This is not intended to be an exhaustive list. Truly, there are many ways that a person can become trapped, whether real or imagined, in the many forces that exist in today’s complicated and at times unforgiving world.  I also recognize that these issues are far more complex than can be discussed in this treatise.  And I do not wish to belittle these issues by addressing them so lightly, but rather, to illuminate some things we can do to adjust the social system for the better of all involved.  To this end, here are four issues that can be called “slavery” and what I think can be done to address them.

• Slavery to Drugs.

 

Many drugs are habit forming; some, so much so, that to be addicted to them can be a powerful form of slavery. Those who struggle under such addiction often feel helpless, doing anything to get more of the drug they need, becoming slaves to those who provide them their fix.  And while there are doctors, therapists, rehabilitation centers, and much more to help addicts overcome their need, many fail to free themselves from this slavery.

Others still, don’t want to free themselves or believe they are sufficiently functional that freedom is not necessary. This is truly a complex issue, and no solution will work for everyone.

And while there are few who would argue that illegal drugs is not a problem and few who would fail to sympathize with those caught in the trap of addiction; the issue of how to solve this problem remains hotly debated. The relatively recent effort by the federal government to combat this problem, the so called “war on drugs,” has been a gross failure.  The cost of this program has been staggering and yet there is little to show for all the money spent.  Drug use and drug related crime has continued to rise with little sign of law enforcement ever achieving the upper hand.  It is my personal belief that we are approaching this issue from the wrong direction.

My proposed solutions:

First: We need to treat addiction as a medical problem, not a criminal problem.  If those who are struggling with addiction are not afraid of the police and know that they can talk about their problems and get help without fear of prosecution more people will feel able to free themselves and take control of their lives.  This is not to make it sound easy; breaking free of addiction is a difficult struggle at best, nearly impossible at worst.  But if society has a better attitude towards addiction it will help the problem in a general way.

Second: The black market cannot be the only way for the addict to get their fix.  Very few people can quit an addiction “cold turkey.”  Even those who are determined often need to wean themselves of the drugs, proving that they can conquer the addiction a little at a time.  Doctors and therapists who are helping such individuals need to be able to prescribe these drugs (any and all of them) so that addicts can obtain them safely, legally, and easily without associating with organized crime.  This may seem counter-intuitive to some when the goal is reduce drug abuse, but even if some of the addicts never succeed in kicking the habit, separating them from their would-be slave-masters will benefit everyone.

Third: we need to take the money out of the illegal drug trade.  If drugs that are currently illegal were available legally, (even if only as prescriptions for those suffering from addiction,) many people currently purchasing drugs from criminal elements would purchase them instead from legal sources like hospitals and pharmacies.  This would deprive organized crime from much of the profit from the drug trade.  And the easier the drugs are to obtain, the less money organized crime would make.  Now to be clear, I am not advocating unrestricted access to dangerously addictive drugs.  Our end goal should be to reduce drug abuse and if these drugs are too easy to obtain then drug addiction might increase instead of decrease.

So we need to run a careful balance. However, with the aim in mind of defunding organized crime, we might need to make some compromises until the criminal infrastructure is sufficiently destabilized.  And I think that an appropriate compromise in this instance might be to make prescription addiction medication free, at least until the associated drug trade has diminished.  If all an addict has to do is talk to a doctor and get a prescription in order to get a free fix, then the criminals will have a very hard time competing with that.  Without funding, the underground market will crumble and the drug dealers will start looking for other work.

There are still other issues to be addressed; such has how to keep free prescription drugs from being passed along to someone other than the intended recipient and how to better encourage addicts to come clean… But I believe without fear of law enforcement keeping the addicts from coming forward and without a well-funded criminal underground pushing for new addicts, most of the problem will evaporate.

• Slavery to Debt.

 

This one is a personal issue to me, as unlike the other points on this list; I have struggled with debt myself. When I was younger I tried to manage my finances as best as I could.  And when I was presented with a credit card offer or two, I naively assumed that it was a sign of my good prudence; that I had been assessed and determined to be a responsible person.  I also assumed – much to my later surprise – that these financial institutions would not lend me more than I could handle – they wanted to be paid after all – and they could hardly be paid if I defaulted… or so I thought.

I learned the hard way that all of these assumptions were false. I have learned through experience and a bit of study that the consumer loan industry has slowly lobbied for many of the laws concerning debt to be altered in their favor and to the detriment of the debtor.  These changes have been small and subtle, and the politicians who have colluded to make this happen have by-in-large not been held responsible.  I will not go into further details here, others have written at length on the subject and to those struggling with debt I encourage you to visit your local library to learn more.  I will, however, mention several simple political changes which I think will help reform the issue.

My proposed solutions:

First: Consumer loan organizations should not be able to change the contract after it has been signed.  And I am not limiting this to just one type of debt.  Whether credit cards, student loans, or property loans… too many of them try to trap unsuspecting borrowers by changing the terms after the fact.  In some cases the contracts contain clauses that allow the lenders to change the terms “without notice.”  This should be illegal!  Most people do not understand contracts and even most highly educated people are often stumped by some of the tricky legal terms in modern credit and loan contracts.  Our legal system should require such contracts to be simple, straight-forward, and unchanging.  And if the lending agency wants to change the contract (even if it is a simple change of their privacy policy for example) they should be required to present a new contract to be signed.

Second: Consumer loan agencies should not be able to sell someone’s debt without their permission.  This one seems obvious to me.  If I make a contract with one person or entity, they should not be able to change who I am contracted with without writing up a whole new contract.  Now consumer loan agencies routinely sell off debt in order to spread out the risk.  But this is, in a way, part of the problem.  Lenders do not feel hesitant to make high-risk loans or even loan too much to otherwise low risk recipients if they can easily turn around and sell the debt off.  If the loan defaults, it is the investor(s) who purchased the debt who have lost money, with little to no consequence to the original lender.

If selling a debt requires the permission of the debtor, this forces the lending agency to be more responsible. After all, there is no guarantee that a debtor will agree to the change, thus the lender might be stuck with a defaulted debt they have to actually pay for.  And while this may put a temporary burden on lending institutions, it will greatly benefit both those who borrow money and those who invest money, which in turn will improve the economy which benefits everyone… especially the lending institutions.

Third: Although perhaps the most important, it may be the hardest to implement.  We need to get the federal government out of the consumer loan industry as much as possible.  The federal government should not be in the business of buying or securing debt.  Not only is this a violation of the commerce clause of the Constitution, it is one of the most financially destructive federal policies ever instituted in this country.  Unlike private investors, the federal government has little fear when buying or guaranteeing bad loans.  After all, not only does the federal government have an almost unlimited capacity to tax the American people should it run low on money, but the federal government can just print more money!  Effectively reducing the value of every other dollar already printed.

This ability and willingness of the federal government to purchase any loan without regard for risk encourages lending agencies to do the same. Knowing that many if not all of their loans will be bought off by the government, freeing them of consequence for any loans that default.  This is very dangerous, as bad loans hurt everyone involved.  Borrowers often mistakenly believe, (as I did,) that a bank’s “trust” in them is a sign of their financial stability, only to spiral into debt and effective slavery, unable to change or improve their lives under the crushing burden of mounting interest payments.  But it is also damaging to the private investors, who, seeing the success of the bank, invest in it by purchasing loans, only to discover that they, unlike the federal government, are unable to absorb the losses of defaulted loans and spiral into financial instability themselves.

Even the lending institutions themselves are hurt by this. As customers and investors lose faith, the banks find it harder to do business.  In some cases law suits are leveled for irresponsible behavior and financial damages, even though so often the bank’s behavior has been encouraged (if not mandated) by the very same federal government who is buying the majority of their debts.  Ironically, the practice of government debt buying was touted as way to reduce poverty, when it has done nothing but the opposite.

A parallel aspect to the government buying loans is that of the government offering loans. Statistically speaking, if you take both student loans and housing loans over the course of time and adjust them for inflation and other economic trends, there is a direct correlation between government loans and the rising cost of both housing and education.  The more student loans the government offers, the more education costs go up.  To the point that many math savvy students are starting to forgo higher education as their chances of ever earning enough to pay off their student loans grows increasingly slim with each passing year.  On the other hand, as the government continues to offer more housing loans the cost of housing continues to go up, (although the housing market is incredible complex, the correlation is there if you look for it.)  And as housing costs go up, both mortgage and rent prices go up adding instability to the whole housing market.

These bad practices of the federal government, both in buying loans and offering loans themselves, needs to be eliminated.

Fourth: Unsecured loans (such as credit cards) should be based on the honor system.  Most adult Americans have credit cards, (many have more than one.)  And many who have credit cards have more debt on them than they should.  While most of this problem is the fault of the card holders who spend more than they should, some of the blame falls on those lending agencies that encourage such irresponsible behavior.   Not only do credit card issuing banks sell off debt like other lending agencies (addressed above,) but in many cases, the lenders actually make more money off of those who default through fees and increased interest rates as the debtor struggled to resurface financially.  Furthermore, credit issuing banks have a vast array of debt collecting tools to reclaim the debt (even though they often have sold the debt, and/or written it off on their expense accounts.)

Much of what needs to be done has been expounded in earlier points. Credit card issuing banks should not be able to change fees, minimum payments, or interest rates when a customer defaults (first point above,) should not be able to sell off the debt to a collection agency (second point above,) or have any other legal recourse for collecting unsecured debt should the debtor decide not to pay it.  And if lending agencies were thus restricted they would be much more careful in issuing revolving credit accounts and might even feel the need to encourage borrowers to practice good financial habits instead of the bad ones they currently promote.

As a final point, revolving credit should become completely nullified upon the debtor’s death. I have read that credit card issuers have been targeting both young and old, the college students struggling to define themselves as adults and the elderly often struggling with medical bills or other expenses.  Many students take out revolving credit accounts, perhaps believing it a necessary step to establishing their credit score and advance in life; only to succumb to the temptations of debt, lacking proper financial guidance, becoming enslaved to the demands of their creditors.  Some of them, not understanding how else to escape, even take their own lives rather than face the consequences of their mistakes.  Some studies have shown a correlation between increased student debt and increased student suicide.

Likewise the consumer loan industry has been targeting the elderly. Burdened with expensive medications and medical procedures, or sometimes wishing to help out struggling relatives, some elderly accept some of the credit offers eagerly flooding their mail box.  Later, as grieving relatives look to settle the estates of the recently departed they are often shocked to find greedy collectors knocking on their doors and calling their phones, disrupting their peace and asking for payment from people who many times had no hand in nor knowledge of the debt in question.  If revolving credit accounts become null upon the borrowers death, credit agencies would be forced to be more cautious when lending to those who ought to be protected from such schemes.

• Slavery to Entitlements.

 

I will start this section with a story of a relative of mine (name omitted) who has cerebral palsy and was bound for much of her life to a wheelchair. At a certain time in her life, she had the desire to be independent of the government assistance she was receiving for her disability.  Despite her handicap, she diligently sought employment, but soon discovered that any compensation she received would be deducted from her government assistance.  Furthermore, being employed carried many additional costs including clothing, transportation, wear and tear on her wheel chair, among many others… while simultaneously taking away from time spent at home.  Reluctantly, she came to the realization that she could not afford to work.

When I first heard this story related to me I could not understand why the government would create an entitlement program that encouraged its beneficiaries to become dependent on it. This seemed counter-intuitive to me.  I have since learned the reason; that the politicians who control such programs are dependent on the votes of the people enslaved to entitlement.  This is a vicious cycle, and not limited to any one type of entitlement.  Disability, free education, free medical care, government retirement programs…  All of them are vulnerable to this corruption.  Recipients of government assistance feel trapped, not seeing any other way to survive… They are threatened by any politician suggesting entitlement reform, and so vote for those promising to protect their respective programs.  (Whether or not the politicians actually keep their promises is another matter.)  The politicians in turn feel the need to enlarge and expand the entitlement programs in order to keep garnering new votes, perpetuating the cycle of slavery.

My proposed solutions:

Putting aside, for the moment, how much of these entitlements the government should or should not provide; I think there is a simple solution that most people could be convinced to get behind:  Turn the entitlements over to the individual states.  Part of the problem is that the federal government has almost no check on how much they can expand such programs.  The people printing the money should not be the same people in charge of giving it away! The states, however, are required to balance their budget, limiting how much entitlement programs run by them can become corrupted.  Furthermore, if the federal government was deprived of entitlement management, it could instead be in charge of auditing the state programs and prosecuting examples of corruption as they arise.  Also, as states take charge of entitlements, they will begin diversifying – changing entitlement programs in different ways from state to state – such that those states with more corrupt programs will become poor economic environments encouraging those individuals and businesses that can afford it to move to more responsible states.

This will naturally encourage politicians to make sure entitlement programs actually benefit the intended recipients and to limit them to a scope that is economically feasible. And while some vote buying will inevitably occur, smaller state run programs will be far easier to police and reform then federal ones.  All of this leading to fewer people feeling trapped and voting for politicians who would not otherwise merit their votes.

• Slavery to a Lack of Citizenship.

 

When I first learned of this issue, it was simply called “illegal immigration.” Now, other terms have surfaced such as “undocumented immigrant” or “undocumented worker.”  I’m not sure any of these terms are completely accurate or describe the issue as a whole.  So I am going to define these terms and a few others, at least as far as I intend to use them.

The word “immigrant” refers to a person who moves to a new place with the intention of living there. But many of these so called “illegal immigrants” cross our borders with no intention of settling down and finding meaningful work.  Some do… but others are drug smugglers, thieves, murderers, and rapists… just to name a few.  The word “immigrant” thus fails to identify the whole issue.

Likewise the word “worker” fails to describe the whole problem. Many politicians go on about illegal immigrants “taking jobs Americans won’t do” without addressing those who do not work (or whose work does not constitute a legally acceptable occupation.)

The word “undocumented” is also inaccurate, as there are other ways of becoming undocumented besides being in the country illegally. For example, a person’s records might have been misfiled or destroyed, or a person’s parents might have failed to properly record such person’s birth, resulting in a person who is a legal citizen of the United States, but is technically “undocumented.”

While “illegal immigration” is an acceptable term for describing the criminal act… There is a better term to describe the group of people who are citizens of other countries and who either enter the U.S. in a way other than those legally prescribed by our laws or those who remain in this country longer than the law permits.  These two requirements, being foreign nationals and breaking our immigration laws meant the best term to describe this group of people is “criminal aliens.”  This may sound harsh, but the truth often is.

Why is this a problem? First, anytime a group of people disregard the laws of the land that is a problem.  Laws are the glue that hold civilization together.  An entire class of people engaging in institutionalized disobedience to the law is a major threat to society.  Second, the class of people most hurt by illegal immigration are the legal immigrants.  The majority of Criminal Aliens come from the same countries, and often have similar education and skills, as those who enter this country legally.  And yet legal immigrants are more strictly monitored by the government, having less opportunity to skirt taxes, minimum wage, or other burdensome regulations. Furthermore, seeing as legal immigrants have gone through the difficult and arduous task of entering this country legally, they are typically more respectful of the law and less likely to try to dodge taxes in the first place.  Meanwhile, criminal aliens with similar skill sets and language skills often underbid their legal counterparts, being more willing to work for less to avoid citizenship questions and being able to work for less since they incur lower expenses by being paid under the table.

The group of people who are the second most hurt by illegal immigration are the poor and underprivileged already living in the U.S. and for many of the same reasons. Contrary to the common rhetoric, many of these underprivileged often do the same jobs as the illegal immigrants, jobs that used to be “middle class” jobs before the flood of competition drove the wages down.

Another harm caused by illegal immigration, and one that is rarely talked about, is the harm caused to the country the criminal aliens come from. Many of them, (at least many of those not engaged in further criminal activity,) try to make as much money as possible to benefit family still living in their country of origin.  Perhaps they want to climb out of poverty.  Perhaps they fear deportation.  Regardless of the reasons, many criminal aliens send vast amounts of money back to their relatives.  Not only does this practice rob said country of many of its most diligent workers who might otherwise grow the local economy, but it deprives those receiving money from the need to work themselves, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and dependence.

Finally, those who live with the threat of deportation or other legal consequences for their lack of citizenship become vulnerable to exploitation. At the tamest level, criminal aliens might feel compelled to encourage their legal relatives to vote for politicians with a “soft” stance towards illegal immigration, or even commit voter fraud themselves.  But the risk does not stop there.  Those who employ criminal aliens might feel enabled to exploit such vulnerabilities, perpetuating poor work environments that legal immigrants or even U.S. citizens might otherwise object to.  In extreme cases, despicable individuals may even force criminal aliens into completely illegal activities such as drugs, thievery, or prostitution.

The current political narrative regarding illegal immigration is completely ridiculous. The very politicians who are arguing that we want “these people” in the country are simultaneously maintaining the laws making it illegal for said people to enter the country.  If you want a group of people to be in this country, make it easier for them to enter legally.  If you don’t want them, enforce the laws prohibiting their entry.  The current policy of maintaining the illegality of such a large population of aliens while refusing to enforce or reform the immigration laws not only creates an easily exploitable group of sub-citizens, (not dissimilar to the legal status that slaves held prior to the abolition of the practice,) but also allows many criminal and terrorist elements to freely come and go without hindrance.

My proposed solutions:

A large part of the problem is that it is too easy for criminal aliens to take advantage of corrupt entitlements existing in the U.S. The reforms to the entitlement programs I suggested above will go a long way to reducing the number of aliens trying to enter (or stay in) this country illegally.  Furthermore there is a question as to how much benefit immigrants should receive from entitlement programs or whether they should receive any benefits at all.  Do we have an obligation to help those who are trying to become U.S. or those who are citizens of other countries but are visiting this one?  What about the citizens of other countries still living in those countries?  Are all people in all countries around the world entitled to the same help as our native citizens?  If not, where do we draw the line?  These are not easy questions to answer, which is one of the reasons I think all entitlement programs should be turned over to the states, so that we can experiment and see what works best.

We need to end the practice of “anchor babies” as it encourages criminal entry into this country.  Why should someone visiting this country (legally or not) be able give birth and have the baby be a U.S. citizen, when others such as Native Americans, or foreign diplomats – here legally – cannot? The part of the constitution used to justify this practice was written to ensure that children of former slaves were counted as citizens and was never intended to be twisted to apply to visiting citizens of other countries.

We also need major reform to the current immigration laws. It is far too complex for someone entering this country to do so legally.  In times past, people wanting to immigrate to this country simply showed up at a port of entry, showed that they had enough money to survive until they could get settled, that they were free of contagious diseases, and that they were not criminals in their home country, they were admitted.  Not only is our modern immigration system so complex that many would be lawful immigrants are shoehorned into illegal status just to avoid the red tape, but in many cases there is built in prejudices:  In that it is easier for people to immigrate from countries with certain political mindsets than from countries whose politics disagrees from those politicians writing the laws.

I think our immigration policies should be simple, straightforward, and fair. Our laws should be written to encourage citizenship and discourage criminal and terrorist activity.  And most importantly, the laws need to be enforced.