Wonderful satire

Clint Heine blogs:

WELLINGTON: Slavery should be rebranded as an ‘opt-out labour arrangement’, the New Zealand University Students Association (NZUSA) said today.

“Let’s face it, slavery has a bad name,” a NZUSA representative said. “For thousands of years slavery has been associated with force, compulsion and the negation of civil rights,” he said, “however we think slavery needs a new image”.

After exhaustive research conducted over two and half days NZUSA has suggested that slavery should be thought of as an ‘opt-out labour arrangement’.

“After all, even though slaves were forced into labour against their will, they could always leave—or opt-out—if they wanted to. They could run away or buy their freedom,” NZUSA said. “If slaves were really unhappy about servitude all they needed to do was make a bit of an effort. If they didn’t make the effort we can only assume they were happy.”

“The ability of any slave to opt-out if he or she chooses means that slavery doesn’t breach civil rights,” NZUSA said.

Hilarious. Especially the part about how a slave can opt out of slavery by running away.

NZUSA said their work on slavery was the first in a series. Future reports include: ‘Compulsory military service – opt-out warriors’ and ‘Prisoners – opt-out guests of Her Majesty’.

The reference to compulsory military service is very apt. For proponents argued this was not compulsory due to conscientious objection – the exact same argument used by compulsory student associations.