Dystopian Australia?

Last night I listened to Brendan O’Neill interview Nick Carter on the Covid situation in Australia.

The Aussies are really serious about controlling the virus — although not quite as serious as the Kiwis, who have gone stark raving mad.

What shocked me most was not the strict Covid rules, and how they’re being enforced (even using the army!). That was bad, but even worse was Mr. Carter’s attitude that yeah, ha ha, all these horrible things are happening right now, and our freedoms and civil liberties are disappearing (see, e.g., woman arrested for anti-lockdown post on Facebook), but “our strong liberal institutions won’t allow this to go too far.”

They’ve already gone too far, and once people seize powers, they rarely give them up. Precedents are being set. And recall Jonathan Swift’s definition of precedent: something done illegally before that can be done legally now.

In England, people are telling the government where they’re going to facilitate contact tracing.

That’s simultaneously a great idea and terrifying. We should be using technology to help control the spread of the virus, but freedom and privacy are always afterthoughts with these people.

“Oh, if you’re concerned then we’ll make it opt in. And by the way, what do you have to hide?”

6 thoughts on “Dystopian Australia?”

  1. QUOTE: …but “our strong liberal institutions won’t allow this to go too far.” They’ve already gone too far, and once people seize powers, they rarely give them up.

    Indeed, that’s how it’s gone with the Patriot Act, despite its implications on privacy. At one point, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was pushing a bill to make the law permanent (without any significant revisions) and backed by most Senate Republicans.

    1. The Patriot Act is a good example of legislation in response to a crisis, which gives away our freedoms, and which we never get back.

      1. Of course, there’s the alternative…do nothing and let it continue. That seems to be the strategy relative to protecting the freedoms of the second amendment. In 2020, there were 615 mass shootings, 521 killed and over 2,500 wounded.

        That said, I suspect it’s comforting to the parents and relatives of the Parkland mass shooting victims that our freedoms were protected at the cost of their loved ones. Same for those in Sandy Hook, El Paso, Colorado and so on and so on and so on and so on.

  2. The story of the Australian dogs from a few days ago stuck with me. I had a tough time believing it until I read multiple articles with shifting defenses from the perpetrators.

    Now it’s clearly far from the worst thing that’s happened over the past year (years?– it’s all a blur now), but there’s something about the gratuitousness of it which is striking.

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