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Old 06-19-2007, 02:37 AM   #16 (permalink)
The_Dunedan
Junkie
 
No, this "society" is a group of Individuals, all of whom have Rights which must not be mucked about with. One of those universal, individual, Constitutional Rights is the Right not to be dragooned into working for someone against your will. When the Rights of a single Individual are violated, the Rights of everyone else are threatened as well. It doesn't matter how good "the cause" might happen to be; when you force someone to work for your cause by threat of violence (which is what an order from the State always is; a threat of violence against your person or property) you are enslaving that person. It doesn't matter if I'm helping duckings cross the street: if I force someone else to help me, I am enslaving that person. It doesn't matter if there are 100 people in my town, 98 of them are helping of their own free will, and one holds out: nobody has the Right to force someone into the service of a cause, not an Individual (who has Rights) and certainly not an aggregate or group such as "society" (which has no Rights.)

The difference here is that you take a utilitarian view of Rights, vewing them as things which may be violated "for the public good" or if a large enough majority votes in favour of such violation. I am an absolutist with regard to Rights, among these the Right not to be made a Slave, whether field-hand or a Jannissary.

The "math" example does not hold, since the work you are being forced to do is not being done for someone else's benefit; forced "volunteer" work is. The example you put forth is more correctly a case of forced indoctrination, although that could more correctly be held true of the various Social Studies classes than of mathematics. Enslavement means being forced to do work for someone else's benefit, Conscription is a subset of Slavery whereby the Slave/Conscript is put to work killing his Master's enemies, rather than picking his Master's cotton.
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