331–340 of 397 posts
My girlfriend is Australian, stranded abroad here in Germany like many other Aussies. I’ve bern following the news from down under for quite a while. I have the nagging feeling that Australia is currently the Western country with the highest chance of turning into Gilead.
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> Is there a way out of surveillance? Vote with your feet. Divest out of Australia. Make sure there's a brain drain out of the country.
Or vote with your… vote. The relative benefit is that it can actually work, in theory at least.
How many times has this theory been cheated in the last thousand years?
the answer is, a lot
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I would expect as much, just based on how badly direct democracies have performed historically. John Adams said, "Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes exhausts and murders itself. There never was a Democracy Yet, that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to Say that Democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious or less avaricious than Aristocracy or Monarchy." In the past, democracy…
Well, it's interesting, then, that Switzerland is one of the oldest political regimes in Europe. This kind of rhetoric tends to come from elitist thinkers that would want a guarantee of power over people because they think they are right and somehow destined to have it. If we are on topic of exchanging opinions of famous men, I think Machiavelli said that the people can be misled and go astray but are not prevented b…
Stability of dictatorships is a "trains run on time" style Big Lie.
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I think you're getting wrapped up in the word choice here. Someone espousing these beliefs is supporting the killing of cops and soldiers, an act which is very often reprehensible in the same circles.
I think that most people who generally support cops and soldiers but who also contemplate violent resistance against the US government have already thought through this issue and their usual resolution is "I generally support cops and soldiers for now but if they cross certain lines then I am fine with fighting against them". I do not think that there is nearly as much cognitive dissonance or hypocrisy on this topic…
They tend to believe the threat is enough and that they'd never have to act on their threat (rendering it meaningless), or that all of the cops/soldiers will just let them kill the politicians (and killing a politician for a differing political belief is somehow generally okay for these folks).
Australia is turning itself into a prison state. Citizens are allowed to go outside for maximum one or two hours, total surveillance, unconstrained searches of the property... About the same set of rights as a supermax prison inmate has, it looks like.
The part about being "allowed to" go outside isn't true. Take it from me, I live here and am free to go wherever I please.
You might not be as restricted but large parts of your own country are off limits to you, oh and also the rest of the entire planet.
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Yes. If we had our firearms we could shoot back. Pew pew!
Indeed, it seems to work for the Taliban vs. the most powerful army on earth.
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Minor nitpick: Australia is turning itself back into a prison state.
Back then they didn't really have a choice. Now it's all on them - they elected those people.
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5.b ...or what? In practice these kinds of rules are unenforced because governments tolerance for their own busy schedules, giving exceptions for unavoidable delay, is infinite. And then it happens so much it's standard practice and attorneys lose social credit for even bringing it up.
I would say it depends. If it takes 80 hours to get approval and it turns out that the warrant was, well, warranted, then I don't consider it to be a big problem. If it takes 80 hours and it turns out to be abuse, then heads would probably roll. However, in most cases these things are legitimate. I've worked in government and most people have good intentions. We don't have to protect ourselves, as a society, against…
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>There is no defense against a legal power that does not limit itself. Correction: there is no legal defense. There are other defenses, historically.
Don't be coy. You're talking about the violent overthrow of the government. And you know what? If you live in any one of the western liberal democracies, this response is bullshit and you know it. In a democracy, the government is _you_ and the _people around you_, and we have all kinds of legal defenses against wanna-be autocrats: - speeches - rallies - op-eds - letters - phone calls - commercials - campaign contrib…
The GP comment wasn't substantive either but the idea, when replying, is to move further away from hell, not jump into it.