There is a demand common among the Libertarian Party membership for reinstating of slavery. They claim this is the ultimate freedom, freedom to sell yourself into slavery by your own consent. The major fault with this premise is that they propose a system where you can be en-slaved against your wishes.

The bases of the Libertarian justification of slavery is a major difference between rights under the proposed system of the Libertarian Party and as rights are currently in the US.

In the US rights are invested in the person as a human being and these rights are inalienable. So a person has rights because they have human life and they cannot give up these rights for any reason.

Under the US Lib Party platform ALL rights come from property rights.

Here are the first two paragraphs of the Lib Party Platform Plank, THE RIGHT TO PROPERTY.

All rights are inextricably linked with property rights. Such rights as the freedom from involuntary servitude as well as the freedom of speech and the freedom of press are based on self-ownership. Our bodies are our property every bit as much as is justly acquired land or material objects.

All of the "human rights" Lib Party members claim to champion stem not from rights invested in being a human, the soul if you will, but in the flesh, or the property. The human as a person, or soul, has no rights under the Libertarian Party.

The human as property is the bases that the Libertarians use to justify the "right" to sell one's self into slavery. Of course Libertarian Party members say this can only happen by consent, but this is not so.

The Libertarian Party members have devised a system where people can be forced into slavery by government. The system used to do this is the civil law suit.

In a situation where a person has incurred a debt they cannot repay it allows the person owed the moneys to file suit to seize the property of the debtor. And the final, last piece of property owned would be their body.

So if a person causes an automobile accident and their insurance, if they have insurance as the Libertarians demand the end to laws requiring insurance, does not cover the damages all of their property may be awarded to the injured party. The human body is among such property under the Libertarian Party plans.

Under the Libertarian Party demands government would enforce the court award by force.
They demand that one of the principal, and very few, purposes of government is to protect property right. Under the Libertarian Party the "property rights" of the slave owner would be greater than any wishes of the slave.

Now the Libertarians would argue back that this would interfere with a person's right to the pursuit of happiness. This argument is not valid under Libertarian Party demands as the right to the pursuit of happiness was invested in the property, the body, and the person no longer has ownership of their own body. So the slave would have no right to liberty and the pursuit of happiness until they regained title to their body.

Now even under Libertarian Party demands the new owner of the slaves body could not kill the slaves body outright because of the link between the life of the salve and the survival of the body. So the right to life part of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness part would survive. Of course the slave owner would be under no requirement to provide proper medical care and may work a slave to death. Under the Libertarian Party government is prohibited in telling an owner how to use their property. If the slave owner worked a slave long hours in freezing weather and simply withheld medical care no force was initiated against the slaves body. The slave owner would be able to kill a slave by working them to death, just not be able to shoot or stab the slave.

But the new owner of the salve's body probably has no need of a slave. So the best thing to do is to sell the slave. So the slave may end up cutting trees in Siberia for the life of the property, their former body.

But then again the slave can be "harvested" . The Lib Platform also demands the "right" to sell human body parts. Since the slave's body is owned by another the parts of the body may be sold for transplantation. The body can take the loss by surgical removal of one lung, one kidney and both eyes and still live. Take these items, along with a few other odds and ends, then mark the debt paid in full and the slave is given ownership back over the remainder of their body.

Of some interest is what happens if someone owns both a male and female slave. Their bodies are the property of their owners and if they produce a child the child would be "built" from the genetic material that is the property of the slave owner. The nutrition needed for the child to develop to term would come from food that belonged to the owner that was fed to the female slave. The child would be born into a body that was already owned by another and that slaves body would give the child no rights and no prospects of their term of slavery ever ending.

That is the Libertarian Party vision of the future, to return to the primitive societies of our past.

They want you to live in a country where the government enforces the "property rights" of slave owners. A land of where some people, backed by police officers, make a living as slave catchers. A land where you could be forced by police at gun point to leave your spouse and family and spend a life toiling at whatever task your owner demands you perform. Perhaps you will work in mines on a ship far from your family. They also demand the full legalization of prostitution so your life may be spent as a bi-sexual slave. If your bodies new "owner" really dislikes you the examples in this paragraph are only mild projections of your future.

They want a country where a new industry based upon slavery would emerge. An industry of buying, trading and breeding of slaves that would dwarf MicroSoft.  When you went out to find employment you would be competing against corporate owned slaves. The Temporary Worker industry, temps, is already in place and would make an excellent frame work for the Libertarian Party slave labor industry. As the practice continued corporations themselves would find it competitive to build their own in-house legion of slave workers. Technology would provide breeding centers where invitro fertilization insured a high rate of pregnancies for their female incubator slaves. Women who would birth a child who, along with all their ancestors, would never have the prospect of freedom. This won't work in an industrialized nation? Just ask any of the few survivors of the millions enslaved by the Nazi's in World War II. Industrial production lends it self to slave labor just as well as crafts or agriculture.

While the Libertarian Party platform does not demand the world I have outlined occurring it does demand, emphatically demand, that government shall not interfere with such events.
 
 

Kevin O'Connell
 

Return to LIGHT ON LIBERTY