And once upon a time Australia seemed like such a nice place
No more, though [hat tip: Gerard Vanderleun at American Digest]. This video is about 20 minutes long, but if you’re pressed for time you can pretty much get the gist of it in the first five minutes:
The accompanying article [emphasis mine]:
It all began when a friend of hers tested positive. She recounts how investigators came to her home shortly afterwards, having run the numberplate of her scooter to identify her as a ‘close contact’. They asked if she had done a Covid test, and in the moment she lied and said she had, when she in fact had not yet. This set in train an extraordinary series of events.
“So then the police officers blocked my driveway,” she says. “I walked out and I said, “what’s going on, are you guys testing me for COVID? What’s happening?” They said, “no, you’re getting taken away. And you have no choice. You’re going to Howard Springs. You either come with us now, and we’ll put you in the back of the divvy van. Or you can have a choice to get a ‘COVID cab’… I just said, “I don’t consent to this. I don’t understand why I can’t just self-isolate at home, like a lot of other people are doing.” And they just said, “we’ve just been told from higher up where to take you. And that’s all that there is.”…
She was tested three times during the 14 days, and on each occasion tested negative…
At no stage was she reminded of her rights or put in contact with a lawyer.
This has all taken place in a state that has recorded a total of 290 cases and no deaths.
I bolded that last sentence in the quote because it makes the whole thing even more astounding. But I actually think it’s part of the reason such draconian measures are being instituted in Australia, which has had so little COVID. They don’t think they’ve been lucky; they think they’ve been smart, and they think it’s even smarter to clamp down more and more and more. There’s also the usual thrill of the governmental power trip. And there seem to be enough people who are fine with it, or afraid to challenge it, so that it continues and even worsens as time goes on.
It’s no accident that public health is the way governments justify such strict and tyrannical measures. “For your own good” has long been the way to control people.
In line with that, you may remember some of the posts I wrote about a book by Sarah Conly titled Against Autonomy back in 2013, such as this one. And here’s a quote from a review of the book, which I quoted in that 2013 post:
[Conly asserts] that autonomy is “not valuable enough to offset what we lose by leaving people to their own autonomous choices.” Conly is aware that people often prefer to choose freely and may be exceedingly frustrated if government overrides their choices. If a paternalistic intervention would cause frustration, it is imposing a cost, and that cost must count in the overall calculus. But Conly insists that people’s frustration is merely one consideration among many. If a paternalistic intervention can prevent long-term harm – for example, by eliminating risks of premature death – it might well be justified even if people are keenly frustrated by it.
Even John Stuart Mill put his foot on the slippery slope with his harm principle:
[T]he only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or mental, is not a sufficient warrant.
Put those two quotes together and you get the way in which the state attempts to justify what is happening in Australia and many other countries, for our own good as well as to prevent harm to others. If COVID was something like the Black Death, which is estimated to have killed between 30% and 60% of Europe’s population, perhaps measures such as those in Australia would be justified. But COVID is absolutely nothing like that, and we’ve known that for a long long time.
For years every time somebody (usually on the right) would make a ‘slippery slope’ argument about something there would be someone there to mock them but this entire ordeal has proven the slippery slope to be true.
’15 days to stop the spread’ is the original sin of all of this.
Too many weak, comfortable, compliant people have just rolled over and submitted to the tyrannical health bureaucrats and tin pot wanna be dictator politicians.
I think their theory is that Australia, like New Zealand, is an island and can theoretically be isolated. The problem is, that like America in 1492, they are not developing herd immunity and, as soon as they open the borders, the endemic virus will appear and sweep through the population. Scott Atlas’ theory that we should have protected those at risk, the elderly, pre-existing conditions, and left the schools and the economy open was ignored here but it will be even worse for Australia if they ever open up.
Further on Australia Bret Weinstein did this interview with this woman from Australia that has been denied a medical exemption to the vaccine despite having all kinds of allergies to ingredients they all agree are in the vaccines but it doesn’t matter.
They say get vaccinated to protect those that can’t and she is exactly one that can’t but no matter.
This stuff is so sad and troubling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qA0wZD0iPw
And don’t you just know that the Dems are licking their chops to do the same here and hoping the Moronic variant will give them the reason.
Mike K, you are so right. Here we do a shut down, cases do down, they open up, cases go up, then another shut down. It is all about power.
Physicsguy, you are right too.
I just don’t know what is going to happen, but it isn’t going to be good.
I’m not so sure that the Dems want more lockdowns or at least the smart ones anyway because I think even in blue states there is no appetite for lockdowns and this why they push the mask mandate garbage because they do think they can get away with that while appeasing their lunatic base.
The other thing that continues along is the courts are shooting down virtually every attempt at vaccine mandates which has led the feds and states to back off considerably.
The one thing on the horizon to watch is if they are going to try and change the definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ to include the boosters.
As messed up as this country is on this we are still by far the most free of any western country and probably of any country period.
Also via Powerline apparently the official governmental name for the Australian internment camp is the ‘Centre for National Resilience’…
Aerial pix of the “camp” in Australia’s state of Victoria look entirely like a concentration camp. A good news source is http://www.rebelnews.com.
Three Aboriginal teens (Aboriginals are all coal-black) climbed the camp fence at 4AM and escaped recently. They were hunted down like rabid dogs, though all are and were virus-negative. It is apparently deemed essential that Aborigines be incarcerated for 14 days. The decree for whites as almost as oppressive: one may leave one’s abode for exercise one hr per day, wearing a mask; otherwise one may not leave except for medical emergencies.
It is truly startling how many neo-Nazis we have in our midst, so many in positions of authority throughout the entire Western world.
Remember, Australia banned all guns in 1996!
Griffin: we are merely slower in achieving National Socialist control. We are not exempt.
Cicero,
Yes. I should have added that the window has shifted so much that even though we are still the most free compared to Canada, NZ, Australia and to a slightly lesser extent the UK (England more specifically still) we are a far cry from the country of even 30 years ago.
Returning to historical roots: a prison colony (continent).
John Stuart Mill’s statement seems reasonable enough. Our problem is that our Ruler’s definition of what causes harm to others is not only illogical, it is blatantly self serving.
The largely overlooked second admonition in President Eisenhower’s farewell address was on target–unfortunately. In part, “…public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” Oh yes.
He went on in an eerily prescient vein: “The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present – and is gravely to be regarded.”.
Oh Ike, we could use your wise counsel and steady hand on the rudder just now.
Had to go to my doctor for a checkup yesterday. Masks required for everyone. That it is a fact that they don’t work to keep the person wearing them safe and only slightly keep an infected virus spewing person from spewing droplets with any virus attached doesn’t matter. This, along with “medical” questions on gun ownership and a couple of pages that are supposed to see if I’m suicidal or being abused at home, make me so confident in the advice they give.
Ever since Obamacare going to the doctor has become like a minefield you have to cross. They lie to me and I lie to them. Truth’s got nothing to do with medicine anymore.
Interesting read. I like the ‘Settled-Question-Fallacy.’
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/america-gaslight-ilana-redstone
Glad I live in Texas, my doc has not required masks in his office, he shares with his doctor wife. When he or staff come in the exam room they don’t wear a mask if the patient is comfortable with that. My specialist has an office in our small hospital which has a mask requirement until you get into the office, staff wear masks but doc takes his off when we are comfortable. Our school kids don’t wear masks and fewer and fewer masks are seen on the staff in stores so we are doing all right here in Texas.
As for docs asking about guns, most of my doctors are shooters so we compare what we like to shoot and they have gun magazines in the waiting rooms. My urologist a neat, not too tall, Jewish guy the age of my son and the doc completes in three-gun along with his son and he advised me that when I was doing my Steel Challenge shooting I should do it with my carry gun from time to time just to increase my speed from concealment. Texas is a good place to be and we are pretty much back to normal from the scary Chicom Virus.
Neo wrote that they’ll justify their demands as being “… for our own good as well as to prevent harm to others”, & Oldflyer noted that they get to set the definition of “harm to others”.
I’ll add: They won’t even address a risk threshold for said “harm”. And apparently, harm includes emotional distress from the fear they purposely keep stoking.
The use of guilt & shame of resistors is particularly revolting, & gives cover to the Karens.
We’re lucky to have some judges willing to pause the mandates. (And groups willing & able to sue, of course.)
Can’t speak for other blue states but here in WA the only thing we have left really is the mask mandate which is followed by a majority of the people but I get the feeling that most are just compliant sheep and don’t think it does any good.
Maybe the biggest problem is the constant fear mongering that never ends and every time King Jay announces a press briefing to update his subjects on our response to COVID people’s hearts sink because those are never good.
Feeling like the sword is above your head at all times is not a good way to live.
OldTexan: I’m glad you live in a reasonable Texas town. Here in Austin, it’s a mixed bag — which likely isn’t news to you. All of my doctor offices (approx 5 counting my husband’s) require masks everywhere. As does the dentist, & even PT offices.
I think some PA’s at my Dr office don’t like it, but stay in line just for less trouble.
My view of a certain left-wing person of my acquaintance was forever altered by her stating, in the summer of 2020, that the government should be confining people to their homes to prevent the spread of covid. Shocked, I asked her if she was really serious, if that would go as far as locking people into their houses to insure compliance. Her response was a perfectly clear and emphatic yes. That’s now, for me, the silent background of everything she says about government and politics.
Mac:
Ask her if our government should go as far as the Chinese Communists: weld doors shut with people inside.
RMc: I live about an hour and a half SW of Austin the the Hill Country 30 min out I-10 from San Antonio and so far our town votes conservative but we are starting to fill up with Californians, some are good conservatives and some are idiots.
Australians inured to an Orwellian named camp for well people to keep others safe?
Upside down world Down Under.
A month or two ago they looked like they were going to give up on eliminating the virus. PM Scott Morris indicated they would.
Their neighbor, New Zealand, also looked vulnerable.
Yet suddenly, suppression tactics began to succeed. And the talk of normalizing travel and opening up ceased, and NZs fleeing model gained new life. The one this reinforcing the other, and scheduled plans to open the border in the next 6 months look like operational pipedreams to me, especially with Omicron looming.
The price of keeping the Covid-19 death loss super low looks mad.
And in other stories of management success in Taiwan. Japan, and again in South Korea (and China just adds Mitrushka doll riddles), have led researchers to suggest a radical hypothesis: that East Asians posses a unique genetic resistance to Covid-19 lacking to others in the world.
If true, the Lab Leak theory will boost conspiracy buffs to the moon.
Strange times indeed.
Catastrophic Anthropogenic [Sociopolitical] Climate Change.
Mad Max was a predictive model.
Griffin:
Ah, the Slippery Slope Fallacy. The problem is that if it’s a true slope, it may be slippery, but it’s not a fallacy.
It’s another category like “conspiracy theory” where one can’t discard an argument because it fits a form, but one must get down and dirty in the specifics.
In the 90s Carl Sagan came out with a book, “The Demon-Haunted Universe: Science as a Candle in the Dark,” which was his skeptical counter-attack on superstition and pseudoscience by explaining critical thinking and the scientific method. Part of that was his catalog of logical fallacies he called his “Baloney Detector Kit,” which included the Slippery Slope.
The funny thing was his book was essentially an extended Slippery Slope argument that whenever someone read a horoscope or took UFOs seriously, Science, as Sagan’s “Candle in the Dark,” might eventually sputter out and fail.
Hence, Sagan’s book.
“They don’t think they’ve been lucky; they think they’ve been smart, and they think it’s even smarter to clamp down more and more and more.”
And yet, they could look around. Even though hysterically reported and incompetently managed Covid is far far from being a desperate situation in the US or anywhere else for people younger than, say, 50 years of age.
the mask mandate
When in Rome… Seattle follow the cargo cult and viable legal indemnity.
The epidemiological relevance of the COVID-19-vaccinated population is increasing
Many decisionmakers assume that the vaccinated can be excluded as a source of transmission. It appears to be grossly negligent to ignore the vaccinated population as a possible and relevant source of transmission when deciding about public health control measures.
…
In Israel a nosocomial outbreak was reported involving 16 healthcare workers, 23 exposed patients and two family members. The source was a fully vaccinated COVID-19 patient. The vaccination rate was 96.2% among all exposed individuals (151 healthcare workers and 97 patients). Fourteen fully vaccinated patients became severely ill or died, the two unvaccinated patients developed mild disease [[4]]
Hopefully, they have set up a separate camp for the “vaccinated” in order to mitigate silent spread, and recurrence of planned parent/hood scenarios, where her Choice was neither a good nor exclusive choice.
Masks are not totally useless. Here in Tucson they help identify Democrats.
My internist is typical. He told my wife that she has to wear a mask because “I have a 9 year old at home.” We have agreed to disagree.
I used to think that David Horowitz’ statement that “inside of every liberal is a dictator screaming to get out” was hyperbole. Not any more. Ugh.
F:
Indeed, what’s happening in Australia is closer to the China model.
Mac:
A close relative of mine said something similar to me at the beginning of COVID. He seems to have eased up considerably since then, though.
huxley,
To clarify, I didn’t refer to the slippery slope as a fallacy I think in this case anyway it was proven true. Somebody would say ‘before long you could get fired if you are unvaccinated’ and another person would say ‘don’t be ridiculous that will never happen’ but then it did. Or somebody would say ‘pretty soon vaccines will be mandated by governments’ and someone would reply ‘don’t be silly that will never happen in free countries’ and now it has. That is the slippery slope.
What I did refer to was that Tablet Magazine I linked to that talked about the ‘Settled-Question-Fallacy’ which is very interesting.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/america-gaslight-ilana-redstone
Something I wonder about. If the vaccinated can transmit the virus to others wouldn’t that mean that they actually got a case of the disease which had minimal symptoms and then afterward now have natural immunity?
>Catastrophic Anthropogenic [Sociopolitical] Climate Change.
Or, Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism [CACA]?
CACA with renewable injections of brown matter to force a consensus.
actually got a case of the disease which had minimal symptoms and then afterward now have natural immunity
Not necessarily. The science indicates that the “vaccine(s)” are non-sterilizing and inhibit development of long-term immunity.
Old Texan, what is your town? You describe a small hospital, which suggests a small town, but the urologist is a Jew. What’s he doing there? How far is it to the nearest temple or synagogue?
The “slippery slope” is a progressive (i.e. unqualified monotonic) path and grade with liberal (i.e. divergent) attributes.
Griffin:
I wasn’t trying to correct you. It was my own issue with the Slippery Slope, that sometime it is true and sometimes not and sometimes you can’t tell. People toss around the term too loosely for my taste.
I agree with you that Slippery Slope criticisms of Covid policies have proven correct.
The Slippery Slope can be quite slippery in its own right.
huxley,
I agree the slippery slope is often overused and I’m not sure I have ever used it but, wow, has it been true with this.
“If COVID was something like the Black Death, which is estimated to have killed between 30% and 60% of Europe’s population, perhaps measures such as those in Australia would be justified.” neo
No. As Jordan Peterson keeps pointing out, the problem is that there is no limit to what can be justified when the standard is “survival of the public”. Count on it, the totalitarian minded will use that metric to implement tyranny.
In fact, they’re already doing so.
Australian authorities are either monumentally incompetent or much more likely, intentionally using the scamdemic to seize control of the public. They using that control to force experimental vaccines upon as much of the public as possible. No thoughtful, objective examination of the evidence can reasonably support the measures Australian authorities and other Western nation’s have implemented.
The medical evidence is emerging that the vaccines are a precursor for reducing the body’s immune system’s ability to fight off disease.
“Scientific Study — Covid Spike Protein DRAMATICALLY Impairs Cell DNA Damage Repair…”
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/scientific-study-covid-spike-protein-dramatically-impairs-cell-dna-damage-repair/
As well as resulting in direct mortality among the especially vulnerable.
“Top Cardiologist Warns — Heart Attacks caused by Covid Vaccine…”
https://citizenfreepress.com/breaking/top-cardiologist-warns-heart-attacks-caused-by-covid-vaccine/
The data that would reveal this is being falsified and manipulated to cover up what’s actually happening.
The reason and rationale for this is simple and horrific. The only way Climate Change can be addressed is to greatly reduce the world’s population, justified to Save the Planet and consequently Save the Human Race.
The ‘cure’ is the means by which tyranny can be achieved, necessary to Save Humanity.
Here in my adopted home of West Virginia, I’ve pretty much forgotten about Covid. I recently took a flight to Florida to visit my son and was a bit surprised that I had to wear a mask in the airport and on the plane. I hadn’t worn a mask in months and had a hard time taking the requirement seriously. I think the best airport strategy is just to buy a snack and drink and nurse them until you have to board because everyone knows the virus cannot be transmitted within a six foot radius of food or drink.
CACC?
I’m pretty sure that stands for ‘Chinese Anthropomorphic Climate Change’
Griffin —
Re the mask mandate: don’t forget having to show your papers to get into a restaurant, bar, or similar indoor venue.
Also, my experience among my Seattle friends and acquaintances is that they absolutely believe their masks are protecting them and saving Grandma, and if you suggest otherwise you’re the devil.
(Hm. Apparently my VPN doesn’t agree with WordPress.)
Bryan Lovely,
Damn I forgot about that. We don’t have to do that in Pierce County and I don’t get up to King County much anymore.
Maybe it is like so many other things in this state where the crazy is strongest in Seattle and then diminishes with every mile you get farther away (except Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s they are islands of crazy everywhere).
I think we Americans tend to think of Canadians and Aussies and New Zealanders as slightly quirky versions of Americans with different names on their cars. But this is very far from the case. These countries evolved from the crown-colonies model peacefully and without revolution, and their views toward autonomy and independence are highly throttled compared to us. They tend to trust government, and overly so, to their detriment (IMO) – although they appear very slow to come to this realization. The good thing about Australia is that citizens are compelled to vote in their elections, which are held on Saturdays. It’s an offense if you don’t vote – so this next election is going to be very interesting to watch as a barometer of sentiments. The city folk seem to be taking to the streets now, protesting over such iron-fisted tyrannical measures.
New Zealand – God, that PM gives me the creeps – that syrupy, low wattage smile kills with a ruthless, phoney kindness, and those press conference messages, like she’s talking to a sick child. Ugh. For all its beauty, I’m sure glad I don’t live there.
Griffin —
Ah, I thought the vaccine pass for dining out was statewide. If this keeps up I may need to start spending more time out at the Mason County property.
@F:
“Ask her if our government should go as far as the Chinese Communists: weld doors shut with people inside.”
Was that real, or just theater to scare the West?
@Aggie:
“The good thing about Australia is that citizens are compelled to vote in their elections, which are held on Saturdays.”
It’s only a good thing if ‘None of the above’ is on the ballot, meaning that if Nota gets the most votes, none of the slate of candidates can rerun.
Cicero: We are in Boerne Texas, an interesting town which has grown from 5k in 2000 to 10K in 2010 and now were are up to 20k population with a small hospital mostly emergency with lots of MDs office’s. My urologist is in San Antonio but my gastroenterologist has an office here in our town. We are growing into an interesting part of the Hill Country with the change in demographics but the down town has been preserved, owner occupied with the big stores and the chain restaurants on the south edge of the city.
OldTexan,
When I hear about such rapid population growth rates, and I see it with my own eyes here in East Texas, it just breaks my heart. Fields and forest steadily becoming city. Makes me so sad. I almost wish States like Texas and Florida could set up colonies in blue states and run them like red states so people could live there and not make the red states so densely populated. I think Conservatives in blue areas need to leave before the left becomes even crazier, so I do not blame them for leaving.
Turns out they’re not the US with kangaroos, they’re East Germany with dingos.
New Zealand has had 43 deaths and Auckland was in lockdown for four months. We have 90 percent vaccinated. For the unvaccinated it is an apartheid world. I am vaccinated, but I have friends, for very intelligent reasons, who are not vaccinated. I support them, and do not support the severe tack that our PM has made towards the unvaccinated. Like most Western leaders, there is an authoritative push here and I have heard New Zealanders call these actions sinister. There is a quiet anger from vaccinated and unvaccinated people. They just put a new system in place on Friday that requires a vaccinated passport when you enter all venues, except grocery stores, pharmacies and students attending schools through high school. I have a passport, which I do not agree with. I went downtown today and I sense William Wallace’s spirit. Even buying a coffee, I did not need to show my passport. So like the Hopi, we are waiting it out and growing vegetables.
I have been listening to Robert Kennedy Jr. and awaiting the arrival of his latest book. He is excellent;
https://rumble.com/vodme3-the-war-on-us-robert-f-kennedy-jr-speaking-at-the-ron-paul-institute.html
Aggie,
NZ PM’s poll numbers are going down and the Nationals and Act are on the attack. They will work together. I plan to volunteer on her opposition. NZ does vote in large numbers. I guess the in the 70’ to early 80’s there was a big shift in a positive direction.
Cicero-
There have been Jews scattered around Texas as long as there has been “Anglos” here. Mostly merchants, more recently professionals such as doctors, lawyers, engineers. Recently, many more have emigrated from the coastal suburbs to the suburbs of Houston, Dallas, Austin, etc., and they are culturally unchanged- Judaism may be their ethnicity but leftism is their religion. Boerne, where Old Texan lives, was once a small town that San Antonians escaped to, now it’s becoming a gentrified suburb, convenient to the nearby burgeoning medical center and state U. campus. If you go to the smaller cities, you will find politically conservative Jews who attend religious services when they can in places like Odessa, El Paso, Corpus Christi. They may be doctors, small business owners, or retired.
“…scattered…”
You c’n find ’em scattered ALL OVER THE DAMN PLACE….
https://www.newsmax.com/us/band-of-brothers-edward-shames-wwii-world-war-ii/2021/12/04/id/1047352/
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There is an Australian woman named Claire Lehmann, she is founder and publisher of Quillette, a long-form website:
https://quillette.com/
She’s been very strong for free speech and against political correctness; obviously a highly-intelligent, even brilliant, person. Yet she seems generally supportive of her country’s lockdowns…hard to see how it fits.
Most of her own writing is at twitter:
Cicero: NW San Antonio is 20 miles from us and there are five Synagogues within a 30 minute drive, going out to a 30 mile radius including Kerrville there are ten Synagogues, I don’t know how conservative they are and I was surprised to see the numbers.
At the same time in our zip code there are 40 FFL’s, licensed firearm dealers and going out to a 50 miles radius you pick up 108 FFL’s, guns are a big deal around here and there are over 30 gun ranges within an hours drive including the Boerne Gun Club which was an old German Schutzen club started in 1864, still going and it is ten minutes from my house. Our Boerne city Parks and Recreation offers a concealed carry class every month and our local police and sheriff’s department encourage people learning how to shoot and leagally carry firearms. So far we vote very red in every election and I hope it stays that way. We are still a cowboy boot and pickup truck town with about 50% of the vehicles full size pickups and our gasoline prices are under $2.70 per gallon. Maybe too much information but we do like our Texas Hill Country lifestyle.
huxley and Griffin,
Your discussion regarding The Slippery Slope Fallacy reminds me of The Fallacy Fallacy.
The Fallacy Fallacy is basically a coda, if you will pardon the slightly imprecise term, to the whole list of fallacies:
Just because an argument uses one or more fallacies, it doesn’t make the argument false. A fallacy is a handy bullshit detecting device. But the presence of a fallacy (or multiple fallacies) is not in and of itself a definitive indicator of falsehood.
An analogy I like to use when explaining it is a homicide detective questioning a suspect: That suspect may display numerous tells that the detective has used in the past to sniff out bullshit- or possibly have been told are signs of bullshit. But the subject may just be nervous to be questioned by the authorities; they may have a hard time with eye contact, with fidgety movements, with copious amounts of sweat. Those tells aren’t enough to proclaim someone lying, only an indicator that one must take a closer look.
Well well; the situation in Australia and NZ should permanently dispel the notion that Nazi Germany could not have been Nazi Germany if not for the German “obedient”character and their willingness to follow orders.
True, there have been massive demonstrations in Australia (and NZ??), but most Aussies just do what they are ordered to do. I seriously doubt that anybody would consider your average Aussie to be the “just tell me what to do and I will do it” type.
Though, I must admit I am really surprised how their govt. and that of NZ readily adopted Gestapo like policies to compel the citizenry to obey.
That is really troubling.
Neo: I don’t know if this person has eased up on the forced quarantine idea or not. I haven’t had occasion to discuss the subject with her again. And don’t want to.
F: I don’t think I knew about the welding of doors at that point. But I’m pretty certain that the term “locked” was used. I forgot to mention above the thing that was most disturbing: she was willing to have the military enforce the rule.
Off-topic, but the mention of Jews in small southern towns is interesting. It really was quite common in the deep south for small towns to have a little Jewish community. The ones I grew up near certainly did, and a couple of friends who are “mixed”–some Jewish ancestry, some not–have said the same about other towns. They were normally well-regarded members of the community, popular images of anti-Semitic Klan types notwithstanding. My town, for instance, had for many years a Jewish judge who was very much liked and respected, and the grandfather of one of my high school friends.
Anti-Semitism just was not the big thing in the South that popular lore thinks it was. I heard plenty of anti-black racist talk when I was growing up (this was the mid-Sixties) but the only anti-Jewish words I ever heard were from a smart-ass kid who was mainly just trying to shock people, by that and other means.
Old Texan:
Thanks for replying. I’ve quail- and dove-hunted at Joshua Creek Ranch outside of Boerne, The town’s Catholic Church has a beautiful interior, very moving and inspiring, even without Mass!
Are there no MEN left in Australia? A lovely Sheila gets hauled away by the Covid police and not one Crocodile Dundee steps up to tell them to go Brandon themselves?
Sad.
And the cops are compete wankers.
Viewing the video, the camp cop who gave the imprisoned girl a warning said, “I’m only doing my job”, just like a good little Eichmann.
Anti-Semitism just was not the big thing in the South that popular lore thinks it was.
Mac:
Likewise.
Most of my young life was in the South, albeit not small towns, and I never encountered anti-Semitism until a surfer buddy came out of the Army as KKK. (No question the Klan was anti-Semitic.)
Of course I didn’t meet many Jews in the South, but it didn’t seem to be a big deal. In 6th grade one of my classmates invited the whole class to his Bar Mitzvah. It was a novel experience, but no one was triggered.
Further back in time, probably there was more anti-Semitism, but I doubt worse than what one found in TS Eliot’s or Ernest Hemingway’s high lit.
John Tyler:
Many years ago, I decided that the US was the country in the world with the strongest commitment to liberty. I learned that through studying defamation laws throughout the Western world. I was surprised to learn that the US was the only country that protected freedom of expression as strongly as it does. So I’m not so surprised at NZ and Australia, although I’m somewhat surprised.
And people in the US have been more compliant than I expected, as well, but at least the rules here have not been as draconian.
Playing God with other people’s lives.
Isn’t that what makes Satan evil? Wanting to be God?
Hubris. In the extreme. Evil.
With Soros, Zuckerberg and the rest of the billionaire fascists buying and stealing elections and creating blue zone hellholes as fast as they can buy and install terrorist offspring or crazed Marxists as DAs, I can’t imagine choosing to live in a blue state or even a blue city in a red state. I’m fortunate to live in a red county in a red state.
My question — have we reached the point of blue dysfunction where wise people should avoid blue cities and blue states even for travel? I’m a white male. If my car breaks down in the wrong area, or I’m in an accident or I’m in a store during a smash and loot, my right to self defense is FAR more limited in a blue jurisdiction. Limited? It may be effectively non-existent. I could well be expected to simply take my beating and hope I don’t get killed. Especially if I’m assaulted by someone of a protected minority status.
No, I don’t think the odds are very high that something could happen. BUT, they are much, much higher than where I live. And my rights are even more at risk than my safety. If I have a choice of travel or vacation, wouldn’t it simply be smarter to away from blue areas as much as possible?
There’s absolutely no way I would go to Portland, Seattle, Minn, or SF. Period. And not likely, NY, Phila, Chicago, or Det.
And, although the bureaucrats may be patting themselves on the back for their success, all they have achieved is the delay of the inevitable.
One question: Everyone is vaxxed in Australia, and no one gets in without being vaxxed.
Where did the omicron variant come from, there?
ObloodyHell,
Mass vaccination forces the virus to mutate. Mutations are part of life. Evolution. Science. That thinking stuff that the Left has worked overtime to eliminate from civilization.
see virologist Geert Vanden Bossche and Nobel Prize winner in Medicine Luc Montagnier. And Robert Malone, inventor of mRNA vaccines.
The question that my little brother used to ask a lot when he was a toddler: “And then what happened?” How long do the lockdown thugs expect to lockdown? What do they think happens next? The virus in various mutations will be out and about in the world from now on. What happens when they try to open back up? Has anyone asked them? Wouldn’t a competent news media be nice? Even one competent journalist ….
stan:
Viruses continually mutate whether there is vaccination or not.
But Omicron is a very specific mutation that probably did not arise first in South Africa and then in Australia. If it’s in Australia, it probably got there from somewhere else.
Mac —
she was willing to have the military enforce the rule.
I think most people think of the military as sort of the leveled-up version — “the cops can’t get it done? send in the troops!” — and haven’t actually thought about the pitfalls of using the military as if they were police.
(Plus we have laws about that sort of thing, if people like that gave a damn about laws when they went against whatever they wanted right that minute.)
“…and haven’t actually thought about the pitfalls of using the military as if they were police.”
Would appear as though Nancy Pelosi has thought about it quite a bit—seeing as she’s been seeding her personal Capitol Police force throughout several states (as a future “investment”, no doubt).