Libya reverts to tradition and the old ways

Protesters gather near Libyan Embassy after CNN report on slave auctions.

During its investigation, CNN witnessed a dozen men being sold at an auction outside of the Libyan capital of Tripoli. 

Some of them were auctioned off for as little as $400. 

Ultimately, CNN was told of auctions taking place at nine locations throughout Libya, but many more are believed to take place each month.

The Italians did better than this.

Come to that, so did Khaddafi.

Recall that the US constitution explicitly permits selling people into slavery as punishment for crime.

Bear that in mind when someone says the death penalty is ruled out by the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment.

Of course, understanding what on earth its author and supporters could have intended by that prohibition is rather complicated by the fact that punishment qua punishment is necessarily cruel.

So was it intended to prohibit only what is both cruel and unusual, as a literal reading would have it?

Of course, today, slavery as a punishment for crime would be both cruel and unusual.

But the later overrules the earlier, and the 13th Amendment permitting slavery as punishment came later than the eighth forbidding punishments that are both cruel and unusual.

Hmm.