David Davis
This caught my eye quite accidentally: I was not intending to write anything about slavery today, with the possible exception of a suitable comment about true things that White People are not allowed to say.
It occurs to me that _if_ West African Tribal Bigmen had refused to trade their (own slaves) people for Spanish and Portuguese money and beads, then history might have been different. Absolutely all the helots would have got carted off by their ears either way (The HispanoPortuguesi had guns by then) and ther tribal Big-guys would have been slaughtered, but then at least “antislavery campaigners” would have been able to absolutely claim the moral high-ground from the very beginning. WE’d not have fallen, through being asleep on the ideological job, into the trap of being _blamed for slavery_ through being the dominant Atlantic-Maritime power in the times when we were trying actually to abolish this pre-capitalist, pre-liberal, Euro-Imperium-friendly barbarism.
It riles me, that _we_ have had to “apologise” for slavery, when _we_ were the first nation to unilaterally outlaw it everywhere and for all time, planetwide. Naturally, there is no mention whatever of the role played either by tribal chiefs, or by the Arabs, who as is well known, still “do” slavery bigtime, and who were not bit-players in the atlantic slavetrade either, with their trans-African communications.
Libertarians of course don’t agree with slavery. You own yourself and your justly-acquired goods, and can dispose of either as you will. But I think an exception could be made for major GramscoFabiocrats and their children (the Koran says that it says so) in the event of a libertarian revolution that’s far-reaching enough and rapid enough. There are after all things posing as “religions” which allow slavery and regulate it as a means of social intercourse. Either, these are religions and can therefore enforce behaviour-codes on willing submitters, or else they are not relgions and their strictures and codes can be disregarded. If the Libertarian “Minsiter of Human Skills Co-ordination” (a tautology) was to convert to Islam, then he could indent all ex-“Hospital Trust Managers” (for example) as (his) slaves, and they’d have to do his bidding at all times. if he can’t do that, then Islam is not a religion, but something else, and we have to start that deiscussion.