The Witch Crisis
By: Amicus Rarus
Remember the witch burnings and the Inquisition? You know how if you talk to people about that, they’re all incredulous how that could have taken place in a civilised society of the time? Well, I’ve been doing some thinking again, I know I shouldn’t, but can’t help it, about many debates I’ve had with various people on many critical national issues (like the migrant invasions, the planned massacre of 200 bears, etc) and international ones (like Syria, Iran, Venezuela, the Novichok affair, election meddling and many others) and the sort of replies I got. And then I thought how these debates would go if I lived a few hundred years ago and talked my usual scepticism back then.
“I am sceptical about this whole witch crisis hysteria, you know. I think someone’s got an agenda here.”
“Well you can’t deny they do worship the devil, cause the plague, crop failures and all sorts of bad weather.”
“Actually I can deny, since I haven’t seen any evidence of that.”
“Are you doubting the Inquisition intelligence on the issues? You’re willing to put us all at risk? How much is the devil paying you to say this?”
“You do realise the Inquisition’s existence does kinda depend on the witch scare, so I recken their reports would be a bit biased, don’t you think?”
“Oh, they just made all that up, did they? Jesus, you conspiracy theorists never give up, do you? Maybe the Inquisition caused the plague themselves, did they? The Church ordered the drought? What other lunacy will you come up with?”
“How is it a conspiracy theory if I just want to know for sure, before ordering thousands of women burned to death?”
“I bet you’d talk differently if your kids got the plague or starved to death due to crop failure! I can’t believe how detached some of you people are from reality! What will it take for you to finally wake up and realise we need to do something?”
“Dude, I hate the plague and starvation as much as anyone, but we really ought to know more about them, before jumping to conclusions and blaming it all on alleged witches!”
“The Inquisition’s intelligence service says it’s highly likely the witches did it and that’s good enough for me, you don’t have any better info, so you can’t claim it’s not them either!”
“I can’t claim for sure, but I want to find out first!”
“There’s no time! Something must be done now, because we can’t risk another plague outbreak or a famine, the last ones wiped out half of our village. Your witch-denialism is an insult to all those that died and you should be ashamed of yourself!”
“Alternative research shows rats carry the plague, not witches!”
“That’s just the devil’s propaganda, spread by Hell’s trolls. You do know the devil is a master of disinformation! Where do you get your news anyway? I bet it’s not in church!”
“But couldn’t we just check and make sure, maybe by examining rats?”
“We’d need thousands of people to catch all those rats and besides rats are disgusting, no one would want to do this. Look, nothing else works. We need to burn the witches now! Now stop being a devil apologist, before the Inquisition has a word with you.”
“But…”
“No! Stop. Just stop.”
