No, not the full-blown, work-in-the-fields slavery you learned about in school, but something that has most of the same effects but looks far better: they take half of your life and expect you to thank them for it.

There are actually several parts to your slavery. Today I am speaking of the part you may know best: inescapable student loans.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone calls student loan programs “a shameful and oppressive outrage that for years now has been systematically perpetrated against a generation of young adults.”

Taibbi is right, of course, but I think he’s being mild. So, let me be more blunt:

Millions of young Americans have been forced into debt slavery.

Please understand that I am writing for accuracy here, not flamboyance. If you are in student loan debt, you were pushed and you are being held and it is slavery.