Silly comment. First of all most slaves were not Thomas Jefferson's slaves. Second of all, coal miners could QUIT. Slaves could not. If they tried and ran away to the North they'd be sent back to be whipped because the slave states DIDN'T CARE ABOUT "STATE'S RIGHTS" when it came to Northern states rights not to be complicit in their evil institution.
And southern slavery was nirvana compared to what my great-grandmother had to go through 70 years ago or so. You see she was deprived of all of her possessions, taken from her home, branded, shipped off somewhere in a cattle car to a camp someplace in a foreign land where she subsisted on meager rations until even that was too inconvenient for her keepers so they killed her. Some of her children suffered the same fate, but it was probably okay with you because she never got to see them after the start of all of this.
It's "probably okay with me" that your family died in a Nazi concentration camp? Is that what you just said to me? What in the hell is your problem?
Now since you think slavery is not so bad when can I expect you to come over and clean my bathroom? Do I have to pick you up from the airport? That might be a problem for me.
If you wan to look at it very coldly, an 18th century slave was $100,000 in 2000 dollars. Plus food, housing and insurance(most slave insurance companies were in NE by the way). A modern pice of farm equipment probably costs the same. How many people whip, beat and fail to change the oil in there combines? No owner in there right mind would purposely abuse their slaves, it just doesn't make sense. Why would insurance companies insure a slave? Heck all the owner would do is make the slave "have an accident" and collect the money.
Let's remove another scale shall we?
a number of insurance companies wrote policies insuring slave owners against the loss, damage, or death of their slaves.
Reference: Slave insurance in the United States
Attorney Deadria Farmer-Pallmann discovered an 1852 circular that named insurers that serviced some of these policies. National Loan Fund Life Assurance Company distributed a circular entitled. "A Method by Which Slave Owners May Be Protected From Loss" which named The Merchants Bank and The Leather Manufactures Bank as institutions able to pay and adjust claims. Under a typical policy a slave could be insured for $500.00 with an annual premium of about $11.25.
You really don't get the slavery thing do you. People became slaves because they lost some battle or their tribes or their ancestors did. Instead of being killed they essentially redeemed their lives for their freedom. There were others who were piss poor who sold themselves into slavery. That's how many early immigrants made it to the new world. Usually the term of servitude for these who sold themselves was not for life, and did not involve ones children.
So if we can get around US law which prohibits all of this, I will come to clean your bathrooms. BUT ... you must find some way to redeem my life or purchase me from someone else who did, or make me a substantial financial offer for me to become your bathroom slave. Be advised that while I am your slave, you will be responsible for feeding, clothing, and sheltering me. You must also provide reasonable medical care for me, and agree to continue your care for me when I become too old and feeble to clean your bathroom. Oh, and please remember that you must give me one day a week off to do what and go where I please. I'll also need a small stipend for spending money on my day off. And BTW, you don't just have to pick me up at the airport but you must purchase my airline ticket. First Class would be nice, but I won't insist.
I'm guessing you don't read very much. Probably no Aristotle, and no Fremantle whom I recommended earlier on this thread. If you read anything, it was probably the Cliffs Notes for Uncle Tom's Cabin, which you should remember was a novel by a political advocate. And you probably haven't read your Bible. Here's a bit from Deuteronomy Chapter 15:
12. And if your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you, and serves you six years; then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you.What's with this? Apparently it was okay for a Hebrew to enslave another Hebrew, but the master had to free the slave in the seventh year. UNLESS the slave doesn't want to be freed. Huh? I thought slavery was just so awful that all slaves just couldn't wait to run away. Could the Bible be wrong about all this, or maybe could you be?
13. And when you send him out free from you, you shall not let him go away empty;
14. You shall furnish him liberally out of your flock, and out of your threshing floor, and out of your winepress; of that with which the Lord your God has blessed you you shall give to him.
15. And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this thing today.
16. And it shall be, if he says to you, I will not go away from you; because he loves you and your house, because he is well with you;
ML/NJ