(08-16-2017, 06:53 PM)Dakota Wrote: If slavery  is such an issue with so many people, what is being done to combat modern day slavery? It is still present in the American underground. It is still accepted in many muslim countries. How many of these statue protesters are doing something about that? That is the true litmus test of whether this is a genuine issue.

So far, this doesn't pass the eyeball test. It is just another political ploy.

So based on your logic, a person who has an aversion to someone robbing his house and takes measures to secure his home from robbers has an affirmative duty to protect all other homes from robberies, otherwise it isn't a genuine issue?  Since the US toppled one dictatorship by military force (Iraq), it then has the affirmative duty to topple all dictatorships by military force, otherwise dictatorships are not a genuine issue? Is this seriously the logic you advance here?

What are the modern efforts to curtail slavery?  A simple google search revealed this...https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/tip/rls/rm/07/85072.htm. 

Understand the efforts to curtail modern day slavery are going to be quite different than the Civil War for several reasons which SHOULD be obvious.  These reasons include, but are not limited to:

1.  Modern day slavery, especially in this country, is, as you described "underground."  It is "underground" because it is against the law here and in most countries.  Anyone caught trafficking slaves faces criminal sanction.  U.S. chattel slavery during the civil war era and before had the open and notorious support of at least thirteen states.  These same states were willing to secede from what we commonly refer to as the greatest country to ever exist for the right to continue to enslave people.  Two armies were formed and fought to preserve or dissolve the union over the issue of slavery.  Huge differences in size and scope of the issue.  Furthermore, by the time I was born, slavery as an existing enterprise, was largely a moot issue in this country.

2.  Because the modern slave traders are contemporary and underground, the general public does not know who they are, does not have the luxury of taking history classes or reading books to learn of their justifications for engaging in such a vile enterprise, and probably does not know of any statutes erected in their honor, if any.    On the other hand, we know who the confederates were, and the danger to the country they posed.  Anyone willing to learn the truth can readily determine their true motives and reasons for secession-preservation of slavery. Ironically, the individuals who revere and apologize for the Confederacy the most are seemingly ashamed of the words used by the Confederacy to explain why they seceded.   Unlike the modern day slave traders, Confederate advocates of slavery have statues built in their honor, schools named after them, and morally bankrupt people trying to this day to defend them, despite not being products of a time when slavery was rampant and "acceptable" in some quarters.

It IS accepted in some Muslim countries.  On a human level, I abhor that reality.  However, I am under no obligation to stop slavery there.  I am a citizen of one country-the United States of America.  As a general rule my duty to improve a country ends at my country's borders, because I am interested in improving my country.  I am not Muslim and have not the remotest connection to the Islamic countries to which you refer.  I do not speak Arabic, Farsi, or any number of various languages and dialects spoken in the countries to which you likely refer.  I have never been to the countries in question.  While I recoil at the idea of human suffering as manifested by slavery, as a general rule, I believe in the concept of sovereignty and trust in the ability of countries to govern themselves in a manner consistent with their values and traditional international norms of human decency.  To the extent a country should betray those norms, I reluctantly trust in the international community to alleviate the problems, in the absence of more viable solutions.

I do not know how many of the statue protestors are also involved in the efforts to stop the modern day underground slavery. I do not possess any sort of rosters of individuals who are active in either activity, or for that matter, actual or constructive knowledge that any such rosters exist, or how to get them if they do.  I find that slave trading, whether here or elsewhere, in the past, present, or future, to be an evil, repugnant enterprise.

Hopefully this answers your questions.

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(08-16-2017, 10:06 PM)StroudCrowd1 Wrote: The majority of the statues being taken down associated with the democratic party. Think about that.

Defended most vociferously by Republicans, which, taken together, should demonstrate the ideological shift conservatives disingenuously deny after the Civil Rights legislation signed into law by LBJ.

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