Displaying items by tag: politics

It is fashionable to deride the Middle Ages.  "Medieval" is normally an insult, a term of abuse.  A new book begs to differ.  Pondering the lessons of the book, one is drawn to massive contrasts between our own age and that of "the medievals".  And the contrasts are mostly not in our favour.

As well as being profoundly irrational and damaging to our freedom and to our economy, elements of the Australian lockdowns may well be unlawful.  A number of legal experts question the constitutionality of things like the prevention of Australian overseas from returing home.

Politicians are said to love "killer facts".  And to want to "follow the science".  Sadly, those running our Covid policy responses seem not to want to do either.

Conspiracy theory has been invoked by Victorian Police commanders to tarnish the reputations of citizens who object to totalitarianism.  What is conspiracy theory?  It is worth unpacking in these weird times.  It turns out that many conspiracy theories are respectable.  Indeed, they explain much of the world.

Instead of insulting citizens who wish to protest their government's totalitarian lockdown, senior civil servants in Daniel Andrews' Victoria should just get on with doing their day jobs.

The Covid episode has brought forth many ironies.  One relates to the way we (don't) look after our aged, especially the frail aged.  Many governments have implemented a euthanasia regime, yet pretend to care now for the health of the aged.  But governments have actually abandoned the aged for whom they claim to care in their efforts to place the rest of us under house arrest.  No dignity - anywhere.  It is almost a soft euthanasia program by another name.

The fear, even hysteria, among the population over Covid is unprecedented.  Yet there is a precedent for the strategies now being used by governments and others to generate the fear we are now witnessing.  We merely need to look back a few years to the great climate change scare to see the parallels.  Indeed, it might be argued that climate change was the perfect dress rehearsal for Covidmania.

Victoria is now a living hell of Covid Fascism, as the vicious lockdown continues.  Yet the people of Victoria seem to think this is all a good thing, or at least a necessary evil.  This is what life in Victoria is like now.

At a time of epic fails by political leaders, oppositions, bureaucracies, and, alas, churches, we need an epic fail by our media like a hole in the head.  Yet that is what we have now.  Amid all the Covid disasters, our media have lost the plot.  They are not doing their core jobs of speaking truth to power and calling out stupidity, and we are all the poorer for it.

The enemies of freedom are coming for the past.  Exposing the fallacies of their claims, and the poverty of their understanding of history, is an urgent and ongoing task.  But it may not be enough.