Commentor KW on China's one-child policy

Commentor KW takes issue with my post condemning China's one-child policy:

KW:

I certainly object to forced abortion. It's outrageous,

There are different degrees of force. I presume you don't support government officials strapping women to tables to abort their children (a common practice in China). But any government population policy is force. The force may take less obvious form-- the family may be punished financially or professionally. It's still force. And you have no problem with it, it seems.

but only slightly more outrageous than forcing women to give birth.

Giving birth is natural, not forced. It's how we all got here, KW. If you mean that restricting abortion is force, I point out that killing innocents has generally been prohibited by law. Insisting that a child's life be protected and respected is not 'only slightly less outrageous' than forced abortions. It's not outrageous at all.

Perhaps big tax breaks for couples that have only one child would be better approach for the Chinese government.

Taxing the hell out of families with more than one child is such an enlightened policy. It will be of particular benefit to sustenance farmers trying to feed more than one child. That'll teach 'em to procreate when you ordered 'em not to.

The practice of selective abortions of girls is stupid because it will harm Chinese society.

It's not "stupid". It's an atrocity. And killing girls doesn't just harm Chinese society. It harms the girls who are killed. You seem to keep forgetting about them.

I hope the sake of Chinese morality isn't fixed by some transcendent opinion, and that the Chinese can learn to love their child no matter their sex. 

'Love and cherish the little darlings, but if you have more than one, we'll rip out your ovaries'. A prescription for love.

China is trying to save China,

Totalitarians are doing what totalitarians always do. It has nothing to do with "saving China". It has to do with the assertion of power over the most intimate aspects of family life. Large families and the intimate loyalty within the family have always been an impediment to totalitarians. Families distract people from doing what the totalitarians want them to do, which is obey totalitarians. Strapping a woman to a table and ripping out her kid that she conceived despite your order is a very effective way to teach obedience. It makes people listen more attentively in the future. In the society you envision, there can be no foci of influence (family or church) that distracts people from submission to your authority. Totalitarianism 101.

and in so doing the help to make the earth more sustainable for the rest of us.

I feel so much more sustained after of tens of millions of murders and forced abortions and sterilizations. Don't you?

I know that many, if not most, of American religious conservatives simply don't believe that we can ruin the earth because we are not in control.

Christians support conservation. It's batsh*t fact-free totalitarianism that gives us pause.

Others believe and want their best friend in the sky to save their righteous asses as it all goes to hell. Unfortunately the rest of us, living in the real world, have to suffer the consequences of your faith based politics.

And tens of millions of children murdered and men and women involuntarily sterilized for your totalitarian ideology suffered the consequences of your faith based politics.

The world is indeed going to hell in a hand-basket,

Can you name one prediction you totalitarian overpopulation nuts have made since Malthus that has come true?

and it's religious conservatives the world over that are fighting the hardest to make sure we do nothing about it.

Damn right. We think that the only overpopulation we have is that there is too much totalitarianism. We're trying to reduce the rate at which it reproduces.

If every person really understood what was happening to our planet, and wanted a future with a minimum of human suffering, they would use that knowledge and their intellect to suppress the genetically driven, religiously mandated, drive to reproduce like lemmings.

Tens of millions of dead Chinese children is quite a start on your crusade to save the world from... from... people. And why isn't the unchecked spread of totalitarianism a problem for our planet? Why isn't the violent intrusion of jackbooted government "population" officials into the most intimate aspect of family life a problem for our planet? Scares me a whole heck of a lot more than a few more people.

Why don't we just restrict the increase in population of totalitarians? (We could make condoms with little pictures of Pol Pot so totalitarians would want to use them). Unlike Chinese farmers, totalitarians have a proven record of killing lots of people.

Education and the shedding of illogical religious dogma is the key to a prosperous, just, and happy future.

Just what China has done. Hundreds of millions of dead children. Tens of million missing girls. Millions of women forced to undergo involuntary abortions. Millions of involuntarily sterilized men and women. Families shredded. An aging population without enough young people to sustain growth or even to support the aged.

But they do obey, which is what totalitarianism population control is all about.