For a great free democracy, Australia has sunk so far into the depths that one has to wonder whether freedom and democracy have any place in its future at all. Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.
Before 2020, the idea of Australia all but forbidding its citizens from leaving the country, a restriction associated with Communist regimes, was unthinkable. Today, it is a widely accepted policy. “Australia’s borders are currently closed and international travel from Australia remains strictly controlled to help prevent the spread of COVID-19,” a government website declares. “International travel from Australia is only available if you are exempt or you have been granted an individual exemption.” The rule is enforced despite assurances on another government website, dedicated to setting forth Australia’s human-rights-treaty obligations, that the freedom to leave a country “cannot be made dependent on establishing a purpose or reason for leaving.”
The nation’s high court struck down a challenge to the country’s COVID-19 restrictions. “It may be accepted that the travel restrictions are harsh. It may also be accepted that they intrude upon individual rights,” it ruled. “But Parliament was aware of that.” Until last month, Australians who are residents of foreign countries were exempt from the rule so they could return to their residence. But the government tightened the restrictions further, trapping many of them in the country too.
Intrastate travel within Australia is also severely restricted. And the government of South Australia, one of the country’s six states, developed and is now testing an app as Orwellian as any in the free world to enforce its quarantine rules. People in South Australia will be forced to download an app that combines facial recognition and geolocation. The state will text them at random times, and thereafter they will have 15 minutes to take a picture of their face in the location where they are supposed to be. Should they fail, the local police department will be sent to follow up in person. “We don’t tell them how often or when, on a random basis they have to reply within 15 minutes,” Premier Steven Marshall explained. “I think every South Australian should feel pretty proud that we are the national pilot for the home-based quarantine app.”
Other states also curtailed their citizens’ liberty in the name of safety. The state of Victoria announced a curfew and suspended its Parliament for key parts of the pandemic. “To put this in context, federal and state parliaments sat during both world wars and the Spanish Flu, and curfews have never been imposed,” the scholar John Lee observed in an article for the Brookings Institution. “In responding to a question about whether he had gone too far with respect to imposing a curfew (avoiding the question of why a curfew was needed when no other state had one), Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews replied: ‘it is not about human rights. It is about human life.’”
In New South Wales, Police Minister David Elliott defended the deployment of the Australian military to enforce lockdowns, telling the BBC that some residents of the state thought “the rules didn’t apply to them.” In Sydney, where more than 5 million people have been in lockdown for more than two months, and Melbourne, the country’s second-biggest city, anti-lockdown protests were banned, and when dissenters gathered anyway, hundreds were arrested and fined, Reuters reported.
Australia is undoubtedly a democracy, with multiple political parties, regular elections, and the peaceful transfer of power. But if a country indefinitely forbids its own citizens from leaving its borders, strands tens of thousands of its citizens abroad, puts strict rules on intrastate travel, prohibits citizens from leaving home without an excuse from an official government list, mandates masks even when people are outdoors and socially distanced, deploys the military to enforce those rules, bans protest, and arrests and fines dissenters, is that country still a liberal democracy?
There's more at the link.
We should take note of what's happening in Australia, because the progressive left would love to make similar things happen over here. There's nothing they would like more than to turn America into a statist's wet dream, an Orwellian society in which everything is controlled, residents can do only what is explicitly permitted, and anything not explicitly permitted is automatically forbidden.
I shall never accept such a society being imposed on me. I'll defy it in every possible way. That's what freedom is all about, and I choose freedom over bureaucratically imposed slavery. I hope my readers will do likewise.
Peter
From Western freedom to Orwellian Big Brother so monstrous it outdoes actual Communist China, in 0.2 seconds.
ReplyDeleteThe entire Australian government, from dog catchers to prime minister, needs to be shot in the face for cause, wherever and whenever encountered.
Well-played, Oz-holes.
And any element that starts doing exactly that, here or abroad, has my full-throated unmitigated approval.
ReplyDeleteWhen a country goes full tyrant like this, moderation in the pursuit of liberty is no virtue, and all social contracts with that government have ended, immediately, universally, and in perpetuity.
That includes from any former allies.
Alliance is compliance, henceforth.
I for one am thankful for Australia's example. There's nothing quite like good object lessons to look at.
ReplyDeleteAesop, I agree with your first comment, but where are they going to get the guns?
ReplyDeleteI can't agree that the situation in South Australia is 'Orwellian'. To the best of my recollection, Orwell never wrote anything as bad as that.
ReplyDeleteYes, "a good object lesson." But what lesson? Simply this: A people who willfully, gleefully, happily and obediently surrender their firearms will be lead to the gulag. Australians deserve what is happening to them. They voted in this government; let them now enjoy it. Do not lament a people who joyfully become slaves.
ReplyDeleteThe "men" of Australia are woke weaklings; their women soon to be nothing but wombs for Chinese soldiers.
And stop saying that Australia is a harbinger of what will happen to the US. It is not. Americans have one billion firearms and show no willingness---none whatsoever---of surrendering them to a government.
Let the games begin.
Problematic, in that the Dems will look at this and go "Oh, I LIKE it."... And away we go!
ReplyDelete@jxbdz,
ReplyDeleteD'ya really think all those good sensible Diggers turned in everything??
;)
And this is how it begins...
"D'ya really think all those good sensible Diggers turned in everything??"
ReplyDeletePlease, if you will, present evidence to the contrary. Anything?
The Australian "men" have been such for three decades or more. Have you not noticed? Or have you been besotted by dreams of "Crocodile Dundee"?
You should know that the real world Crocodile Dundee---one Rod Ansell---was shot to death by the Australian police.
Stop fantasizing about some hidden cohort of Australian males---quite well hidden indeed---rising up. The Australian "men" have proved Aristotle's point, that some men are "natural slaves."
Do you own firearms? If not, then you prove Aristotle's point.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete(Aussie here) For what it is worth, more people have woken up over the COVID thing than any other issue. When the media have to use euphemisms such as "vaccine hesitancy" then you know the population still aren't buying into it.
ReplyDeleteWorth noting that "the people" are producing their own content where the media have failed. Take a look at the two stories on COVID vax side effects at this link:
https://rumble.com/c/c-1045184
The official channel was set up just prior to the release of the second video. Through various combined medias and channels, the first video was seen by over 200k in the first 24 hours, and over 1 million views when the second was released. People are hungry for the information they know the media are not providing.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteKindly stop talking out your fourth point of contact.
I understand if you haven't forgiven Hogan for Crocodile Dundee III. But blame Hollyweird for that one, not Australia.
Anyone who thinks man-on-the-street Australia has gone all proggy West L.A./Frisco/Central Park West, doesn't know 'strines for spit.
I know two personally, and many more over the 'net, including a couple of PGP contacts with military backgrounds.
None of them turned in everything they had, and to a man, they're "already working out which throats to cut".
And they were not talking figuratively.
The biggest problem for the OzCom gov is that all their OzSAS types can also think for themselves, as a requirement, which tends, just like our own variety, to make them a double-edged sword in times like these.
And the average folks, let alone prior mili service types, aren't far behind in basic sensibilities. They're all "G'day, mate; have a beer, and we'll put another shrimp on the barbie" types, until they're not.
Then they're twisting heads over until the necks crack types, and will still tell the crumpling corpse, "Apologies, mate" as they drop it on the pavement.
The media and info coming out of there is currently being stringently impeded and squelched.
But they are, in general, not a people you want to mess about or screw over. Consequences will be real, and permanent.
For reference, cool your jets, and look at the actual timeline between the Argies' takeover of the Falklands, and how long until payback there became a b*tch, courtesy of HM Forces.
And those Poms are considered civilized compared to
the average Digger.
And that's all I'm going to say about Australia.
Aesop:
ReplyDelete“Kindly stop talking out your fourth point of contact.”
Kindly stop writing like a middle school boy.
“I understand if you haven't forgiven Hogan for Crocodile Dundee III.”
I never saw it.
“I know two personally, and many more over the 'net, including a couple of PGP contacts with military backgrounds.”
Your claim that the Australians are ready to rise up relies upon a few people you know. That’s it?
Your “evidence” that Australian men are tough guys depends upon what they did during the Falklands War 39 years ago. Anything since then?
I have something: The 1996 Australian Gun Confiscation Law.
“And that's all I'm going to say about Australia.”
I hope so.
Speaking as an Australian under house arrest, sorry, lockdown for my own safety (from that less than 1% IFR virus) it's hard to disagree with Aesop's first assessment. The notion that some kind of a militia will arise from the ashes of Aussie manhood is, sadly, nothing more than a flight of fancy.
ReplyDeleteUnlike the US, AR's and AK's were never particularly common here, though we were flooded with SKS's and SKK's in the late '80's/early 90's. However, you can rest assured that the vast majority of them went to the crusher in 1996. Including, sadly, my fathers Browning A5 12 gauge. At least I got to use it and he bought a milling machine with the proceeds. A permanent national amnesty is now working on the rest.
Anyway, I digress, the reason Aussies won't rise up is due to the simple fact that the Australia you fondly imagine, either didn't exist in the first place or is long dead, except for perhaps a few isolated pockets. You would do well to think of Australia as California and it's denizens (particularly city dwellers) as hailing from Portland Oregon. Yes, it's so bad that most people actually condemn the anti-lockdown protestors.
Dear lemmiwinks:
ReplyDeleteThank you for the inside report. My God, it is worse than even I thought. The Aussies participate in their own enslavement. Aristotle was right. I would say something trite like, "God help them." But why should He? Do the Aussies worship Him or the Moloch State?
I lived in Portland for 30 years. I know exactly what you are talking about.
In the early 1930s, as one by one Europe fell under monstrous tyranny, there was always America, a bright shining light of freedom. She rose to the challenge and, in spite of a number of missteps, retrieved freedom for much of Europe.
And now? The US is ruled by Moloch and his acolytes. They are as cruel and vicious as their master Lucifer.
But...there are 100,000,000 Americans with guns. We never surrendered ours. These millions are the hope of the world. Once we deal with our own Moloch State, we will deal with yours.
Be patient my friend. And keep your head down.