It occasionally happens that a thread on Free Republic includes one thoughtful and valuable comment (leading to suspicions here that its author will soon be zotted). In this instance, though, we see more than one Freeper who seems to have a few functioning neurons.

Matters begin in typical FR fashion, with a bonehead anti-government harangue in this thread http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2893725/posts (titled "HHS Spends Taxpayer $$$ on....Slavery???". Freeper Gabrial reports seeing a sign in Houston for an 800 number for reporting instances of slavery to the Department of Health and Human Services. Gabrial objects to this use of tax money. Apparently, Gabrial thinks that slavery ended with the Civil War and subsequent scare-mongering about it is just another librul boondoggle. So far, so normal.

Then things get weird. In the very first response, Freeper muawiyah mentions exploitation of domestic servants and concludes, "So, yes, slavery exists in modern America." Half a dozen other Freepers join in to educate Gabrial about the contemporary problem of human trafficking.

OK, some of them take the opportunity to flog one of their favorite targets, illegal immigration... but still, the whole thread is astonishingly advanced for that lot.