Slavery is neutral

What drew me in was honestly the strangeness of the claim. "Slavery is neutral" isn't a position I've seen defended much. Most people argue it's wrong, some try to contextualize or excuse it, but "neutral" is a distinct and unusual stance, so I wanted to see the actual case for it.
That said, before we start: "neutral" is doing a lot of work here and could mean several different things: morally neutral (neither good nor bad), descriptively neutral (just a historical system we shouldn't evaluate), economically neutral (one labor system among many), or something else. Which version are you actually defending?

Your argument hinges on defining slavery as "control of freedom and obligation," which is broad enough to include prisons, parental authority, employment contracts, and traffic laws. If that's slavery, then sure, it's "neutral," but only because you've redefined the word to mean something other than what the historical institution actually was. Slavery isn't just control of freedom. It's owning a person as property, treating them as chattel, denying their legal personhood. A prisoner has rights, a sentence, and due process. A slave doesn't. Collapsing those into one category is the move that makes your argument work, but it's also the move that makes it not actually about slavery.
Second, your own description undercuts the neutrality claim. You describe slavery as involving capture, involuntary subjugation, and taking someone's freedom "for the good of those with freedom untouched." That's not a neutral mechanism. That's a description of coercion and zero-sum extraction. One person's freedom is taken so another can benefit. By your own account, slavery requires harmful acts to even exist. A car in neutral isn't doing anything; "slavery in neutral" doesn't exist, because the moment slavery exists, someone is being coerced.
Third, the tool metaphor doesn't work for slavery the way it works for actual tools. A hammer in a drawer harms no one. Slavery can't sit unused. It's a relation, not an object, and the harm is built into the relation itself. We don't say "torture is neutral, depends how you use it" because the suffering is part of what torture is. Slavery is the same. The dehumanization isn't an optional output; it's constitutive.
So which version of "neutral" are you actually defending? The trivial one where slavery is just "control of freedom" and therefore identical to any law or rule, or the substantive one where the historical institution of human chattel slavery is neither good nor bad? Because the first isn't really about slavery, and the second is contradicted by your own description.

A prisoner has as much rights as allowed by the warden as the slave has by the slave master.

See whatever goes on in that penal prison is all at the control of the powers that be. The inmate is property of the state. The inmate is in chains, in bondage, in shackles or behind bars or a locked door not at the inmate's discretion.

The slave can be allowed in the house. The slave can be allowed an extra plate of food. The slave is in bondage just the same. The slave can be stripped of everything like an inmate is put in the hole.

You gotta ask, does a prisoner actually have more freedom than a slave?

If this is the case , why are there prison breaks like runaway slaves?

The nature is the same. The terms you use are preferential but can validly be interchangeable by that very same nature.

That's really enough said case closed. Much of your points cloud this straightforward point.

I'll respond to the things necessary.

" We don't say "torture is neutral, depends how you use it" because the suffering is part of what torture is. "

This is a poor very poor analogy. Here is what would be analogous to my position. A knife is neutral. It can be used for torture or cutting pieces of healthy vegetables for nutrition. A slave imprisoned 8to be kept from harming others or a prisoned slave used for free labor.

It swings either way. You take the negative things and make them neutral. I'm not doing that . 

It's the same to you because you attach slavery to a built-in negative context and negative light like people do with guns. But the fact is, these are all neutral. You can't say a prisoner is more free than a slave but because you , people in general don't want to acknowledge slavery can be good, you become inconsistent with supporting the penal prison system.

I never said chattel slavery is neutral. The answer is in the topic. I said slavery. This is how easy you keep attaching a negative context.

Is it negative to enslave behaving pedophiles, not people with desires but actually behaving pedophiles, murderers, terrorists?

Ok well. Here goes the question again.

Is it negative to enslave behaving pedophiles, not people with desires but actually behaving pedophiles, murderers, terrorists?

Is it wrong or bad or destructive?

Just think about it and then respond with a direct "yes" or "no" , then you can expound if you think a yes or no isn't sufficient. That's up to you.

Assuming what people mean or subjecting people to what you want their words to mean is invalid. Not only does it not work but it's fallacious and dishonest.

If I tell you what I mean by a word, it's dishonest to say "no that's not what you mean". 

So to be honest, we have to go by the exact words and the exact  wording that is being used. I didn't say "chattel slavery" and it is therefore dishonest to charge me with something I never said. If you insist on doing that , you are commiting a fallacy which debaters do in order to try to save face. You're moving the goalpost. I never said "chattel slavery" and I am therefore not guilty of using the language and have no burden, no responsibility of defending it .

Just because you can't refute  my stance on "slavery" alone, on its own on its face, you have to strawman a position up in order to tear it down. A position that doesn't even exist in this topic.

The honest procedure is, let the person define his or her own terms. Then try to refute those terms. Not extrapolate your interpretation and defeat that subjective interpretation because you know that's the only way to appear valid.

I explained everything in the second round what I meant. If anything was unclear, you should have made that known. I started off with the very first sentence explaining what I mean by slavery. By that definition, you'd have to agree it would be neutral. Being that you have no refutation for that, you're moving the goalpost away from that.

It really doesn't matter how a prisoner became a slave. The point is, the freedom is taken away and we both know that.  A slave can be a slave for five minutes, five years or five hundred years. The key again, is the control of freedom. If you're going to argue inmates are inherently free while slaves aren't, you're in contradiction. 

Watch this:

A slave is imprisoned by the slave's master.

Is this true or false?

If you say false, we've gotten away from what being enslaved to something is.

Reminder. If you don't answer these questions directly, you do forfeit the topic as highlighted by the debate stipulations.

Another irrelevant point. You're not enslaved by way of anybody else being enslaved AT ALL. Not only have you been moving the goalpost, but using a particular context in history is making you even ad- hoc what truly makes a slave in the first place.

A helpful reminder to keep you on track to focus on the epicenter with the following once again.

A slave is imprisoned by the slave's master.

Is this true or false?

A slave master doesn't even have to do this in order to be a slave master number one.

Now, a warden certainly doesn't have to do this to be the warden. The plantation supervisors or penal prison officers can physically deal with an inmate in order to maintain the inmate's imprisoned or enslavement compliance.

If an inmate has the inherent freedom a slave doesn't, since you want to separate the two, if the inmate has......... inherent freedom...........that a slave doesn't, surely compliance measures wouldn't be taken .

The inmate is free to do what the inmate wants to do.

This is why they break out , right. It's because the freedom on the inside compares different to the outside.

Nah, complete nonsense. That prisoner breaks out like that slave runs off..... because of FREEDOM.

Neither one has an inherent advantage. They both by nature are the same. You're looking for outliers to try to make them different and it is not substantial at all in order to avoid supporting enslavement in some way. In which that way is in the form of penal judicial constraints.

Put the history aside and break down what a slave master is in and of itself just like slavery itself. Put......the historical...... context.....aside.

A slave master is master over the slave. Being a master has to do with control. A slave's freedom is controlled. 

I say slavery is a control of freedom. Just that straightforward. If I sentence you to 15 years to life in prison, I have CONTROLLLLLL OVER YOU.

IS THIS BEGINNING TO SINK IN NOW?

DO WE HAVE OUR MINDS OUT OF A BOX?

DO WE HAVE OUR MINDS OUT A HISTORICAL....... CONTEXTUAL.....BOX?

We have to see this for what it is.

No it makes no difference based on realistic points made above.

The point is ...... FREEDOM....... FREEDOM...... FREEDOM......

If it wasn't for freedom being deprived, a slave couldn't be in physical shackles and chains as an inmate is in physical shackles and chains as well as mental or any other channel of bondage.

I understand that we have different contexts. I'm not arguing that. I'm trying to tell you that it boils down to the same ontology.

This is why I have this topic. The average person associates one word into a box as if it only belongs there .

Just like this example. A parent tells his child, "I got to go to work Monday ". The child says" I got to go to work too". Father says "You mean school ". Then the Father says "well I guess in a way you can say it's work". 

See the Father realized something when he thought..... outside the box .....away from the average conventional thinking. You have class work or classroom work as well as nominally called......homework . 

***********Just think about this example and contemplate what I'm telling you. *************

I'm going to conclude with this at the end of my responses so you can start with a response to this particular illustration next round.

A slave master can have the slaves.....doing.... nothing. The slaves can being doing nothing.............until ordered.

Kidnapping is irrelevant. Again I'm not arguing how people become enslaved. If you enslave murderers, you shouldn't have a problem with that or you condemn your own self. Do you think the society that wishes to be protected from murderers, is that wrong to have ownership of them?

You can define slavery however you define it. But if I'm a slave master that has a slave that does what your slaves do and CAN'T DO.....are yours slaves just slaves because of the discrepancy in illegitimate ownership?

You continue to get away from the nature of what constitutes enslavement. It's by what you can or can't do . In order for slaves.....to escape slavery....... fixing how they became slaves doesn't help them escape or break free. That actually have to do........DO.........what they are not allowed TO DO as slaves to not be .

Your slaves have to escape just like mine would have to . Then they all would be free people according to them anyway.

You got to really think about slavery in terms of freedom. If you go about it that way, it'll be far easier to understand what I'm talking about. That's if you're open minded. If not , it doesn't matter what I say and you'll be disingenuous.

It works by you answering yes or no. Not answering is just evading the obvious and inevitable refutation and an instant forfeit of the topic.

Debate stipulation from description:

"Answer all questions directly. Failure to comply with all this is an automatic forfeit."

You're completely lost on this topic. I've enjoyed it. It's unfortunate I can't get this consistent effort from others on these sites. The debate community is about dead around here.

In any event, I make this as simple as can be. All that extra stuff just doesn't have anything to do with it.

So because of all these extra elements to convolute things, it kept you from answering the questions.

"Is it negative to enslave behaving pedophiles, not people with desires but actually behaving pedophiles, murderers, terrorists?

Is it wrong or bad or destructive?"

A slave is imprisoned by the slave's master.

Is this true or false?

Just answer honestly. Though it's conceding, there's nothing wrong with using the power of slavery for self defense like that of a use of a gun................................or knife.

No. I don't see why not just sticking with what I said exactly in the second round unless you can't refute it on those exact terms, what I said.....no problemo.

I said "Slavery in and of itself is not destructive nor constructive. It doesn't sway to either side alone so it remains in neutral until somebody gets in the enslavement vehicle to take it out that gear and move it to how the person wills."

Who's the somebody that gets in the...... slave driver seat?

Will that person drive the slaves to do what the law says....who are called law abiding citizens.........or......will those law abiding citizens escape into a life of freedom criminality?

Law abiding in the land of the "free".....by the way.

Will that person drive those slaves at the next left.....of judicial and courtroom avenue...... forcing them........ forcing them...... forcing them.....to get in a jump suit and it doesn't matter if those slavesssss....want to go home in their own bed. Forcing them to reside in a metal iron cement box. Forcing them to spread, forcing them to remain in one place ......for your so called finite time......or LIFE.

You can be a slave for two minutes. The timing has not a split second to do with it.

You gonna tell me I'm stuck in this box for life and I don't have freedom like a slave but I'm not a slave.

You gonna tell me "no , this is your punishment". So my punishment is for whoever to enslave me until I learn a lesson. Until I'm rehabilitated.

I'm no more inherently free than a slave. This can be regarded as classic gaslighting from the opposing side.

"No..... you're not a slave. " 

Oh am I inherently free?

"Well no."

But I don't want to be locked up. I don't consent. My will is to be out. 

"I'm sorry you're forced by the state to be here".

I'm forced like a slave to live here, work here, eat here, get things decided for me .

"Yes. But let's not call you a slave."

If I want to appeal this conviction and get approved overturning my conviction, do I get release papers?

"Yes".

These release papers are for what?

"Well , released as a free man , a free person".

Oh a free person just like the papers that are documented as a release of a slave as a .....free... person.

"Well yes but no ....see that slave was innocent.....but you were guilt.....well..... you're actually innocent...but the law.....uhh....."

Yes society had laws for slaves on the plantation.

See, all this to say....when you really think this out.... we realize what the essence is.

The essence thereof. Trying to be finicky over technicalities and contexts....just call the thing for what it is.

Just like the 9-5 is modern day slavery. But a different topic.

I as an inmate forced to be whatever is not a different type of force to be a slave because one size fits all says whatever is against my will.

My will is freedom...be it I a slave or inmate.

Consider this example again. Even respond to it first prior to anything else to adjust your lense.

Another key takeaway:

I as an inmate forced to be whatever is not a different type of force to be a slave because one size fits all says whatever is against my will.

My will is freedom...be it I a slave or inmate.

I as an inmate forced to be whatever is not a different type of force to be a slave because one size fits all says whatever is against my will.

My will is freedom...be it I a slave or inmate.

I rest a well delivered case on that .

A lot happened in your last post, but most of it traces back to one move I want to put under a microscope, because it's where the whole argument lives or dies.
On letting you define your own terms. I'll grant you the principle: yes, you get to stipulate what you mean. So let's take your definition seriously: "slavery is the control of freedom and obligation." Watch what happens when we run it.
Under that definition, slavery is also: parents grounding a teenager, a kindergarten teacher making kids sit still, the military draft, mandatory quarantine during an epidemic, a court ordering child support, a leash on a dog, traffic laws, even a parent grabbing a toddler before they run into the street. Every one of those is "control of freedom and obligation." So when you say "slavery is neutral," you're really saying "the broad category of restrictions on freedom contains some neutral cases." That's trivially true and nobody disputes it.
But the word doing the rhetorical work in your thesis is "slavery." You're trading on its ordinary meaning — chattel ownership, the historical institution, the thing people picture when they hear the word — while quietly substituting "any control of freedom" when challenged. That's a motte-and-bailey. The defensible claim is "some restrictions of freedom are okay." The provocative claim is "slavery is neutral." You move between them depending on which one I push on. Either you mean the historical institution (and you owe a defense of that), or you mean "any restriction of freedom" (in which case the word "slavery" is doing no real work and your thesis collapses into a banality).
Answering your direct questions, as required.
"A slave is imprisoned by the slave's master. True or false?"
False, in the sense you need it to be true. A slave is held in bondage by their master. "Imprisonment" in standard usage refers to confinement following legal process. The shared feature — physical restriction — doesn't make the institutions identical, any more than a surgeon cutting a patient and a mugger cutting a victim are the same act because both involve cutting. The mechanism of restriction doesn't determine the nature of the institution.
"Is it negative to enslave behaving pedophiles, murderers, terrorists?"
No, it is not negative to lawfully imprison convicted murderers through due process. But notice what's actually doing the work in that sentence: "lawfully," "convicted," "due process." Strip those out — go capture someone you suspect of being a murderer and make them your personal property for life, with no trial, no appeal, no end date, and inheritable to their children — and it becomes obviously wrong. The acceptability of lawful incarceration doesn't come from its similarity to slavery; it comes from precisely the features that distinguish it from slavery.
On prison and slavery being "the same in nature." You call the differences "outliers" and "cosmetic." They aren't outliers — they're constitutive of what each institution is:
A prisoner is convicted through process; a slave is captured or born into status. A prisoner serves a finite sentence; a slave serves until death. A prisoner retains personhood and civil status, recoverable on release; a slave is property and has no civil status to recover. A prisoner's children are free; a slave's children are owned. A prisoner can appeal; a slave cannot. A warden who beats a prisoner to death goes to prison; a slave master who did the same historically faced minimal or no consequence.
These aren't decorative differences around a shared core. They are the core. Take them away from prison and you get slavery. Add them to slavery and you get something that isn't slavery anymore. That's how you know which differences are constitutive: the institution can't survive their removal.
Your "prison breaks like runaway slaves" point doesn't establish equivalence. Soldiers desert. Kids run from boarding school. People walk out of psychiatric holds. The mere fact that someone wants to leave a confined space tells us nothing about whether the confinement is slavery, lawful punishment, parental authority, or something else.
On the knife analogy. You say slaves can sit doing nothing, just like a knife on a counter. But the relation doesn't sit on a counter. The slave can't walk away. If they try, force is applied. That's continuous coercion, even when no labor is being extracted at a given moment. A better analogy: stolen property doesn't become neutral because the thief isn't currently using the loot. The wrongful ownership persists. Slavery is, definitionally, the wrongful ownership of a person — and the wrong is in the ownership, not in any particular action taken with it.
On the father/work/school example. This actually works against you. Notice what the father says: "in a way." He's making a loose analogy, not an identity claim. School and work share some features — obligation, structure, output — and the father acknowledges that overlap without collapsing the two. We don't draft schoolchildren into adult jobs because they "already work." We don't pay them W-2 wages. The example shows exactly the move I'm asking you to make: recognize shared features without erasing the differences that make two things different things. Your argument requires the opposite move — flattening loose similarity into ontological identity.
The fatal problem for "neutral." Here's the move you haven't answered, and it's the one that ends the thesis. By your own examples, slavery requires justification to be acceptable. You don't say enslaving murderers is fine because slavery is neutral; you say it's fine because it protects society from murderers. That's a justification — a defeasible reason offered to overcome a presumption against the act.
But neutral things don't require justification. Walking down the street is neutral. Drinking water is neutral. Nobody owes a defense for either. The moment an act needs a reason to be acceptable, it's no longer neutral — it's presumptively suspect and conditionally justified, like killing in self-defense or surgery. Killing isn't neutral; it's prima facie wrong, sometimes justified. Same with slavery on every example you've offered. Your own arguments concede that the institution is not neutral; they only argue that it's sometimes justifiable. Those are different claims.
Closing. Across four rounds your position has done the following: define slavery so broadly it encompasses any restriction of freedom; claim that broad category is "neutral" because some restrictions are acceptable; refuse to apply the claim to the historical institution most people mean by the word; demand I treat lawful incarceration as slavery to import its moral acceptability into your thesis; and, by your own examples, concede that "slavery" requires justification — which is incompatible with neutrality.
The original claim was "slavery is neutral." On the narrow, ordinary meaning of slavery — chattel ownership of one human being by another — the claim is false: the wrong is constitutive. On the broad meaning you've offered — any control of freedom — the claim is trivial and isn't about slavery at all. There's no version where the original thesis survives intact.
I rest there.

If you agree with your own statement you made, this is case closed.

Alright so this is breaking down into semantics with you . Bondage is imprisonment and imprisonment is bondage.

They're actually are the same act. Like physical restriction is physical restriction as cutting is cutting. You just said it and don't even realize it. The surgeon CUTS . The mugger CUTS. The reason or the basis wouldn't be the same . The act is.

So you acknowledge the same nature by saying "shared feature". You're mixing up the reasons behind something with the nature of the something.

So another statement of yours I'm sure you agree with .

My question was "Is it negative to enslave behaving pedophiles, not people with desires but actually behaving pedophiles, murderers, terrorists?"

You finally said "No".

So therefore, this is what makes slavery neutral.

I'll star this and your other statement as the conclusion as it is really case closed.

You said no to the question. It is not negative to enslave in the particular case I mentioned. Really that simple. We don't have to do the "but this" or the "but that" and the "however" the other thing.

Don't allow the support of slavery in some sense make you want to make a bunch of caveats or preface everything. Have no fear about others and what they think.

*****Break from the conventions comrade.*****

******Break from the conventions.*******

You're being circular. I've addressed this last round. Whenever your points get circular, you don't actually have a different counter to what I said which makes sense because you already agree  definitely when you said no to my question. But you're trying to save face.

I know you can't easily drop what you believed about slavery all this time. When you're presented to look at things in a different light, after an ingrained perspective, it's not easily digestible but you're warming up edging into it a bit now easing up budging a bit.

"Your "prison breaks like runaway slaves" point doesn't establish equivalence. Soldiers desert. Kids run from boarding school. People walk out of psychiatric holds. The mere fact that someone wants to leave a confined space tells us nothing about whether the confinement is slavery, lawful punishment, parental authority, or something else."

Of course it's slavery. You being confined to a space is being enslaved to it. 

It's really freedom or enslavement. There's no in-between. Where there's freedom , there's a void of enslavement. Where's there's confinement, there's a void of freedom.

The relation sits on the counter. Matter of fact, you know that the force exists when the slave actually DOES something. In your very omission you said "The slave can't walk away. If they try, force is applied."

The "trying" part is not nothing. It's actually doing . This is how we know the slave is what the slave is by what the slave does. Otherwise the individual doing nothing is just like anybody else doing nothing. Until one does one thing and the other does another and both demonstrate either enslavement or freedom, it's one or the other,comrade .

You said "continuous coercion, even when no labor is being extracted when no labor" but then give the qualifier or verifier of " If they try, force is applied.". This is referring to walk. Which to walk takes labor. But besides that, force is applied upon trying to walk. Which is not doing nothing and sitting there. 

So even in your attempt to counter, you couldn't avoid to constitute a direction or swaying of enslavement but by action.

You said "force is applied if they try". If it wasn't applied before trying, you wouldn't say "IF"...."they try".

It wouldn't matter saying it is applied if tried because it be applied already while "sitting on the counter". It's dormant or non manifested while being neutral. The direction into negative or positive is present or active by action. Slavery is served by action. See if you talk about this more and more, you start to counter yourself by revealing the unavoidable nature that is within all this.

See now you move from the knife because you couldn't countered that so now , you try something different, ok.

Still the same thing. You run into poor analogous illustrations. If the property supposed to be people, my position is not people or property being neutral. It's slavery itself. So we can say what the person does with the property is one thing or another and there's nothing wrong with the idea of the knife itself.

The person may use the knife for the positive or the negative. The person may take the knife for positive or negative. I could even make the illustration with even stealing the knife like taking criminals against their will off to prison.

Your definition of slavery is your definition. You're not debating yourself. You were debating me. My definition is what you have in countering with my points and by my own definition, you have to say you agree in which you said "no", meaning it is not negative to enslave in the particular situation I described .

Very simple and the simplicity that you overlook. Just a simple response and case closed.

The Father said "well I guess in a way you can say it's work".

The Father said "you can say IT IS WORK". He didn't deny this after taking his mind out the box like yours is still stuck in.

The Father said "it's " or "IT IS WORK". I know because I heard him in real life. I just happened to remember for this example.

You can say something is something when it's justified to say so.

"IT IS WORK"

You already agreed to justification by saying no to my question.

You don't disagree with the "sometimes justifiable".

That's what makes something neutral in and of itself. You're really talking passed yourself and it's time to bring up your concession for the conclusion.

So another statement of yours I'm sure you agree with .

My question was "Is it negative to enslave behaving pedophiles, not people with desires but actually behaving pedophiles, murderers, terrorists?"

You finally said "No".

So therefore, this is what makes slavery neutral.

I didn't ask about lawfully imprison and due process and all that. That wasn't the question so all that gets disregarded.

To the yes or no question, you said no. The reason why you can say no is because slavery itself is neutral. It can be positive or negative. Very simple. 

I think if this was a discussion and not a debate, this wouldn't be needlessly prolonged with roundabout things.