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Slavery is extremely common throughout human history in one form or another. The most common form being chattel slavery, where the slave was considered property of another. Other common forms were/are bond slavery and forced labor. As we can tell from the prevalence of human trafficking in the news, we are still dealing with those issues.
These are paintings of slaves in the New World.
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My browser is set to get the default Microsoft news feed. Today I saw this doozie of a teaser headline: Abortion, slavery and marijuana: Here are the ballot questions to watch in 2022 midterms.
Slavery? On the ballot?
It turns out that these 'slavery' issues on the ballots actually have to do with prison labor reforms. Talk about headline hyperbole. From the article:
Voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont will decide whether to abolish slavery as a part of a larger criminal justice reform movement aimed at prison labor.
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution ended slavery and involuntary servitude when it was ratified in 1865. But a loophole allows it as punishment for someone convicted of a crime and roughly 20 states have a similar exception.
I know nothing about prison labor, but I do have opinions about ballot initiatives. They are complex issues reduced to simplistic emotional marketing. I've told the story before about the Florida ballot initiative regarding pig farming. It was pitched to save the poor pigs from inhuman treatment. My thought was, "what the hell do I know about pig farming?" Apparently, most voters thought they were up on the ins-and-outs of pig farming and the initiative passed. It was quite a mess untangling the problems that caused.
