No war, no slavery, no inquisitions, all of those things would be vanish in a blink of an eye. Or not:
Police in north China on Friday announced they had rescued a further 220 slave workers from brick kilns and other illegal workplaces, such as small iron and coal mines. The rescues of the workers, all in Shanxi Province, brings the total number of slave workers reported freed in China to 468 in the last month…. The kiln was located in the courtyard of Wang Dongji, the Communist party secretary of the Caosheng Village of Hongtong County. The kiln’s boss was Wang Bingbing, the son of Wang Dongji, according to local sources.
Clearly the Chinese need to crack down a little harder on those underground churches. It’s obviously their fault. And it’s true, some Christians did argue in defense of slavery in the nineteenth century. But it was Christians who ended slavery… and it is atheists who are bringing it back around the world. Does anyone seriously suspect the involvement of any Christian church in the estimated 12.3 million people being currently held as slaves throughout the world?
And in an application of the law of unintended consequences I predicted last year, the “right to choose” is now being linked directly to the enslavement of women by the State Department:
State statistics show a notable gender imbalance in some key regions: in Jammu and Kashmir, 111 boys for every 100 girls; Uttar Pradesh, 111; Sikkim, 114; Punjab, 114 (capital city Chandighar, 129); and Harayana, 116 as of the 2001 census. This gender gap has resulted in several million more men than women in the marriage market, creating a “marriage squeeze” and pressure for men to find women to marry. As a consequence, there are some cases in which women from Nepal, Bangladesh, and other areas of India have been bought or kidnapped as brides for “bachelor villages.” The lack of women also contributes to greater demand for prostituted women and girls, fueling the demand for victims of trafficking.
It’s a good thing I have such a ghastly sense of humor. I find this genuinely amusing because it’s all so utterly predictable. Particularly since so many of the people who find it horrifying are actively working to make the situation orders of magnitude worse. I have no doubt that 50 years from now, a young woman, fresh from being forcibly raped by paying customers for the tenth time that day, is going to look over at the woman chained on the filthy, bug-infested bed next to her and say, “you know, I’m starting to wonder if the right to vote was really worth it.”
“Maybe,” the other young woman mumbles from between broken teeth, smashed by her owner’s fist when she tried to defy him after being told to get an abortion. “But at least they’re still teaching evolution in the schools.”