SLAVE LABOUR IS GOOD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Don’t let the title fool you, even though it seems like click-bait, I’m entirely serious. It is amazing how the concept of slavery has become historically an Amero-centric phenomena. The modern American narrative is that the negro slaves in the antebellum south were the only slaves on the globe, as if the story were frozen in that place and time.The story also spins out that malicious white men invented slavery, just for that place and time, because they were evil racists. In actual fact, slavery has been an institution with mankind since the beginning, and it has never really left us.

At this point let us look at the definition of slavery, it comes in many forms and differs slightly with culture, place and time. But what is the broad definition of “slavery”? New Webster defines slavery as “the state of a person who is a chattel of another” (but also as “submission to a dominating influence” and “drudgery, toil”; something to keep in mind. There is no doubt that the definition leaves much room for differences in the actual practise of slavery; some forms being much more cruel than others. For instance you can look at the concept of “debt slavery” or indentured servitude. This was the status of many who came to the new world, they sold themselves into a temporary slavery in order to pay a debt. Theoretically once the debt was paid the individual was then free. I say theoretically because once one was enslaved for any reason, your legal status changed. Many “indentured servants” started out as prisoners of war, whose debt could never theoretically be paid. If one was a black male captured in Africa, by a rival tribe, and sold to an Irish Slaver, or an Irish girl captured by British forces and forcibly “indentured” to be shipped to the Americas; is there really a huge difference? Both could be whipped, abused, bred, etc; without legal representation or status. There was a common practise in slave holding countries to buy cheap indentured white girls, and breed them to the more expensive Black African males, in order to build a resilient human work force for the hot sun and crushing labour of sugar, cotton and fruit industries. Let us now leave the horrid idea of slavery, in all its forms, and simply understand that slavery was a practise that is interwoven in all cultures, places, and times. Slavery is endemic of the human condition, and is still “legal” in some cultures (mostly Islamic) today.

There is a reason that slavery was so common throughout history, it’s because life on this planet is difficult, there is a lot of brute labour that goes into having a life. Think about how one would stay alive if you were dropped into the wilderness with nothing. You’re going to get hungry, so sharpen a stick on a rock and go find something to eat. Everything we accomplish as a society starts there. Food, fuel, clothing, shelter, sanitation; they all require planning and brute labour. If a society can organize and work together, eventually they emerge out of a basic subsistence treadmill, and into a society where time can be spent on something besides raw survival. Once enough food can be secured, shelters can last generationally, and a fighting force assembled to stave off plunderers; a culture can be formed. Suddenly artisanal skills can be cultivated. Pot making, metal working, textiles, etc can now be expanded and specialized. Each new skill or technology adds to the societies body of knowledge. Each new development makes life a little more comfortable, the future begins to look a little more assured. However, there are some jobs that never end. Fields need tilling, fuel needs gathering, the shit needs to be shovelled and things need to be cleaned. Brute labour requires brutes, imagine the level of work (and boredom) to turn one big stone on top of another to grind grain. These are jobs that no one likes, it was not a far step to take prisoners from the last group of enemies that raided the town, and make them empty the shit pails. Slavery is a natural outgrowth of a society with power; colours of skin or hair make little difference.

It is easy to look at slavery as evil and wrong, when one sits in comfort. It is easy to pass judgement on those who lived in the past for their transgressions against the freedom of other humans. It is easy to sneer at, and hate, the past; if you are ignorant. We would not be here without the work of slaves. The glorious architecture of Greece and Rome may have been designed by the “enlightened”; but slave labour built it.The pyramids, again, really awesome, but built with human muscle. The norsemen used slaves to do grunt work at home, while the free men went “viking”. The wood got chopped, and fields tilled, while the viking men hauled home wealth (and more slaves); the list is endless. Even the advanced cultures of Africa centred around slavery, everyone wants someone else to do the scut work. If we are honest with ourselves, isn’t this computer I’m typing on probably built by communist wage slaves? Yes those people are “paid” for their 12 hour work day, probably very little. They are also told by the state that that is what they do, don’t argue. If you don’t see that as a form of slavery, then you are willingly ignorant.

That is the next place for us to look, did we get rid of slaves because we are more righteous than our historical counterparts? Are we morally “better” than the people of the past? The brain dead, leftist idiots pulling down statues seem to think so, but they are wrong. Some say if the slaves in the Confederate United States hadn’t been freed by the deaths of 600,000 Americans in the civil war, slavery would have died a natural death within one more generation regardless.

Hard to believe? Maybe. I have read about the innovations that were already removing the need for large numbers of slaves. Machines like the cotton gin and the power loom were already happening, and they were faster, better and cheaper. Another 30 years and field equipment was in use. Here is the kicker, slaves are expensive. Slaves need to be purchased, housed, fed, controlled, and made to work. Slave owners lived in constant fear of uprisings or attacks. The alternative to slavery was technology. Throw a little coal in a boiler, get a head of steam, pull a lever, suddenly the work is being done by a few hands; no muss or fuss. Shut it down at night and you’re finished; owning slaves was a 24 hr job. This is the difference between us and our far flung ancestors, the machines. Oh don’t worry, our ancestors seen it coming, they predicted an age where machines did all the work; well here it is. Machines move earth, break rocks, sew clothes, saw wood, preserve food, harvest crops, smelt iron, extrude a multitude of polymers, and do the most dirty, dangerous or boring jobs. We have lights on switches, meals at a phone call, temperature regulated by thermostats, and our shit is whisked away by hidden piping. Our society can now stand in judgment of those who kept slaves, not because we are morally better; but because we don’t really need slaves anymore.

Now here we are. Living richer, cleaner, fatter, safer and more spoiled than any other society that has ever lived. The poorest worker in our culture lives with more assurance than the richest slave owner of ancient Greece. Electric lights push back the night, A/C and heat keep a constant temperature, beds are clean and soft, modern medicine beats simple injuries and diseases that would have killed the ancients. Entertainment only had by kings is available 24 hours, exotic foods are brought in cheaply from around the world, and communication is instant. The wonders that our technologies have wrought are dismissed as a “given”; and expected by all.

 Yet there is a price. This life that even the poorest live, is in need of raw materials. The machines don’t run on pixie dust or unicorn farts, iron doesn’t grow on trees, and eventhough lumber does; it is required that you cut the tree down first. The “wind-un-solar” crowd are idiots, they think all we need is solar panels and electric cars to “save” the planet. Nobody does the math on the tons of lithium or cobalt required to be in a “sustainable” electric future. These green knuckleheads haven’t a clue that solar panels have a life of 20 years, or that a wind turbine uses more energy to manufacture than it will ever generate in its lifetime; nothing to “educated” enviro-socialists is practical, everything is political. Our machine world of happy slaves doesn’t require our empathy, but it does require logical, practical and scientific thinking. Things also have to work out financially. Not in a “someone has to get filthy rich” profit sort of way; but dollars and cents keep score between practical ideas and stupid pipe dreams. You cannot build a “sustainable” future that relies on the taxpayer subsidized white elephant. With that system the friends of the government get filthy rich, and all the common people get is the bill.

These young hipster types sitting in a cool, upscale, chrome filled coffee shop, sipping an exotic latte, and typing on their laptops about slavery reparations and the “rape” of the planet are Hellen Keller level blind, deaf and DUMB. These bearded “enviroweenie” wunderkinds are totally oblivious to the armies of technicians and labourers who work 24 hrs to make the lights glow, the latte hot, and the air conditioned. These people are so oblivious to the millions of gears, wires, programs, belt drives, hydraulics, engines, pistons, turbines, pipes, and circuit boards that keep this whole contemporary gambit against nature afloat. The supposed elite also like to sneer at the men and women who service, and manufacture, the inorganic organs of our society. The man who drives the coal truck, feeding the steam that becomes electricity is charging that electric car that he can never afford.How about the lineman who fixes the wires that distribute the electricity? You could keep going on about the other necessities. Don’t forget about the trucker who drives through the night to bring the parts and pieces of survival, the woman who organizes the work schedule of men keeping fresh water flowing, the crews who ensure the sewage doesn’t back up, need I go on? Our entire existence as a society is a wide, intricate (and quite delicate) web of interdependence, trust, communication and hard work. Any changes to that system must be slow, deliberate, and they have to make (#$%&*^@$) sense!

If you want to be wise, it is crucial that yousee the panoramic, thousand mile view. We started with that sharp stick finding something to eat. Hungry, cold, dirty, and ill clothed; we now have the ability to extract from the land a comfortable life. But that has requirements. Trees must be cut down, holes must be dug or drilled, pipes must be trenched, and wires strung; ore and energy must be extracted to feed that comfortable life. Is that worse than slavery? Many obviously now think so. Whenever I hear a supposed environmentalist waxing on about the evils of a pipeline or coal mine, I always ask in my mind; who has to die? We cannot sustain all the people without the level of technology we’re using, not in the short term anyway. I could add to that question now. Who will be required to be slaves? Who will hold the whip while the teeming masses extract survival from a land without pipelines and clearcuts? Nothing gets my blood up like a “vegan” extolling their plant based lifestyle as being so gentle to “mother earth”, while completely ignorant about the level of energy and chemicals needed to grow corn or soybeans. Both of these crops, while necessary, are fed in turn by a robust energy industry. Giant diesel engines work the land, the soil is fed by Nat Gas based fertilizers, all is processed in energy intensive factories. We haven’t even touched on transportation. If the energy industry is destroyed (like the enviroweenies want), people WILL starve; that is the truth. I also doubledamnguarantee that not one of those socialist loving, save-the-earth types picture themselves doing this great service to gia by chopping the weeds out of 5 acres of turnips with a hoe.

I have much kudos to give to an honest homesteader, the ones who put in the work to till and plant, raise and butcher, milk and nurture. To extract from all of nature a balance. A life lived simply, is a hard life, often boring. A life of hand labour for mere survival, with some comforts, but no extras

I once met such a man, his name was Mike Oehler. Mike was an old hippie who wrote “The 50 dollar and up underground house” book. As a young man I was intrigued by his building method, so I looked him up while on a holiday in Idaho. Mike had moved “onto the land” and built himself a house out of logs, rough lumber, and dirt. OHHH YEAH! Plastic played a huge role. Mike built his house in the seventies out of upright logs, timber shorings, with plastic sheeting separating the wood from the dirt. It worked. Really cool house (don’t expect resale value or home insurance; or any kind of code compliance for sure). The house was still in good shape (in a rustic way) ,and clean smelling, when I visited him in 1989. Mike was an original “back to the land’er”, and the homestead was like a nirvana to those folks. Mike raised animals, grew vegetables, and wrote books (and, if you study his architecture, shovelled a LOT of dirt). For all I know he spent his book earnings at the local bar, pounding his fist on sticky tables, expounding about sustainable architecture. But, the one thing I remember as a young man, when I greeted him with a handshake, (he walked down out of the bush, in the rain, in his bare feet) his hand was like a leather glove on the inside (I’m sure his feet were the same on the bottom).That man had slaved for what he believed.

    This is where we are. There are no easy solutions. But one thing I know, we can ignore reality, but we will not be able to evade the consequences or ignoring reality. One can paint the whole leftist attitude of paying “reparations” for slavery and shutting down conventional energy (and industry) as an exercise in some liberal lunacy. The end effect, however, will be to destroy western civilization. The whole “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” thing will be over. And again. The questions must be asked, who will have to die, and who willbe slaves again? Reality gives us no other option. I believe that a smart people will always be able to overcome technical problems, energy/pollution, sustainability/profit; these are just logically based scientific/budgetary problems.

It seems to me that the entire message of the left is “who are you to judge the third world?!!” Those people are suffering because of capitalistic and colonial ideas! Yet the facts show that capitalism has actually raised theliving standards of almost everybody. I don’t want to leave you with the image of many dogs scrapping over a few bones. The fact is, the earth is very, very rich; and surprisingly, sustainable all on its own. Turns out trees grow reel good, grass comes back; and there is ore and oil all over the place. We haven’t really even explored the asteroid belt yet.It turns out that in rich countries people don’t even have enough babies to keep the population up! I guess were like wolves, less than enough, we quit procreating. Doncha think maybe we can stop worrying about the population bomb? I kinda thing think so. With the the blizzards and freezing in Texas? Can we start calling global warming as bullshit yet? No? OHHHHH it’s Climatechange© now! I forgot.

I’m saying that we should dream. Have babies. We will figure this out; even if we have to go to the asteroid belt

The main problems about this topic are, to me, morally based. Who has the right to limit what a free people can accomplish? Whoholds the power? Who decides who will toil in darkness and obscurity for their very survival, who will be slaves? Morally speaking, is not each of us made in the Image of God? That is the philosophy and religion that defeatedslavery. If all western culture is “evil whiteness” due to past slavery, is not western technology (all modern technology, really) also evil? Once the machines are silenced, the work will still have to be done. Chains? Or machines? history tells us that there will always be those who demand that the work gets done, better be careful about who holds the whip.
Vaya con Dios, eh?
-Ranger