The metaphor is correct, and has been used since the beginning of time.
Alexander Hamilton said in Federalist 79 - "“In the general course of human nature, a power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.”
If you go by the premise that O-care imposes in inherent debt, that you or I owe to someone that is of lessor income, and ability to earn, and that government will take my, and your monies to redistribute to that person, then what is the nature of debt? I did not break his window, I did not agree to subsidize him.
If Obama, and democrats believe that what I earn, what I get in compensation for my labor is to be determined what I can keep by the government then I don't own my own labor. Therefore, I am a slave to a master in the government.
Now, if Obamacare were to give me the option to opt out, then you could say that the argument doesn't hold, but as long as you say that I must participate, then it IS slavery, and Dr. Carson is spot on.
**{All human beings have a natural right to ownership of Person and Labor. Slavery is non-ownership of one's Person and Labor. It is involuntary servitude. His is a one-way contract he cannot opt out of. It is these aspects of O-care that tie it to slavery, and that is a fact.
You are referring to slavery as chattel slavery, the overt practice of buying, selling and owning people like farm animals or beasts of burden. Are there other forms of slavery besides chattel slavery? Ofcourse there are.}
If you consider that a scale of ownership of labor can be on a scale say 0% = total slavery, to 100% = total liberty then it is only to a degree that we are enslaved. Now some of that can be what we accept to participate in but when you have a law, that was forced through House, and Senate without one single opposition party vote, and indeed in at least a couple of cases, bribes, and promises within the democrat party, and against the polled will of the American people at the time, then yes this is exactly slavery by definition.
** excerpts taken from a 2000 article authored by Steven Yates which appeared at
Is the Income Tax a Form of Slavery? – LewRockwell.com
Steven Yates has a Ph.D in Philosophy and is the author of Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action (San Francisco: ICS Press, 1994). A free lance writer, lecturer, and frequent contributor to LewRockwell.com and The Edgefield Journal, he lives in Columbia, South Carolina.