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Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Daniel Kelly compare Social Security and affirmative action to slavery?

By Tom Kertscher
YES

In a 2014 book, Daniel Kelly wrote:

"Affirmative action and slavery differ, obviously, in significant ways. But it's more a question of degree than principle, for they both spring from the same taproot. Neither can exist without the foundational principle that it is acceptable to force someone into an unwanted economic relationship. Morally, and as a matter of law, they are the same…."

Kelly included the same passage in his 2016 application for a Supreme Court vacancy.

In a 2013 blog post, Kelly described Social Security as "involuntary servitude" by taxpayers to benefit those whom he described as "people who have chosen to retire without sufficient assets to support themselves."

Kelly, a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice, is running in the April 4 Supreme Court election against Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz.

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