[Avodah] how to 'fix' a mamzer

[Zev Sero via Avodah]

On 05/16/2016 09:18 AM, M Cohen wrote:
> Btw, thanks to reb google, see article on this subject (though it does not
> extensively deal w my questions)
>
> http://www.aishdas.org/avodah/faxes/mamzerShifcha.pdf

Very thorough, but I see one enormous flaw -- the author takes it for
granted that slavery is barred by dina demalchusa.  This may be true in
some countries, e.g. the UK, where the common law has held for centuries
that England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe in, and thus that
any slave who sets foot in England automatically becomes free.  But it
remains to be established that this is the case in all countries,
particularly in the USA, where the 13th amendment only bans *involuntary*
servitude.  I am unaware of any law in the USA that would prevent a person
from voluntarily becoming the property of another, and after _Lawrence_
and _Obergefell_ such laws, if they exist, may even be unconstitutional!
If so, then the shifcha method could work here.   There may well also be
other countries where this is the case.  And in Israel it might be possible
to introduce legislation in the Knesset to explicitly legalise voluntary
avdus, with appropriate safeguards to prevent it being abused.

-- 
Zev Sero               Meaningless combinations of words do not acquire
zev at sero.name          meaning merely by appending them to the two other
                        words `God can'.  Nonsense remains nonsense, even
                        when we talk it about God.   -- C S Lewis