AU needs to be stopped. Resources should be put to this.
Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
641–650 of 894 posts
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#642Earlier quoted context omitted.
WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the war on drugs, the war on terror, now the war on covid.
I'm trying super hard to decipher your message. Post WW1 didn't erode rights, it actually increased them. Post WW2, the same. Korea and Vietnam didn't leave behind any long term repression that I remember. War on drugs and terror, ok. Covid is a disease. We have vaccines, we'll have treatment. Just get vaccinated. We've had pandemics before, they always end and I can't remember any rights still taken away abusively a…
You are mistaking extending special rights to minority groups with citizens rights. We have been increasing minority rights as fast as possible with removing all the protections from dictatorships in the name of, I don't even know what.
>Post WW1 didn't erode rights, it actually increased them. Post
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedition_Act_of_1918
>Post WW2, the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act
And on and on. There are libraries written about this, but no one cares because there has been a bi-partisan consensus that citizen's rights need to be curtailed.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#643I'm always kind of surprised by people who move to Australia. It's a country that has had an active policy of censorship on entertainment for a very long time - books, video games, movies. The fact that the populace is okay with such a policy would make me reconsider moving there. I've also read some really questionable things about policies regarding aboriginals in the northern territories. In 2007 the government 't…
The ban on alcohol in some communities is (AFAICT) welcomed by those communities, which have massive problems with it. There are laws in other states which allow people to declare their house a “dry place” which is then enforceable by law, to try to stop anyone from bringing alcohol into the house. I can’t tell you whether any of these measures work, but they aren’t implemented for reasons of racist suppression, from…
I feel like the sentence “the censorship … is trivial and easily worked around” isn’t as hopeful as it sounds like. Isn’t it bad to have to work around censorship? Or maybe I’m reading too much into it.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#644Earlier quoted context omitted.
How did Australians become like this? In my imagination, my American ancestors were quite similar to yours. And yet...
Become like what? Do you have an argument against quarantine? Would tens of thousands of deaths been better than asking travellers to check in for a couple of weeks on arrival, during a pandemic? I’m really not sure what point you’re trying to make. I'm British by the way. The UK also has guarded quarantine centres in hotels for people coming in from what it considers “red zones”
>Become like what?
[...]
>Would tens of thousands of deaths [...]
Like that.
It's absolutely insane to see young, Australian people completely embrace the Covid propaganda and totalitarian nonsense. Say what you want about boomers, but at least they used to be somewhat cool in their 20s, during the 70s. Having unprotected sex, doing drugs, having long hair, listening to rock'n'roll, protesting the wars.
In Australia we have 25-year-old boomers, scared of absolutely everything, and cheering on the government to govern us even harder. A complete nightmare.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#645Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In some like the UK, that trust was misplaced, and compliance with isolation rules was under 50%. More like, people in the UK more correctly assessed the risk of COVID. While is a dangerous disease, it's not so dangerous that it is worth giving up all of your civil rights to avoid it. In Australia the cure seems to be worse than the disease.
UK Covid deaths 133,000 vs Australia Covid deaths 1054. That's some cold-blooded calculus to say that Australia would have been better off with another 50,000 people dead rather than having some restrictions in place while they wait for vaccination targets to be reached.
Rights are worth many deaths. It has always been. Stopping Hitler was worth millions of deaths, in exchange we still have rights.
Before covid, family visited elderly in nursing homes, knowing full well there is a small chance they could pass the flu on to them and kill them.
I know my grandfather appreciated my visits, even though he knew there was a small risk of contracting something like the flu.
A life where you control for every possible risk is not one worth living.
We accept risk for rights and convenience all the time. E.g. operating vehicles.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#646Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> rather than stay at a quarantine facility. Nobody is being forced to use the app. Download the app or we send you to a camp? That isn't much of a choice. I'd say it is about as non-choice as possible while still meeting the literal definition.
I'll say what I said on the other thread - If you want to present an argument against quarantine being needed or warranted, please go ahead. Checking in on the app is the least intrusive of the three options - quarantine under guard (usually in a hotel, like the one I'm in right now), quarantine at home with police visits tio ensure compliance, or quarantine at home checking in to the app once or twice a day. In this…
>> present an argument against
I don't. My comment was to the nature of the "choice" not whether or not the mandate was warranted. Let's not pretend that people have options when they really don't. There is no need to dress it up. In times of disease, governments do sometimes order people to do things. Let's not kid ourselves. Personal choice, personal freedom, is set aside.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#647Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. Even an unorganized small group of armed people can create enough damage to the Police/Government forces that it's not worth the fight.
Perhaps in the past. The sheer numbers and equipment of modern police and military forces are overwhelming. You need a lot of people, good organization, support from the inside. Not to mention you'll be hit with the media first, discrediting all of your efforts and painting you as a terrorist or traitor in everyone's minds. Then you're easy pickings.
Seems like the Taliban did fine taking their country back from globalists, with a bunch of used weapons from the 70s and Toyota utes.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#648Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What about taking a nap, taking a bath, cooking, etc.? If you fail to check in, they try again a bit later on, if you fail again it falls back to the non app-enabled method of a police check at your home. The app is voluntary and allows you to be at home rather than in a facility, and to not have random police checks. It's a convenience, not an imposition. > Many other countries trust their citizens enough that suc…
> In some like the UK, that trust was misplaced, and compliance with isolation rules was under 50%. More like, people in the UK more correctly assessed the risk of COVID. While is a dangerous disease, it's not so dangerous that it is worth giving up all of your civil rights to avoid it. In Australia the cure seems to be worse than the disease.
Sure we did ... so easy to forget the dead when they don't have a voice to speak.
The UK Covid response was a joke. And the behaviour of the people, who completely lost trust in our leadership (understandably), acted accordingly.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#649Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll say what I said on the other thread - If you want to present an argument against quarantine being needed or warranted, please go ahead. Checking in on the app is the least intrusive of the three options - quarantine under guard (usually in a hotel, like the one I'm in right now), quarantine at home with police visits tio ensure compliance, or quarantine at home checking in to the app once or twice a day. In this…
There's a ton of countries that just trusts its people to quarantine without the government checking on them.
When it all started in February 2020 that's exactly what Australia was doing, but a minority could not be trusted and broke quarantine and consequently COVID started spreading. At that point the model changed to mandatory quarantine in a government facility. There was broad community support for that change. In an ideal world people would have liked to have stuck with the voluntary approach, but most were realistic enough to see that an untrustworthy minority were wrecking it for everyone.
Re: Australia’s new mass surveillance mandate
#650Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a ton of countries that just trusts its people to quarantine without the government checking on them.
Like the UK, where compliance has been estimated at around 40%?
When the alternative is invasive, Orwellian monitoring and inhumane enforcement by an authoritarian state, I'll take 40% compliance every time.
Remember... governments NEVER give up these powers readily.