people here fighting for the limited resources.

Does she assume she would survive both the plague and the social/political turmoil after said thinning of the herd. I am interested in after effects of pandemics both immediate. Which I see as destabilizing and long term when the potential for benefits like your friend foresees

ay occur.

[wild little fox]

I have a friend who things that we need a good plague to wipe out 1/3 of the word population. She has no grad idea of becoming queen. She just thinks we would all be better off if there were fewer people here fighting for the limited resources.

Even though I would not wish that to happen it would be benificial. There would be less workers so they would be able to demand a living wage, safe working conditions, etc. According to what I've studied about post plague Europe the results were the demise of the feudal system. Also people made better wages and thus had more free time and it spawned the Renissance.

[YPestis]

I think that VF and fundies like them just in general dream of a society where they are on top. So patricians in Rome, or plantation owners in the South, wherever the upper class seems idyll, that's where they want to be. In their minds they were predestined to be rulers. Are they really into slavery or they into all the trappings of the upper class, including slaves (which they then have to justify)? There is a difference.

I think you are right. They don't examine the ethics and the economic implications of slavery. They are just enamored with the trappings of being in power. Slave were always part of the wealthy classes in the past, so they accept it and then find justification for it. I think it's also why they love the Victorian era so much, ignoring the fact the wealthy were only able to live that lifestyle due to poor, WORKING women, including working mothers. Hello, where do they think wet nurses came from?

I think it's a common fantasy for those on the fringe to think society will see them at the top once the current world order upends.

Doomsday preppers, fundies, rapture ready.....these people all look forward to the end the world with the certainty that they will come up on top. I think there's a deep sense of unhappiness with their current lives, so looking towards a end of the world offers them hope for a better future.

[notachance]

A had a sudden terrifying flashback to Estates and Trust class 20 years ago...and the Rule Against Perpetuities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_against_perpetuities

So yeah, back in 1682, the courts in England ruled that this was a bad idea.

i don't like this, so much as appreciate that that the immediate mental reaction i have to RAP is to picture kathleen turner in "body heat." too bad pennsylvania didn't get rid of this nightmare until roughly 320 years after england did

[MamaJunebug]

... Per the linked Rushdooney article I did see his quote about how pagans should/could be enslaved. ...

Reallly! Rushdooney said that? Well isn't that special: Very much like that Nazi semi-hero, von Stauffenberg, who is respected as a Nazi who tried to assassinate Hitler. Stauffenberg believed that Slavic peoples were suited for work in the fields and should be so used, IOW, don't gas too many of them. And I rather imagine lots of his contemporaries agreed with him.

Slavery: endorsed by Nazis, endorsed by Dominionists. At least the Nazis were upfront about being pagan (their version of Norse/Germanic pre-Christian religions). Dominionists have the gall to call themselves Christians and they have NO RIGHT to do so!

[DarkAnts]

Does she assume she would survive both the plague and the social/political turmoil after said thinning of the herd. I am interested in after effects of pandemics both immediate. Which I see as destabilizing and long term when the potential for benefits like your friend foresees

ay occur.

She makes no assumption she would survive. She has no grand plans on working hard to survive either. She is in no way shape or form a doomsday prepper. She just thinks it would be beneficial to the planet if it happened.

[JesusFightClub]

She makes no assumption she would survive. She has no grand plans on working hard to survive either. She is in no way shape or form a doomsday prepper. She just thinks it would be beneficial to the planet if it happened.

I know a lot of green anarchists who think that way, and I have a relative who reads a combination of Nietzsche and New Scientist who would agree :D None of the above harbour ambitions to be part of some ruling caste (not even the Nietzschean).

It's not necessarily the case that those who are after a complete change of society hope this will result in bennies for them. Sure, they may hope that one side wins, but no-one calls soldiers selfish for hoping they'll a. win battles and b. come home alive.

[browngrl]

If fundies are so sure that slavery is ok then they should put their freedom where their mouth is and volunteer to be the slaves. Let's see how that would work for them.

[MamaJunebug]

If fundies are so sure that slavery is ok then they should put their freedom where their mouth is and volunteer to be the slaves. Let's see how that would work for them.

How bout that?

But isn't the definition of slavery partly that it's involuntary? That one is sold by one's enemies, or later their owners; or captured and enslaved by a conquering force?

Even freemen who are family servants have very little free time or self-determination. Look at the P.G. Wodehouse books or the wonderful TV version of some of them as told in the "Jeeves and Wooster" series. Jeeves has one night off a week, and that's not an overnight. When the wealthy turn in for bed, Jeeves and the other servants are still dressed for work and available. When the wealthy arise - at whatever hour - the servants *will* be dressed for work and available.

Life "In service" is no picnic, and these people think slavery is gonna make things better??? Idiotz. :doh:

[apple1]

In their minds they were predestined to be rulers....It is a lifelong and fully developed fantasy for a lot of people it seems.

Sounds like a mental illness, doesn't it? (I don't say that as an excuse, either).

[changemanagement]

Yeah, I'm not digging the idea of being 3/5 a human. Reverting back to slavery is not going to give me a benevolent master. Benevolent master = oxymoron. These people are idiots.

[jenny_islander]

LOL! I'm not laughing at you, I promise. I'm laughing at their hubris. The 200-Year Plan is a sort of document the modern patriarch works out to direct his family and their affairs for the next 200 years, towards what he considers Biblical dominion over other people and the world in general. That way, the oaf can exercise his overmastering need to control everything even from beyond the grave, assuming his descendents stick to the plan he made for them and come to fill the roles he expects they should take.

Hopefully the next generation doesn't try to fulfill the patriarch's 200-year plan--or write their own. Imagine trying to cope with 200 years of change while dragging around the detailed action plan of somebody who thought he could predict everything!

200 years ago, my direct paternal ancestor was shoveling cow crap somewhere in rural Ireland. He probably couldn't read or write and he most likely didn't go more than a day's walk from his birthplace ever. Do you think he could have imagined me sitting here talking with people all over the planet on this thing? If he were plucked out of his time and dropped into my oldest brother's perfectly ordinary suburban tract home, with the TV blaring and the phone ringing and the truck parked out front, would he even think he was still on Earth? Would he have a clue how his descendant-patriarch's (not that my brother believes in this crap) ordinary blue-collar job even worked? Or his wife's white-collar job? 200 years from now, what are the descendants of the patriarchs going to be doing that the current generation can't even imagine?