slavery is a reality today and has been for centuries. If it didn't make economic sense it wouldn't exist.
It makes economic sense if you obtain and keep the slave by force. That's how it was done in the past and how it's done wherever it occurs. One does not pay a fair price for a slave. If a person becomes a slave voluntarily, OTOH, he wouldn't give himself away. There would have to be a fair price. It's questionable whether it would make economic sense to buy someone who was volunteering.
The context in which we have been discussing the choice to be a slave, or so I thought, is an enlightened and civilized environment, at least as enlightened and civilized as the US of today. After all, you don't have libertarians in a culture that's not advanced enough for people to contemplate not being under the thumb of an authority. In which case the slave conversion would command a price that would not automatically make economic sense.
No, but those things are happening w/ gay marriage.
And thats what liberals are saying about incest now.
What these two matters have in common is that they are both about sex that is forbidden in some religious traditions and are considered immoral from that perspective. On this basis, tolerance is opposed by social conservatives in the US. But there are significant differences, too, a critical one being that incest is considered taboo by virtually all but those who manage to rationalize their own engagement in it.
One interesting factor is the use of language. There are lots of words for homosexuals. What is the word for "someone who engages in incest"? I could not find one. "Incestor" is not in the dictionary. When a label is applied, it's a generic label like "pervert" or "perpetrator." How are you going to create an advocacy for a class of people don't even have a dedicated label?
Which gets to my earlier point. Gays are a class of people whose sexual attraction is limited to a non-standard class of people. There is no class of people who engage in incest. It occurs on a case by case basis, which makes it about individual behavior, not class orientation. Discrimination is about classes of people, not behaviors. You have race, gender, national orientation, etc. Those aren't behaviors. You will never find "pervert" on that list because behavior is a different construct from class, protected or otherwise.
A confounding factor is the fact that gays engage in sexual behaviors that are considered in certain traditions to be immoral. But the defense of gays is not about behavior. It is about discrimination against a class of people.
If you are a social conservative accustomed to facing opposing political movements that legitimize what you consider to be immoral, it's easy to assume and fear that the same thing would happen with the immorality du jour but I think that reaction is more knee jerk than considered because an individual behavior and a class of people are two different things and incest isn't sympathetic from anyone's perspective.
Let me say this about my position just to be clear. I don't think incest between competent and consenting adults should be illegal. I find it aberrant, and more than a little bit creepy, but none of the business of the government. That's a libertarian perspective.
IMO, the status quo is always the default. It's illegal in most places in the US now, although it has been decriminalized in some. While I don't think it should be illegal, I wouldn't spend a bit of energy or political capital to change its status. In the grand scheme of things, it's a gnat. I don't want to leave you with the perception that I'm advocating an effort to legalize it. I'm not. I'm just responding to your question about a libertarian view on legality. |
