Oh cummon. Communalism is a system. Obviously if it's to by anything else it needs to be anarchy.Originally Posted by bilby
Oh cummon. Communalism is a system. Obviously if it's to by anything else it needs to be anarchy.
So, after over a hundred days with zero community transmission in Queensland, yesterday a cleaner who works at one of the quarantine hotels for people returning from overseas tested positive to COVID.
Today it was confirmed that she has the more contagious UK variant, and as a result we are in a three day lockdown starting at 6pm tonight (Friday, in four hours from now) and ending 6pm Monday - if there are no further cases detected.
People are not permitted to leave home except for essential purposes, and mask wearing is mandatory if you do venture out for any reason.
This is our response to one case. Singular.
Our willingness to impose and implement this level of response is why we only have one case, singular, to which we need respond.
Hopefully this will put the lid back on in short order. But much better to have a few weeks of severe restrictions now, than to need months of them later.
Of course communism and communalism are the same. Just like Trump said, "the flu and COVID are the same."
Its damn hard to fix up my mess so if you don't mind, please help out. Any thing's better than an Archy.
Or end up with dead loved ones.
The Authoritarians
Donald Trump was the fat line of coke conservatives snorted, thinking it would boost their energy and weight loss. Now they're waking up in a cheap motel room, picking at their scabs and denying that they have a problem.
Meanwhile in Europe, the Austrian government is standing by its plan to lift most of the current restrictions by January 25 (though with an occasional "if the numbers allow it" thrown in, never specifying what that would mean). The plan is to open schools (including for older kids - for the first time since October for those over 14), non-essential shops (they were closed for three weeks late November to early December, then opened for Christmas shopping and are now closed again since boxing day), indoor dining (with capacity limits, for the first time since early November).
We currently count about one new confirmed case per minute per Queensland equivalent population.
So in two years western democracies, including Australia, which continue to trade individual freedom for elder deaths will have herd immunity and broken economies with nothing but millions of deaths to show for it.
Not including Australia.
Probably including Austria, which is a completely different country.
Don't worry though, when tourism is eventually allowed again, I am sure the souvenir shops in Vienna will still sell toy kangaroos and koalas for the avoidance of arguments with Americans.
bilby, do you have many covid denier protestors over there?
Some.
They're not getting much traction.
Mostly it seems to be the usual anti-vax suspects.
Australians don't tend to bother too much about freedom as a concept or self-contained ideological stance, though we do have a lot of leakage of these things from American culture. Our modern nation was founded as a prison, so we pretty much expect that everything that's not mandatory will be prohibited.
In my state, an arrested person has two legal rights: To be told the name, rank, and police station of their arresting officer; And to be provided with a detailed list of any charges against them, if and when charges are laid.
That's it. There are no others. Miranda certainly doesn't apply, and a police 'caution' typically consists of "You are under arrest, get in the van". Asking for a lawyer or phone call might well get you one. Demanding them probably won't.
Oddly, in day to day life, (white) Australians are about the most free people on Earth, having worked out that the only way to handle our draconian and all pervading laws is to ignore any that don't seem to make sense, or don't seem likely to be enforced. She'll be right, mate.
Complaining about being denied your rights isn't particularly effective when you never had any rights to deny. If the government is forcing you to wear a mask, then so what? They're forcing you to do a metric shit-ton of other stuff too, and it's not worth arcing up about it - just ignore it unless everyone else is obeying. Being the odd one out might get you fined. So Australians tend to go along with the crowd, rather than worrying about what the actual rules are. It's incredibly democratic.
Right now, the highly unofficial democratic will of the people seems to be 'wear your bloody mask'.
I knew there was something about Australia that made it different from, say Wyoming. It turns out to be women, not open spaces. There had to be a higher proportion of women that came to Australia than came Wyoming. Otherwise there's nothing else that can explain why coming from a place with a harsh climate and very few people per sq whatever over the same period wouldn't result in people being the same. After all both originally came from essentially the same peasant stock. They even talk alike.
Oh wait. Things are much colder in Wyoming. That's why fewer women?
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