It isn't a question of whether I think slavery should be legal or not. I don't think it would be constitutional but that's a slightly different question. If, using the democratic system agreed by all, there comes about a legal situation where slavery were to go back on the books then I would face a crisis of conscience. It is either time to collapse the democracy and overthrow the Government, or to work against the legal system.

I would argue this is already the case, America runs a system of wage-slavery anyway. The illusion of freedom and all that. It's one of the reasons I'm a socialist and unashamedly left wing. The fact it's LEGAL to pay someone a pittance is a question of governance is different from whether it's MORAL to do so. Legality is what holds the United States together.... and most modern democracies. A combined willingness to play within the rules by both sides of any debate. There will have to be an issue so divisive that one or both sides will agree to go to war over it. Slavery was the first. This may be the second.

I'm not sure how you get slavery from the eradication of the 14th amendment. It would simply remove the rights of people born in the US to be considered American citizens at the point of birth. It's a restrictive measure against immigration and a way of deporting people, but it won't enact slavery. I'll call hyperbole on that one. Don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting rolling back the 14th but I don't think the argument for slavery can be made if it is removed - certainly not for generations of African Americans who have been naturalised for 200 years.

If a minority population exploits a loophole then they have acted within the 'rules of the game'. They are still judges. They are still qualified. They were still selected and processed by the Senate. Your take on their judgments as inauthentic or illegitimate is misplaced.... their views might be inauthentically political, but they are legitimate. Legitimacy is granted by the codified system under which the game is played. If you throw them out (or assassinate one) then you are no longer playing by the rules of the game.

For Florida to take away your right to free speech and trial, they'd have to overturn an absolute fucktonne of Constitutional amendments, an entire back catalogue of legal judgments, as well as habeas corpus stemming back to King John and the Magna Carta. They could try, but I suspect it would fail. The right to a trial and the right to free speech is better protected under the Constitution than the right to get an abortion ever was.... that's part of the problem here. The shaky foundations.

I won't defend state level slavery (though I think a lack of unionisation and American wages are already tantamount to this anyway) - but I will suggest the principles of democratic fairness must be upheld. If you can toss Alito out because you disagree with him and with no further argument, then that can happen to you. Autocracy of any kind needs to be watched. If overt slavery happened on my watch and in my country and was endorsed by the Government of the day - I would call for revolution. :o)