Labor Forced

One Volokh conspirator writes about the community morals that he thinks are most subject to change in coming years—animal rights, capital punishment, and forced labor—and includes oddly quantitative measures for the likelihood of change. ("I suspect that the chance of major movement in this direction is at least 50%.") I'm agnostic about animal rights, though insofar as regulations that "humanize" animal slaughter and farming support better ecological and labor practices, I'm all for them (so long as I can continue eating delicious, delicious meat.) I'm opposed to the death penalty and am delighted to read that "continued substantial increase in moral stigmatization of the death penalty" is predicted at 60 percent. ("[A]nd 70-80% if there is no major crime wave.")

I don't cotton to mandatory national service, though I wasn't always so opposed to the notion. In fact I don't remember developing a grudge agaisnt "giving back"—only when that post and thought, "No fucking way am I serving this country on the executive say-so," did it occur to me. My family has a long history with the military, stretching back to every war the nation's ever been in; I have great respect for military service. Much less for the United States as a nation, though. I'm not sure I would go so far as to help my child to shirk national service (I'm too old to be any use to my country, of course), but it would be a major deterrent to having a family in the States. Who knew? I'm radicalized.