save the white soldiers: ending slavery without war

[Borsabil]

So? Still doesn't change the fact that killing some fucking slavers is better than killing none of them.

How about you stop consuming the products that slavers produce? Do that and then get back to me.

[Galactus]

You're quoting semantics. China has legalized slavery, the vast majority of the prisoners in the camps are there because they have the wrong political opinions or religious beliefs. They are the effective property of the Chinese government. They are literally worked to death to make shit for export to western countries which are happily consumed by the likes of you and me.

No, there are definite differences. Corveé or prison-labour is not slavery. Much as the conditions are deplorable.

And again, as the others have pointed out, so what? It is somehow better to free no slaves than to free some of them? I'm confused about what you're actually trying to argue.

[DanteGabriel]

How about you stop consuming the products that slavers produce? Do that and then get back to me.

What kind of device are you using to get on the Internet and post your faux outrage? Is it 100% certified sweatshop-free?

[Borsabil]

What kind of device are you using to get on the Internet and post your faux outrage? Is it 100% certified sweatshop-free?

Am I advocating mass killing? Nah. Hey I admit I'm a hypocrite, white people enslaving black people is terrible, black people enslaving other black people, or brown enslaving brown? Yeah not so much.

[all swedes are racist]

But seriously, what is your point? Yes, there is terrible forced labor conditions in China and other parts if the world. Oh well? Sucks to be them? What if people in China fought back, and won, abolishing these terrible practices, would that still be morally indefensible to you?

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

This whole issue of modern day slavery Borsabil has raised is a giant red herring to avoid the moral question presented by slavery in 1861. He's criticizing the decision to go to war in 1861, when all these examples of modern day "wage slavery" he cites clearly could not have been a factor in anyone's decision back then. And that's the decision we're all being asked to question.

When the North went to war, there wasn't "slave labor" in China from which abolitionists were benefitting. And while there were some northern profiteers who continued trading illegally with the Confederacy, the vast majority of northerners were not war profiteering, nor were they otherwise profitting off "slave labor" outside the country. He's simply raised those arguments to give himself a (bogus) moral excuse for justifying millions of people remain in literally chains in our own country.

Even with respect to modern people, Istakr's point is the one that matters. Freeing some slaves is better than freeing none.

Borsabil's point really is that considerations of practicality, cost, likelihood of success, likelihood of causing more harm than good, etc., should have nothing to do with whether or not we choose to go to war. And that's simply ridiculous on its face.

[Borsabil]

This whole issue of modern day slavery Borsabil has raised is a giant red herring to avoid the moral question presented by slavery in 1861. He's criticizing the decision to go to war in 1861, when all these examples of modern day "wage slavery" he cites clearly could not have been a factor in anyone's decision back then. And that's the decision we're all being asked to question.

When the North went to war, there wasn't "slave labor" in China from which abolitionists were benefitting. And while there were some northern profiteers who continued trading illegally with the Confederacy, the vast majority of northerners were not war profiteering, nor were they otherwise profitting off "slave labor" outside the country. He's simply raised those arguments to give himself a (bogus) moral excuse for justifying millions of people remain in literally chains in our own country.

Even with respect to modern people, Istakr's point is the one that matters. Freeing some slaves is better than freeing none.

Borsabil's point really is that considerations of practicality, cost, likelihood of success, likelihood of causing more harm than good, etc., should have nothing to do with whether or not we choose to go to war. And that's simply ridiculous on its face.

1) I'm not referring to 'wage slavery', I'm referring to actual no shit real slavery as practiced in Chinese 'prison' camps where enemies of the regime are worked to death to make cheap consumer shit for export to westerners. in Congolese mines where actual no shit slaves are worked to death to produce minerals to be used to build cellphones and the like. It suits you to misrepresent these poor bastards as being some kind of exploited workforce, like a bad version of McDonalds, they're low paid and have bad conditions but they're not SLAVES, yeah right.

2) was I not continually told that slavery was so inherently evil that mass killing of human beings was justified to be rid of it? Was I not asked if I would approve a war solely to end slavery? When I point out examples of where slavery is practiced by governments, never mind individuals, in the here and now it suddenly becomes a more nuanced issue. Weigh up the pros and cons, leave foreigners to sort out their own mess. I asked you already, if a foreign country was committing a second holocaust should we step in? So where exactly in the pantheon of great evils do you place slavery?

Are there better ways than war to end great evils like slavery? When it comes to white southerners you say no definitely not, they deserved to die. When it comes to black Africans, Arabs and the Communist Party of China not so much.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

1) I'm not referring to 'wage slavery', I'm referring to actual no shit real slavery as practiced in Chinese 'prison' camps where enemies of the regime are worked to death to make cheap consumer shit for export to westerners.

It doesn't matter. That stuff being wrong doesn't make slavery as it existed in 1861 in the U.S. any more right.

2) was I not continually told that slavery was so inherently evil that mass killing of human beings was justified to be rid of it?

Again, you completely and utterly duck the issue that people have been slamming in your face for a week now. Yes, killing people to end slavery is justified. If those Congolese slaves want to rise up, or if the OAS wants to send an army there to liberate them, great. Whether or not the United States of America should be the nation taking on that entire international burden is a completely different question. It is entirely possible to believe that something is morally justified without believing that you personally have a moral obligation to remedy it regardless of the cost.

Was I not asked if I would approve a war solely to end slavery?

Yes. And I still don't think you've directly answered that particular question. You've only answered it by analogy. So here's your change -- do you think it would be morally justified to support an abolitionist war to free those millions of slaves in 1861, if the alternative was decades more slavery? Yes, or no? It's a simple question.

I asked you already, if a foreign country was committing a second holocaust should we step in? So where exactly in the pantheon of great evils do you place slavery?

And I already answered by saying that you'd need to weigh a whole bunch of factors, and that requires that a specific situation be presented. It is very simple to say whether or not an action is morally justified. It is entirely different when the question becomes who, if anyone, should actually take that action.

The best way to illustrate the point is with the Rwandan genocide. I firmly believe that military foce to stop that was justified. That is a different question from whether or not the U.S. should be the one to send troops. What was so abhorrent about the U.S. position was that we refused to support the claim that genocide was occuring, which had the effect of ensuring that nobody else who wanted to intervene could do so.

You seem to be deliberating conflating the issue of whether or not military action is justified with the issue of whether our nation should be the one to intervene militarily. They are separate issues.