• DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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    9 days ago

    https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/1002107670/historian-uncovers-the-racist-roots-of-the-2nd-amendment

    Tl;Dr the Constitutional Congress didn’t really believe in citizen militias providing a sufficient check on federal power. Some power, sure, but by and large the British armies destroyed the militias in the field, with only a few notable successes.

    They did, however, recognize that they could serve as a rapid reaction force for wars against natives and putting down slave revolts until the real army showed up. And, of course, militias could be rolled into a professional army and retrained, like what happened with the Civil War.

    That isn’t to say a genuinely popular revolt wouldn’t work, it’s just not what the 2nd was really about.

        • Tinidril@midwest.social
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          8 days ago

          For the US to readopt slavery, wouldn’t it have to give slavery up first? The thirteenth amendment specifically allows for the enslavement of prisoners. That’s a big part of the reason we put so many blacks in prison.

          • microphone900@lemmy.ml
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            8 days ago

            They’ll just make a whole lot of stuff illegal, selectively enforce those laws, and BOOM increase the prison slave population. Hell, the South did it after the Civil War to get it’s slave labor back, how hard would it be to do nationwide now.

            • dontgooglefinderscult@lemmings.world
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              8 days ago

              … you’ve just described America as it is. The legal concept of loitering is exactly what you described and it’s so old you thought it was always around.

              The US has openly practiced slavery for its entire history. Private slavery at that. Nationwide, with full support from all political parties in power.

              The US has the largest slave population in the world. One of the largest in world history. That was before Trump.

          • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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            8 days ago

            That’s fair, but there’s at least some difference between chattel slavery and the prison industrial complex. If the traditionally inclined right wing “libertarian” voices that are the sorts of folks the Heritage Foundation hires have their way chattel slavery is back on the menu.