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  • #31
    I'm not surprised to see everybody reacting against this idea, which I agree is sheer putrescence. I'm a little surprised to see that so few have articulated the reason why it is so detestable.

    Certainly, there were masters that treated their slaves relatively well. There was an economic incentive to do so, after all. Slavery was the largest form of property in the United States before the Civil War. Just as there is an economic incentive in modern times to take care of your car, your home, and your other forms of property, so too would a rational slaveholder provide for the needs of his slaves (though not all did). The harrowing stories we can read about in, for example, Uncle Tom's cabin probably were exceptions to the general rule.

    So the tragedy of the argument that this guy made isn't one of factual accuracy. The tragedy is that this guy misses the point: human beings were being treated the same way we treat our cars, homes, and other forms of property. It really doesn't matter how well a slave is treated when you have already committed the greatest offense imaginable against him. Slavery takes away a person's liberty and deprives him of his humanity, striking the most severe blows well before the whip cracks and the shackles bind.

    Ours is a society built on the premise that liberty is so great a prize that life itself is not too great a price to pay for it. As such, we ought to recognize that the best-off slave fares more poorly than the worst-off free man. I would hope that we recognize arguments to the contrary for what they really are.
    τὸν ἥλιον ἀνατέλλοντα πλείονες ἢ δυόμενον προσκυνοῦσιν

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    • #32
      Originally posted by wuapinmon View Post
      I've seen far more repugnant racism in the West than anywhere I've ever lived. Unacknowledged racism....."I'm not racist, but..."

      Racism mixed with more than a little xenophobia
      I've seen more repugnant racism on your brother's Facebook wall than I've ever seen in North Carolina or out west. Here those kinds of opinions get people marginalized... where he lives it gets you elected to party leadership!
      Visca Catalunya Lliure

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      • #33
        Originally posted by All-American View Post
        I'm not surprised to see everybody reacting against this idea, which I agree is sheer putrescence. I'm a little surprised to see that so few have articulated the reason why it is so detestable.

        Certainly, there were masters that treated their slaves relatively well. There was an economic incentive to do so, after all. Slavery was the largest form of property in the United States before the Civil War. Just as there is an economic incentive in modern times to take care of your car, your home, and your other forms of property, so too would a rational slaveholder provide for the needs of his slaves (though not all did). The harrowing stories we can read about in, for example, Uncle Tom's cabin probably were exceptions to the general rule.

        So the tragedy of the argument that this guy made isn't one of factual accuracy. The tragedy is that this guy misses the point: human beings were being treated the same way we treat our cars, homes, and other forms of property. It really doesn't matter how well a slave is treated when you have already committed the greatest offense imaginable against him. Slavery takes away a person's liberty and deprives him of his humanity, striking the most severe blows well before the whip cracks and the shackles bind.

        Ours is a society built on the premise that liberty is so great a prize that life itself is not too great a price to pay for it. As such, we ought to recognize that the best-off slave fares more poorly than the worst-off free man. I would hope that we recognize arguments to the contrary for what they really are.
        I'm like LeBron James.
        -mpfunk

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        • #34
          Originally posted by Tim View Post
          I've seen more repugnant racism on your brother's Facebook wall than I've ever seen in North Carolina or out west. Here those kinds of opinions get people marginalized... where he lives it gets you elected to party leadership!
          No argument there. We don't get to pick our families--even though he was adopted.
          "Yeah, but never trust a Ph.D who has an MBA as well. The PhD symbolizes intelligence and discipline. The MBA symbolizes lust for power." -- Katy Lied

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          • #35
            I think I know this doctor. He told me to eff off one time.
            Last edited by Color Me Badd Fan; 04-17-2012, 10:38 PM.
            Part of it is based on academic grounds. Among major conferences, the Pac-10 is the best academically, largely because of Stanford, Cal and UCLA. “Colorado is on a par with Oregon,” he said. “Utah isn’t even in the picture.”

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            • #36
              Originally posted by Color Me Badd Fan View Post
              I think I know this doctor. He told me to eff off one time.
              You must have asked for Vicodin for a toothache.

              This is going back, way way back; leave it to economists to study this crap. I took a 200 level American Economic History course where this very thing was discussed. The discussion looked at anthropomorphic data that was collected and conclusions were that enslaved African Americans were better fed and cared for medically (that is an oxymoron at that time) than the non-enslaved African Americans. These studies, obviously, make no claims that the enslaved "had it better". Also, these studies assume that owners considered slaves nothing more than capital that required maintenance. The price of freedom has little quantifiable data associated with it and my take home from that class was that freedom is truly priceless.

              This class was the first class that opened my eyes to a new world of thought that I had no idea even existed. It forged who I am in regards to analysis of situations, allowing me to remove myself from my moral beliefs to make an economic analysis.

              Did slaves have it better than non-slaves or post-emancipation selves? Absolutely not. Were their bodies cared for better? The data would suggest that slave owners cared for their bodies better than they were able to care for themselves.

              This is not such an evil conclusion. The evilness is that slave owners were so immoral to treat humans like capital and that this bozo doctor was using this argument to "prove" his point, which is false.
              Last edited by doctorcoug; 04-18-2012, 02:51 AM.
              "Don't expect I'll see you 'till after the race"

              "So where does the power come from to see the race to its end...from within"

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              • #37
                Tangential, but this is an amazing database:

                http://slavevoyages.org/tast/index.faces
                "Yeah, but never trust a Ph.D who has an MBA as well. The PhD symbolizes intelligence and discipline. The MBA symbolizes lust for power." -- Katy Lied

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by wuapinmon View Post
                  I've seen far more repugnant racism in the West than anywhere I've ever lived. Unacknowledged racism....."I'm not racist, but..."

                  Racism mixed with more than a little xenophobia
                  while visiting Utah once, one of my wife's HS friends was convinced that there were no racists in Utah. Her reasoning "Because there aren't any black people here."
                  Dio perdona tante cose per un’opera di misericordia
                  God forgives many things for an act of mercy
                  Alessandro Manzoni

                  Knock it off. This board has enough problems without a dose of middle-age lechery.

                  pelagius

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                  • #39
                    So last week Kanye tweets that slavery was probably a choice (implying that because they went along with it for 400 years, slaves must have been ok with it). Pretty dumb, but what do you expect from Kanye?

                    Today Wendell Carter's mom gives a speech where she says being a college athlete is analogous to slavery. Yikes.


                    http://www.espn.com/mens-college-bas...system-slavery
                    Prepare to put mustard on those words, for you will soon be consuming them, along with this slice of humble pie that comes direct from the oven of shame set at gas mark “egg on your face”! -- Moss

                    There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese. --Coach Finstock

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Donuthole View Post
                      So last week Kanye tweets that slavery was probably a choice (implying that because they went along with it for 400 years, slaves must have been ok with it). Pretty dumb, but what do you expect from Kanye?

                      Today Wendell Carter's mom gives a speech where she says being a college athlete is analogous to slavery. Yikes.


                      http://www.espn.com/mens-college-bas...system-slavery
                      "When you remove all the bling and the bells and the sneakers and all that," she said, "you've paid for a child to come to your school to do what you wanted them to do for you, for free, and you made a lot of money when he did that, and you've got all these rules in place that say he cannot share in any of that. The only other time when labor does not get paid but yet someone else gets profits and the labor is black and the profit is white, is in slavery.
                      Ok.
                      Ain't it like most people, I'm no different. We love to talk on things we don't know about.

                      "The only one of us who is so significant that Jeff owes us something simply because he decided to grace us with his presence is falafel." -- All-American

                      GIVE 'EM HELL, BRIGHAM!

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                      • #41
                        Man, Carter's mom must really hate that her son was subjected to this slavery.

                        A couple of weeks ago over lunch in Omaha, Nebraska, Kylia Carter so compellingly laid out the reasons for her son leaving after one season that I felt foolish for thinking there was actually a chance he might return to Duke. A week later, she told her son that she had reconsidered her position.

                        “After the season happened, and I started thinking about it. I was like, ‘Wait a minute. If you came back, it would only make you a better person,’ ” she said. “It would improve your quality of life. It would improve your relationships. It would be about you. It wouldn’t be about basketball. So this is really something to think about.

                        “Of course, as a mom, I started thinking about it, so I told him: I want you to come back.”
                        This was from about 3 weeks ago.

                        https://theundefeated.com/features/w...e-for-the-nba/
                        Ain't it like most people, I'm no different. We love to talk on things we don't know about.

                        "The only one of us who is so significant that Jeff owes us something simply because he decided to grace us with his presence is falafel." -- All-American

                        GIVE 'EM HELL, BRIGHAM!

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by falafel View Post
                          Ok.
                          When you remove the payment, it's like they were working for free!

                          Maybe this is a topic for another thread, but ever since becoming close friends with a former BYU athlete and hearing about their living stipend and swag, I am completely off the "these athletes are being exploited by the universities" train. After the scholarships, when you add in all the stipends and meals, they are essentially getting paid reasonably well to play college sports.
                          Prepare to put mustard on those words, for you will soon be consuming them, along with this slice of humble pie that comes direct from the oven of shame set at gas mark “egg on your face”! -- Moss

                          There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese. --Coach Finstock

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Donuthole View Post
                            When you remove the payment, it's like they were working for free!

                            Maybe this is a topic for another thread, but ever since becoming close friends with a former BYU athlete and hearing about their living stipend and swag, I am completely off the "these athletes are being exploited by the universities" train. After the scholarships, when you add in all the stipends and meals, they are essentially getting paid reasonably well to play college sports.
                            true but the real problem is league rules requiring time between hs and nba/nfl participation. basketball isn’t so bad, you can always go the josh childress/ball route of playing overseas but obv nothing like that for football.
                            Te Occidere Possunt Sed Te Edere Non Possunt Nefas Est.

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                            • #44
                              Originally posted by old_gregg View Post
                              true but the real problem is league rules requiring time between hs and nba/nfl participation. basketball isn’t so bad, you can always go the josh childress/ball route of playing overseas but obv nothing like that for football.
                              I agree that's an issue. An issue that is not akin to slavery in virtually any recognizable way. (also, I think you mean Brandon Jenkins--Childress was drafted out of college, no?)
                              Prepare to put mustard on those words, for you will soon be consuming them, along with this slice of humble pie that comes direct from the oven of shame set at gas mark “egg on your face”! -- Moss

                              There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese. --Coach Finstock

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Donuthole View Post
                                I agree that's an issue. An issue that is not akin to slavery in virtually any recognizable way. (also, I think you mean Brandon Jenkins--Childress was drafted out of college, no?)
                                oh yeah jennings that’s right
                                Te Occidere Possunt Sed Te Edere Non Possunt Nefas Est.

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