LogFAQs > #967300165

Ozmose posted...

So obvious it can't hold up in a court of law.

Given that the impeachment trial over it largely amounted to everyone agreeing it was an impeachable offense, everyone agreeing that he was guilty, and then (almost) all of the republicans deciding to ignore that and vote along party lines for the sake of voting along party lines, I'd say it held up well enough in the relevant court. Said court is just innately so corrupt that it can't get a conviction because everyone votes based on their party instead of the defendant's guilt.

captpackrat posted...

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Which, to clarify for those that have no concept of linguistic nuance, effectively translates to "it's okay to enslave people if you convict them of a crime first." In turn, that means the government - by way of choosing who gets convicted and why - gets to pick and choose people that can be enslaved, and the country's rather sizable private prison lobby takes full advantage of this by making charitable donations to whichever politicians will secure them the most free* labour.

*A lot of prison labour isn't actually free, but the wages are far below minimum wage and are often recovered by charging prisoners other fees that equal or exceed them, so calling it "free labour" is close enough to accurate