The British are surprised at the submissive reaction of Australians and New Zealanders to our governments' vicious lockdown measures in response to what is, for most, a mild Covid challenge.  This invites the question - are we in the Antipodes any more supine before the power of the Covid State than the Brits are?

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.

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.

It has been said that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.  Well, on any number of fronts, people in liberal democracies are currently "doing nothing", as our freedoms and the quality of our governance ever decline.  And evil is winning.

The response of governments to the Covid "crisis" has been a revelation.  They have grabbed supreme power and have diminished freedoms and crushed the economy.  How did they get away with it, with such little push-back from we-the-people?  They had six strategies.  Strategies that appear to have worked.

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.

Cardinal Pell is a free man, vindicated but not embittered.  A model of forgiveness and compassion.  And truth.  And not done with yet.

Cancel culture is all around.  It crushes rational debate and destroys freedom of thought and speech.  The latest victim is the eminent British historian David Starkey, caught up cruelly in the Black Lives Matter debate.  His cancellation raises important questions for how those who value freedom fight against leftist revolutionary thought and practice.

The re-emergence of Mark Latham has been one of the most interesting developments in recent Australian politics.  Latham's common sense centrism and his push-back against the ruling elites has struck a chord with voters of all stripes.  Populism, perhaps, but also, maybe, a much needed reality check in these troubled and inauthentic times.