I got quite emotional in my evidence - I felt as though our State had fallen through the cracks - a State government which seemed to be able to treat vulnerable people in an appalling way and be praised by “progressive” people - and a Federal government which had washed its hands of us, and said, “Not our problem.” I have never felt so alone as in that sixth lockdown.
Agree with this so much. In the Jewish community there is still enormous distrust of the police after the incredibly draconian way they enforced the restrictions. One rabbi I know had six (!) police cars stationed outside his house for a festival. He can barely walk and there was no prayer service happening inside. In my Shule we had police drive by and stop “just to have a chat” when we were acting on the direct recommendations of what was at that point called dhhs. Needless to say many of our congregants saw them on the corner and literally turned around and didn’t come. Other people were told that they weren’t allowed to pray outside on their own driveways (on their property) and that they had to be physically inside the house or face fines. The trust has been further eroded by their anaemic response to the latest incidents of antisemitism. There is a lot do work to be done to restore trust here.
Agreed. I was thinking of this too, although I didn’t get a chance to mention it yesterday. If there’s a Royal Commission, I think it will be an important venue to raise these issues. I seem to recall that the elderly woman who was fined for putting her bin out 5 minutes after curfew hit was Jewish, and had survived WWII, which just made it all so much worse - she would have had very bad interactions with the police in her youth.
During lockdown, your support, and the support of the Shule, was very important. It helped me get through. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.
Good for you, bringing the fight to these awful people. ALL of them should be imprisoned for at least 10x the time they imposed this inhumane, unjustified totalitarian terror on people.
THIS bullshit is why Americans have the 2nd Amendment. There was some silliness here but the Gestapo madness in Australia and New Zealand was next level fascism. It's sad - I lived in Sydney years ago and loved my time in Australia. I still do a lot of business in Australia and it was bizarre watching what those clowns did.
Things weren’t *quite* as bad as they were portrayed in the US, fortunately. Generally speaking our governments have a very high state capacity, and are amazingly competent. That is why the majority of Australian people were prepared to put up with limits upon their liberty: liberty has been traded for competent government for some time (probably since the 1830s). We’re very different society to the US - our constitution is not rights based, but Benthamite-utilitarian in flavour - all about the machinery of government, and no rights at all. Even conservative governments have been prepared to put extensive controls on gun use. Gun control has not been an issue here in the same way as the US (despite occasional protests).
This attitude is baked into our culture and laws. We weren’t initially colonised by religious dissidents and revolutionaries, but by convicts and their gaolers, and I think it makes a huge difference. We have the reputation of being “larrikins” and rule breakers, but it’s nonsense (the thing we buck against is English class divisions, but not much else). As a society, WE LOVE RULES. I lived in the UK for 6 years, they don’t like rules as much as we do.
I think this explains the Australian response, which may have appeared utterly bamboozling to a US citizen. Almost no one in Australia would think, “This is why we need guns”. There was one family which responded like this - they went off the grid and shot policemen, and were killed in a siege - and the rest of Australia was horrified. There was agreement across the entire political spectrum that this was not on, and it was entirely unacceptable. As I say - very different society to the US. Our response is to think: “This is why we need better rules.”
Hence, the current procedure is very Australian, rather endearingly so. “We need to inquire into this! Let us think hard about this and set up an official body to make our rules better and less oppressive! Let us all work together!” I hope it works.
I do, too. And to be clear, the interesting thing about the 2nd Amendment is that its very existence curbs any tendencies towards excessively autocratic behavior. There was idiocy around masking and fines, but not ONCE did I see what I saw in the UK, Canada or Australia - cops tackling young women walking alone in the CBD or busting into a suburban home to arrest a pregnant mother for posting critically on Fbook.
Damned right. I think every PIG that happily turned Gestapo should be summarily fired. "I was just following orders" was not a defense at Nuremberg and should not be now. Lives were ruined by this idiocy and every thug with a badge who went along with - and now I am talking about American State Pigs - following a Governor's orders TO ARREST A MAN SITTING ALONE ON A BEACH READING A BOOK should have refused such a stupid order.
I am a major fan of police. They do a very hard job and I respect the hell out of them. But any one of them that agreed to arrest someone for not wearing a mask walking alone outside lost all my respect and became a "pig" immediately.
They showed us how easily sheeple slip into authoritarian frameworks. THAT was what was so horrifying about the Wuhan Fakedemic.
As an Australian, the question that I ask about this is obviously “at what cost”. The numbers are conclusive. More guns = more people dying in preventable gun deaths. Many many more. I think I will gladly take the occasional police overreach over that. Especially as in the USA we see plenty of very offensive police overreach (your police kill far more people per year than ours do). Institutionalising increasing violence doesn’t seem to be a good response to tyranny (on a long term basis, I’m not talking about something like the American revolution which is obviously a different topic).
At what cost? At the "cost" of cops not busting down suburban doors to arrest pregnant mothers who wrote something critical of the government on Facebook. I don't know who "'we" are who are "seeing plenty of very offensive police overreach," as rational Americans see enormous restraint exercised by police daily. Our asshole Leftwing Democrat Party media lie all the time about the police. What are "preventable gun deaths?" We are armed and will not stop being armed because all governments tend towards tyranny, and the only restraint on tyrannical government is the very real response of the police who would be ordered by Democrats to seize guns.
When Biden was elected (maybe), but before his inauguration, 100% of the sheriffs in Florida sent a unanimous open letter to our Governor saying, "If the Leftist gun grabbers in DC pass a law which outlaws guns, but without amending the Constitution, we will not enforce any such federal law." It's like the idiot Governor of New Mexico last year who unilaterally decided to ban lawful gun owners from carrying firearms. Her own chief of police and attorney general told her to get fucked - there was no way they were going to go to war against lawful gun owners, when the criminals who carry guns illegally would not stop carrying guns.
I am glad you personally will "gladly take the occasional police overreach." I won't and neither will all my fellow rational Americans. Guns don't cause violence - bad people cause violence. Just here on my block, I know collectively there is an arsenal larger than most small town police departments, more guns per capita than in Yemen. And yet - there is no gun violence here. Strange, huh? By the "logic" of gun grabbers, my street should be a nonstop bloodbath and yet it's perfectly peaceful.
I hear you, Katy. Politicians, media, much of the public, so-called experts, treating us with arrant disdain and abnegating any responsibility for the damage wrought by lockdowns. And now it's like it never happened as far as they are concerned. A bitter and bleak time.
1. Trust in government can NOT be restored, period. They’re adults. They know their role & responsibilities. They violated both and the public’s trust.
2. I find it particularly odd that this tyranny swept through the Anglosphere faster and more durably than anywhere else. I lack a rationale for this.
The exception is mainland China, where I think similar measures were taken. One of my students told me about pets getting shot because it was suspected they might carry COVID. However, it’s difficult to get accurate information about what went on there…
I'm struggling to think of anything the Victorian government did right, Katy.
I got quite emotional in my evidence - I felt as though our State had fallen through the cracks - a State government which seemed to be able to treat vulnerable people in an appalling way and be praised by “progressive” people - and a Federal government which had washed its hands of us, and said, “Not our problem.” I have never felt so alone as in that sixth lockdown.
Agree with this so much. In the Jewish community there is still enormous distrust of the police after the incredibly draconian way they enforced the restrictions. One rabbi I know had six (!) police cars stationed outside his house for a festival. He can barely walk and there was no prayer service happening inside. In my Shule we had police drive by and stop “just to have a chat” when we were acting on the direct recommendations of what was at that point called dhhs. Needless to say many of our congregants saw them on the corner and literally turned around and didn’t come. Other people were told that they weren’t allowed to pray outside on their own driveways (on their property) and that they had to be physically inside the house or face fines. The trust has been further eroded by their anaemic response to the latest incidents of antisemitism. There is a lot do work to be done to restore trust here.
Agreed. I was thinking of this too, although I didn’t get a chance to mention it yesterday. If there’s a Royal Commission, I think it will be an important venue to raise these issues. I seem to recall that the elderly woman who was fined for putting her bin out 5 minutes after curfew hit was Jewish, and had survived WWII, which just made it all so much worse - she would have had very bad interactions with the police in her youth.
During lockdown, your support, and the support of the Shule, was very important. It helped me get through. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again.
Good for you, bringing the fight to these awful people. ALL of them should be imprisoned for at least 10x the time they imposed this inhumane, unjustified totalitarian terror on people.
THIS bullshit is why Americans have the 2nd Amendment. There was some silliness here but the Gestapo madness in Australia and New Zealand was next level fascism. It's sad - I lived in Sydney years ago and loved my time in Australia. I still do a lot of business in Australia and it was bizarre watching what those clowns did.
Things weren’t *quite* as bad as they were portrayed in the US, fortunately. Generally speaking our governments have a very high state capacity, and are amazingly competent. That is why the majority of Australian people were prepared to put up with limits upon their liberty: liberty has been traded for competent government for some time (probably since the 1830s). We’re very different society to the US - our constitution is not rights based, but Benthamite-utilitarian in flavour - all about the machinery of government, and no rights at all. Even conservative governments have been prepared to put extensive controls on gun use. Gun control has not been an issue here in the same way as the US (despite occasional protests).
This attitude is baked into our culture and laws. We weren’t initially colonised by religious dissidents and revolutionaries, but by convicts and their gaolers, and I think it makes a huge difference. We have the reputation of being “larrikins” and rule breakers, but it’s nonsense (the thing we buck against is English class divisions, but not much else). As a society, WE LOVE RULES. I lived in the UK for 6 years, they don’t like rules as much as we do.
I think this explains the Australian response, which may have appeared utterly bamboozling to a US citizen. Almost no one in Australia would think, “This is why we need guns”. There was one family which responded like this - they went off the grid and shot policemen, and were killed in a siege - and the rest of Australia was horrified. There was agreement across the entire political spectrum that this was not on, and it was entirely unacceptable. As I say - very different society to the US. Our response is to think: “This is why we need better rules.”
Hence, the current procedure is very Australian, rather endearingly so. “We need to inquire into this! Let us think hard about this and set up an official body to make our rules better and less oppressive! Let us all work together!” I hope it works.
I do, too. And to be clear, the interesting thing about the 2nd Amendment is that its very existence curbs any tendencies towards excessively autocratic behavior. There was idiocy around masking and fines, but not ONCE did I see what I saw in the UK, Canada or Australia - cops tackling young women walking alone in the CBD or busting into a suburban home to arrest a pregnant mother for posting critically on Fbook.
Yes. It totally changes the ballgame. Makes police more wary.
Damned right. I think every PIG that happily turned Gestapo should be summarily fired. "I was just following orders" was not a defense at Nuremberg and should not be now. Lives were ruined by this idiocy and every thug with a badge who went along with - and now I am talking about American State Pigs - following a Governor's orders TO ARREST A MAN SITTING ALONE ON A BEACH READING A BOOK should have refused such a stupid order.
I am a major fan of police. They do a very hard job and I respect the hell out of them. But any one of them that agreed to arrest someone for not wearing a mask walking alone outside lost all my respect and became a "pig" immediately.
They showed us how easily sheeple slip into authoritarian frameworks. THAT was what was so horrifying about the Wuhan Fakedemic.
As an Australian, the question that I ask about this is obviously “at what cost”. The numbers are conclusive. More guns = more people dying in preventable gun deaths. Many many more. I think I will gladly take the occasional police overreach over that. Especially as in the USA we see plenty of very offensive police overreach (your police kill far more people per year than ours do). Institutionalising increasing violence doesn’t seem to be a good response to tyranny (on a long term basis, I’m not talking about something like the American revolution which is obviously a different topic).
At what cost? At the "cost" of cops not busting down suburban doors to arrest pregnant mothers who wrote something critical of the government on Facebook. I don't know who "'we" are who are "seeing plenty of very offensive police overreach," as rational Americans see enormous restraint exercised by police daily. Our asshole Leftwing Democrat Party media lie all the time about the police. What are "preventable gun deaths?" We are armed and will not stop being armed because all governments tend towards tyranny, and the only restraint on tyrannical government is the very real response of the police who would be ordered by Democrats to seize guns.
When Biden was elected (maybe), but before his inauguration, 100% of the sheriffs in Florida sent a unanimous open letter to our Governor saying, "If the Leftist gun grabbers in DC pass a law which outlaws guns, but without amending the Constitution, we will not enforce any such federal law." It's like the idiot Governor of New Mexico last year who unilaterally decided to ban lawful gun owners from carrying firearms. Her own chief of police and attorney general told her to get fucked - there was no way they were going to go to war against lawful gun owners, when the criminals who carry guns illegally would not stop carrying guns.
I am glad you personally will "gladly take the occasional police overreach." I won't and neither will all my fellow rational Americans. Guns don't cause violence - bad people cause violence. Just here on my block, I know collectively there is an arsenal larger than most small town police departments, more guns per capita than in Yemen. And yet - there is no gun violence here. Strange, huh? By the "logic" of gun grabbers, my street should be a nonstop bloodbath and yet it's perfectly peaceful.
I hear you, Katy. Politicians, media, much of the public, so-called experts, treating us with arrant disdain and abnegating any responsibility for the damage wrought by lockdowns. And now it's like it never happened as far as they are concerned. A bitter and bleak time.
1. Trust in government can NOT be restored, period. They’re adults. They know their role & responsibilities. They violated both and the public’s trust.
2. I find it particularly odd that this tyranny swept through the Anglosphere faster and more durably than anywhere else. I lack a rationale for this.
The exception is mainland China, where I think similar measures were taken. One of my students told me about pets getting shot because it was suspected they might carry COVID. However, it’s difficult to get accurate information about what went on there…
👏👏
Thank you Katy for voicing your concerns- you speak for so many.