Patriot act.
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Thatâs been repealed already, right? Iâm not sure but whatever. Thereâre lots of others which are still in existence. I really donât wanna go digging them up.
Ok, seriously, anyone who doesnât get what Iâm saying:
When this COVID shit is over, just go on a holiday to any major city in China, or even 2nd tier ones like Nanchang if you arenât into the bustling club scene. Even the police are nice nowadays. The Soviet architecture for lots of the buildings in Nanchang is BEAUTIFUL since Jiangxi(itâs province) was once a Soviet stronghold.
Just be prepared for the level of air pollution if you have asthma or anything similar like me.
Pat Australia has changed a lot in the last 30 years or so. Much of it not good. I have to agree it was a better place to live back then. We are no longer a the happy go lucky people we used to be. Too much trust in government, and a poor Constitution that is open to abuse. Conservative govts sold out conservative values, of their own voter base. Working manâs Governments sold out the working man and adopted an elitist/communist position. Both for gun control, mass immigration, offshore manufacturing, and service industry,selling public assets to China.
In comparison with the rest of the world its still a relatively good country, but its going to continue the decline of rights and living standards unless there is massive political change.
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Iâd just like to restate my point was simply that one cannot use selected portions of a countryâs laws to determine what the country is actually like. I donât know what itâs really like in Australia since Iâve never been there. And I appreciate the different POVs here in this thread describing the country from real people who are living there.
The only thing I do know for sure is that one of my Chinese relativeâs family was a target of some KKK affiliated group and were constantly harassed there when they migrated there 20 years ago to the point of almost deciding to leave despite the husband being a white collar executive but now theyâre fine and active members of the Church.
EDIT:
We also cannot bring up countries like North Korea for comparison. Theyâre not even in the same ballpark even though some minor shit may overlap. I could even bring up laws in Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime and find some overlaps with US laws and conclude theyâre the same but that would be absurd, right?
What truly baffles me is the self-proclaimed Marxists TODAY are trying to be like Red Guards-lite but theyâre doing something similar to what China decided was too fucking stupid to be allowed to continue even during the years of the Cultural Revolution. Once those useful idiots had served their purpose, the CCP decided to crack down on them and it wasnât pretty.
Suppression by the PLA (1967-1968)[edit]
By February 1967, political opinion at the center had decided on the removal of the Red Guards from the Cultural Revolution scene in the interest of stability.[35] The Peopleâs Liberation Army (PLA) forcibly suppressed the more radical Red Guard groups in Sichuan, Anhui, Hunan, Fujian, and Hubei provinces in February and March. Students were ordered to return to schools; student radicalism was branded âcounterrevolutionaryâ and banned.[36] These groups, as well as many of their supporters, were later branded May Sixteenth elements after an ultra-left Red Guard organization based in Beijing. There was a wide backlash in the spring against the suppression, with student attacks on any symbol of authority and PLA units, but not on Marshal Lin Biao, the Minister of National Defense and one of the Chairmanâs biggest allies. An order from Mao, the Cultural Revolution Group, the State Council, and the Central Military Affairs Committee of the PLA on 5 September 1967 instructed the PLA to restore order to China and end the chaos.[37] The order came within months of PLA forces disobeying government and CRG orders in July, the Wuhan incident, the aftermath of which resulted in even more violence amongst the Red Guards, even targeting local level PLA formations, raising fears of a repeat of the Wuhan events.
The PLA violently put down the national Red Guard movement in the year that followed, with the suppression often brutal. A radical alliance of Red Guard groups in Hunan province, called the Sheng Wu Lien, was involved in clashes with local PLA units, for example, and in the first half of 1968 was forcibly suppressed.[38] At the same time the PLA carried out mass executions of Red Guards in Guangxi province that were unprecedented in the Cultural Revolution.[38]
The final remnants of the movement were defeated in Beijing in the summer of 1968. Reportedly, in an audience of the Red Guard leaders with Mao, the Chairman informed them gently of the end of the movement with a tear in his eye. The repression of the students by the PLA was not as gentle.[39] After the summer of 1968 some more-radical students continued to travel across China and play an unofficial part in the Cultural Revolution, but by then the movementâs official and substantial role was over.
From 1962 to 1979, 16 to 18 million youths were sent to the countryside to undergo re-education.[40][41]
Sending city students to the countryside was also used to defuse the student fanaticism set in motion by the Red Guards. On December 22, 1968, Chairman Mao directed the Peopleâs Daily to publish a piece entitled âWe too have two hands, let us not laze about in the cityâ, which quoted Mao as saying "The intellectual youth must go to the country, and be educated from living in rural poverty." In 1969 many youths were rusticated.[42] Many students could not cope with this harsh life and died in the process of reeducation.[43]
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Should be noted I donât think we have a mainstream âleftâ wing party either. Labor operates under the facade of a left wing government, but theyâre centre left at a push with a tiny dash of socialism sprinkled in. Both Liberal and Labour have taken an approach entailing societal infantilism and harsh penalisation as the be all, end all on how to deal with vice, regulatory practices and âpublic safetyâ. We have the greens on the semi-mainstream left side of the spectrum but⊠HA⊠nopeâŠ
Australia is by no means authoritative in comparison to third world dictatorships; but our two main parties tend to cater towards rules, fairly harsh penalties, and batshit nanny state legislation. Media outlets donât help either, hysterical over-reactions/sensationalism over otherwise benign activities/topics appear to be the norm. This ultimately feeds into legislature enacted as the public doesnât appear to conduct research over controversial concepts; itâs almost as if the generalised populace is typically uninformed and/or incapable of making independent, fully-formed opinions.
One person loses an eye from a gel blaster? Thatâs it, ban them country wide and clamp down with harsh penalties for those that still own one. Granted when an activity/vice is associated with significant revenue/profit, itâll get a free pass; hence why alcohol and gambling are fine/openly advertised despite the fact that these vices will destroy far more lives than gel blasters, nerf guns, soccer balls/kites and yohimbine ever will. I seriously think itâs rules for the sake of rules, excess fines = revenue.
Neither party (labour or liberal) are as societally conservative in comparison to the American Republican Party.
Our generalised shift in sociopolitical paradigm has been a slow, painful process to watch. As youâve specified, itâll take mass public uproar prior to any significant change being enacted. Look at the uproar that occurred regarding NSW police conduct. Mass public uproar yet not a thing has changed.
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Well, lucky for you I am not talking about the letter of the law. I am talking about the execution of the enforcement of those laws. My sense of Australia was that people didnât give a shit, at all, about pretty much anything. Everybody seemed pretty much live and let live. But the state seems to have taken to pretty draconian measures in enforcement.
For instance, okay cocaine is illegal. Does it justify road-blocks where even passed-use but not current possession or use is punished? Or beating the shit out of a woman for not wearing a mask?
BUT, wonât they donât have and what we do have, is a constitutional right against these measures. We have a means to challenge hyper-authoritarian edicts and they do not. But, it seems they are okay with this type of enforcement. I think itâs nuts, but itâs their country. But I fear like Europe, itâs dying. Authoritarianism is creeping in and they have no means or will to fight it. I give credit to the English and French for at least fighting back. They only rallies they have in Australia are BLM protests, in a country with hardly any black people. In other words, the left has taken over and the country is trending towards socialism. I see no road blocks towards Australia becoming a full authoritarian state.
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Wow! I just said the same thing without first reading your post. It sucks, but I think you guys are on the way to having a Chinese style authoritarian state. Difference being homosexuality will be celebrated not stifled, but in all the markers that matter, youâre going down.
And I agree that conservatives are good at talking, but not taking actual action. It seems to be a world-wide epidemic.
Unfortunately for you, you country isnât an official republic or democracy. Itâs not a for the people by the people type of government.
Do you the people have any means of fighting back? Or are you just stuck, hopelessly watching this beautiful ship list and is sinks deeper and deeper into the cold black ocean?
The whole notion of the âNanny Stateâ is 100% left-wing. It seems that leftist authoritarianism has been so normalized you donât even recognize thatâs what it is.
ThisâŠ
Is what left-wing radicalism is by definition. Perhaps, they arenât giving you the particular left-wing tidbits you desire, but the actions you described are as far-left as they get. What else do you want to government to do for you that they are not doing?
Bullshit, NSW (king nanny state) is run by a centre right government. The sniffer dogs, excessive policing at festivals etc are current policies enacted by the right wing government.
The vaping ban is a byproduct of the right wing government. Tobacco excise is a byproduct of the âleftâ wing government. At the moment, both liberal and labour are equally to blame regarding our batshit nanny state policies.
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Vote for parties of which cater towards valuing individualistic civil liberties, vote for parties that donât appear to push rules for the sake of rules
Unfortunately one is fairly limited for choice and the average Australian citizen is probably politically inept. You have a few independent parties that if in power (or held a greater majority of state houses) would purportedly either wind back or abolish many of our ridiculous policies. The liberal democrats, shooters fishers and farmers party, reason party, keep Sydney open, hemp party come to mind
A few of these independant parties only stand for a few select issues, they arenât adequately equipped to run the country. Rather youâd vote for the hemp party in hopes they gain a few seats as a protest vote resulting in cannabis legalisation, one would hope for keep Sydney open to come in and abolish lockout laws across kings cross, one would hope the shooters fishers and farmers party would slightly relax gun laws etc.
Keep in mind legalised weed, allowing for slightly relaxed gun ownership and keeping bars open doesnât equate to true freedom. A regime can still systematically oppress a population whilst allowing for tidbits of discernible liberty. The Australian government is NOT oppressive! If it was truly oppressive I wouldnât be sitting here complaining about Aussie policy right now.
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This is exactly how the Soviet Union ran itself and itâs satellites. Vices were readily available.But life was otherwise strictly controlled. But thatâs not what I was saying. I am saying, by description itâs trending towards authoritarianism with your sniffer dogs and road blocks.
But didnât you say that you approved of the government lock-downs, business closings and stuff to protect the country from covid? The only way that is enforceable is through overreach. You cannot have one without the other.
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Pat is a tribalist moron.
You donât.
EDIT:
Actually, you do. Apologies, I was wrong on this one.
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This is true. Not sure why people think authoritarianism is only from the Left., and why something like liberalism is lumped in with the former. China, though Left, actually went on a crack down on LIBERALS during the 50s and 60s because it was about evil Western decadent capitalist ideas.
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It was also highly effective, most states in Aus have a 28 day rolling average of zero cases in stark contrast to the death toll in the US that has reached almost 300,000. To state covid-19 related lockdowns are a symbol for whatâs to come is laughable. I do believe Australia couldâve opened up a few weeks earlier, but otherwise I more or less supported the lockdown aside from the use of drones, excess police powers, the omnibus bill in VIC etc.
Weâve opened up, much of Europe is going through repeated lockdowns and the USA would have probably done the same had it not been for the incompetence of the Trump administration.
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That would be a lot closer to Right wing nowadays. What is âcommunistâ about China today? Can you name me ONE thing that isnât also fascist? Just ONE.
Hereâs another kicker. There is NO UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE in China.
The fucking Nordic States are more socialist than them lol.
And itâs not even government overreach. If it was, there wouldnât have been, for example, an expiry date for your lockdowns as required for invoking the use of such emergency powers.
I posted so much legal shit above and no one else reads them. Itâs all about feelings nowadays. I thought facts donât care about oneâs feelings?
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Gel blasters are just as dangerous as a âfat manâ. If you disagree we must engage in a duel to the death! (Iâm aware this comment may come across as innapropriate/not PC at all. Itâs a joke, please treat it as one)
As Iâve specified prior, media sensationalism appears to empower parliament to pass nanny state legislation. I canât wrap my head around banning soccer balls on beaches in Sydney though. Revenue perhaps?
Oooo, that rhymes
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