I thought that's what government was?

A coercive institution by another name would smell as stank?

It's what government could be. I probably have a broader conception of "government" than Anarchist though.

I don't think Iran has ever had much problem with Muslim on Muslim violence. Islam is not monolithic and certainly doesn't see itself as one big happy family, any more than Britain and Germany both being in "Christendom" gave us any pause in either of the world wars.

By anomaly, you mean a lighthouse on a far promontory, a beacon of hope in a dark land, right?

Al Qaeda it's pretty much keyser soze.

I mean if people didn't have unalienable rights we'd probably still have slavery

We got away with slavery by not considering black people people. But I think most people still believe there are some fundamental basic rights

But when the quote in the statement you quote was made, they did have slavery, so as you say, the idea of who was people was different to now (and to what extent did it fully include women?) and probably the rights they envisaged were not the same as you do.

And these inalienable rights, how much use were they if you were Jewish in 1940s Germany?

That was the argument for countries like the us to get involved then

It seems like we wouldn't have if not for pearl harbor but many people think there should have been intervention sooner because of people's rights

So in short, they're inalienable rights which change over time, apply to a changing pool of people, and are largely alienable.

Thumb heart.

That's not what I'm saying at all

Kokiri is morality a myth?

pretty much everybody/every culture has some sort of set of ideas as to what is moral, pretty much none of them agree too much. So yes but no but.

morality is clearly not "mythical". Moral views exist. What you mean to ask is whether morality is objective, and whether it is absolute.

I believe moralities like monogamy are man made but I do believe we have to have some inherent rights

But I do believe that last part could be more hope than anything

We still have slavery.

http://www.economist.com/news/asia/2...il-and-trouble

When children inherit a debt at birth and are forced to work for one person their whole lives, what else can you call that?

One activist site said there are more slaves today than at any time in human history.

I read the other day that most women in nail bars in the UK are trafficked slaves. The nail ladies, I mean, not women getting their nails done.

I think of slavery in terms of its legal institution.

Social/economic slavery is just too prevalent.

and too ambiguous, really

No, these are outright slaves. No ambiguity. If we use "slaves" for forced labour without pay, and "serfs" for your everyday debt peons, I think your confusion is cleared up.

If they move to another town, will their forcible relocation be considered "kidnapping" by the local authorities? If so, I don't call them slaves - I call them hostages.

I'm a slave to fashion, and I hope I'm never emancipated.

If it's known that they are being trafficked, and we know where they are, why aren't the police intervening?

You can call them what you like, they're slaves.



That's a good question. It's almost as though they don't really care.

Well if you read about it in an unidentified place, it must be true :shrug:

There have been a few cases of slavery/trafficking in the uk in the last few years - a gang that had a bunch of labourers in slave conditions who worked laying drives for people, and some chinese workers who were operated by gangs collecting shellfish in bad conditions in some estuary, so it's not impossible that something like it is going on.

On the other hand, there's a fairly well documented track whereby trafficking stats get misleadingly overstated - where a researcher will produce a paper with estimates based on different methods, and it gets picked up, misrepresented, and two steps later the massive, clearly implausible largest stat which the sociologist points out is flawed for xyz reasons gets quoted as fact without any qualification, so you also have to be a bit skeptical of what you read.

Recently however, the focus of this sort of thing in the uk has looked inwards, to gangs of men picking up vulnerable girls in social care and the like and grooming them for sex. It's also overlaid with a slight racial tinge, since some of the cases have been largely pakistani men grooming white girls.