"Dictatorship is good"

[Anglo-Celtic]

Yeah I remember the abuse (media and online) even from the 2000s in the US,
and then it definitely increased under Obama and came to Canada as well under Trudeau,
and now it is all over the Western world.

These Rwanda-style hate broadcasts,
along with many sadistic horror films like The Purge, and other cult-like brainwashing tactics,
turn the libtards into shitlibs, train them to hate and kill and dehumanise their 'enemy'.

Well these shitlib antifas certainly become my enemy then,
I see them as dangerous brainless zombies who need to be put down again, they already dead anyway.

Oh, Elon Musk fired Don Lemon after one day as an interviewer. Miss Lemon whined about muh hate speech when this is the same classist snob who lampooned the "Trump rubes" with the Lincoln Project weirdo and some lame person of color during one of his propaganda shows (before he got canned for being an ageist and a sexist).

[CosmoLady]

They're the "Nazis" who see us as the "Jews". It's just too bad for them that our demographic is filled with "Audie Murphy"s who won't go to "camp".

This is why widespread firearm ownership is a precious right,
preventing/making more difficult so many possible abuses by the state, not to mention basic self-defence.

This is the 2nd Amendment because it guarantees all of the rights enumerated in the 1st Amendment, and many more,
that are so natural and basic that the Founders would never have imagined to write them down in the late 1700s.

But even basic, natural rights should never be taken for granted. Covid really awakened me and disillusioned me personally.

[Anglo-Celtic]

This is why widespread firearm ownership is a precious right,
preventing/making more difficult so many possible abuses by the state, not to mention basic self-defence.

This is the 2nd Amendment because it guarantees all of the rights enumerated in the 1st Amendment, and many more,
that are so natural and basic that the Founders would never have imagined to write them down in the late 1700s.

But even basic, natural rights should never be taken for granted. Covid really awakened me and disillusioned me personally.

We're on the same page on all of that. That's why the COVID tyrants use each tragic situation as a means to disarm the American population (the very first thing that they mention, even when they don't know the facts), but we're not buying the snake oil that these cons are selling since we see them as they slither through the grass.

[CosmoLady]

Did you wear a slave mask? I refused until local stores barred me , but I sometimes shopped unmasked, and I just got confused looks from shoppers and workers. It was so stupid because one county had mask requirements while the very next county didn't. They acted like the bioweapon wouldn't cross county lines just like it would avoid commie protests, as well as Democratic Party dinners.

No I did not, except when passing through security and customs at the airport,
which is only a few minutes for me (without a line) since I usually fly on cargo planes.

In Sweden there were no masks, and I could live and breathe and enjoy the outdoors normally,
without re-breathing my own CO2 or attaching a germ magnet to my face. CO2 is for plants anyway.

Everywhere else, I stayed home and did not go shopping. Even for food, I was fortunate to avoid supermarkets,
and I buy my own bulk produce from businesses that buy from wholesalers.
My weight stayed constant, I ate more fruit than usual, but most of my friends lost weight.
I did not eat much meat during covid without the supermarkets though. Sometimes we ordered pizza.

[oszkar07]

I am a permanent resident through investment, but I was outside Australia from mid 2019 to mid 2022.
I have several friends, employees and tenants in Australia, and they were telling me and sending me videos all the time,
and I was watching ABC and Sky News a lot. I was watching Australian media a lot during Covid for some reason.
(I remember when Sharri Markson first reported about the Wuhan Lab Leak in mid-2021,
even though the lab leak theory was obviously true to me in January 2020)

I was travelling throughout Covid, but not to the US, Australia, New Zealand, or the Pacific.
I was in Sweden a lot, and there were no covid restrictions for everyday life,
no mandatory masks or lockdowns or vaccination as a condition of participation in society.
Shopping malls, bars, restaurants, schools were all open normally,
people were not afraid, people were living normally and enjoying themselves.

Covid did not seem more serious than a flu pandemic, EXCEPT for the world's hysterical overreaction.

The most extreme/totalitarian things about Australia's (and New Zealand's) covid response, specifically:

-The goal to have zero cases (very unrealistic), with repeated lockdowns whenever cases would appear;
not even European countries were this strict about punishing all of society for a few cases.
-Australians could not leave their province
-Australians could not leave the country
-Australians could not enter their own country, were stuck overseas
-Some Australians were sent to quarantine camps (which were nicer than China and North Korea I'm sure)



So a presumably liberal democratic country imprisoned its own entire population multiple times over a course of three years.
Australia was not unique here, many other countries did the same.
There were multiple lockdowns from 2020-22, depending on the province.
Covid eventually appeared anyway and thousands died anyway.

Your total sentence was only several months? Consider yourself fortunate I guess!



The state gave you permission to be outdoors? Like in prison, you were graciously allowed your daily outdoor exercise!

You had to wear a mask outdoors though, for a time this was the case.

But do remember to thank the state for allowing you to this basic courtesy.
Our basic freedom to live our lives normally depends on the whims of the state, after all.



Like in most countries,
the state decided which businesses (thus, which livelihoods) were "essential" and "nonessential". Very disturbing.
I do not know the statistics for Australia,
but in the US, which had much shorter, milder lockdowns and restrictions,
some 60% of businesses closed by Covid restrictions never reopened.

Also in the US, employment (of the native population) never returned to pre-Covid levels,
most new jobs went to foreigners, or were due to the expansion of government bureaucracy.

Thanks to the enlightened liberal democratic governance,
people lost their businesses, homes and livelihoods, for nothing in the end,
whilst their bank and creditors still demand debt and interest payments.
Any aid money received temporarily is not much of a comfort, but better than nothing of course.
The personal damage is long-term for many.



Yes, my employees and you and I are lucky, we were already working from home, on our laptops, even before the pandemic.
My friends and employees simply stayed home, luckily they all have swimming pools.
Sadly the state did not allow them to go to the beach, even though some of them lived on the beach.

Most people do not have work-from-home jobs though.



Yes I agree.



Australia and New Zealand were definitely more oppressive than most countries,
with the internal and external travel restrictions and Zero Covid policies and quarantine camps.
I remember the panicked story of the manhunt when a few teens escaped from a quarantine camp.
Otherwise Australia was similarly oppressive to the worst European countries, which is not very reassuring.

The point is, any "liberal democracy" can suddenly become totalitarian,
due to any pretext where people are made to feel afraid, and where bureaucrats and transnational forces take control.
Often the strongest restrictions were in NATO, EU, or Five Eyes countries,
inspired by China no doubt, so I was pleasantly surprised by Sweden.

Lockdowns and other oppressive measures and mandates were similar to other presumably "liberal democratic" countries,
not unlike the strictest countries of Europe.

Some of my Aussie friends and employees also live in Singapore, which was oppressive but still milder than Australia,
and in Dubai, which had no lockdown (despite some pandemic restrictions).



Are you joking mate? My Aussie girls were sending me new Twitter, Rumble, TikTok videos all the time of:

extreme, unimaginable Australian police violence and brutality in the Covid context,
against regular, everyday people, kids and normal peaceful protestors or passive resisters (NOT rioters),
by regular, everyday police officers. (and even some soldiers)

If I were a police officer, I would resign and drop my badge in the toilet before brutalising my own people.

It was very depressing and tiresome, my household probably watched around 100 of these videos.
Australia has fallen, Australia is not a free country.
This will happen again. Meanwhile, speech restrictions are increasing.

Australia was NOT unique here though, similar things were happening in Europe, North America.
The Netherlands and Canada were horrible too.
And I was NOT referring to police shootings, this has to do with violent conditions in the US, like in South Africa.

Of course these things were not shown on ABC or Sky News.
Only occasional, mild, tepid criticism of government policy was permitted,
no dissent against masks and vaccines,
these were especially sensitive areas for the Five Eyes/NATO/EU countries.

But my Aussie friends were VERY upset about how their once-free country turned into a prison (as it once was anyway).
We remember how much fun Oz used to be, what fun-loving travellers and adventurers Aussies once were, not anymore.

We became very disillusioned about the police and the state during Covid, including in Australia.
And all of this will happen again.

One thing I appreciated about Covid is for at least a few years it thwarted the immigration coming into Australia, one of the few benefits.

You wont hear much argument from me about the oppressive rules that came with Covid and btw in Australia this was done under a conservative Government
although the changes were also done under the conservative government with some changes to State leadership as such in NSW.

As I said the reaction was akin to the idea that the Black Plague had returned and in hindsight we can see this was not the same thing as the Black Plague.

I didnt witness any Police brutality, maybe there was some excessive force at some protests but Im not aware of common incidents of Police brutality.

Australia may have taken bit more of extreme response for a while but overall it was not so drastically different to what was happening in other parts of the world.

The idea of "by the people for the people" has slipped further and further away over time.

Not as extreme in Australia but we see some other western governments where transparency is really non existant and lying to the public about range of issues from wars to secret government expenditure and technology has become the norm.

JFK was trying to reign in such powerful entities that had started running their own race and evidently for that he paid with his life.

Fast forward to 2024 , just take a look the world around you.
With the technology we have and whats coming the potential is its only going to get worse.

[Tooting Carmen]

Deep fake is indeed rather worse than anything envisaged by Orwell and Huxley. It could be used to incriminate and frame people very easily.

[CosmoLady]

Deep fake is indeed rather worse than anything envisaged by Orwell and Huxley. It could be used to incriminate and frame people very easily.

We are in a postmodern, post-truth era after all, as demonstrated by the absurd US media coverage of Donald Trump.

As you say, just wait when the media begins deep-faking.

The media is already the enemy of the people, the biggest purveyor of proven disinformation.

[Anglo-Celtic]

No I did not, except when passing through security and customs at the airport,
which is only a few minutes for me (without a line) since I usually fly on cargo planes.

In Sweden there were no masks, and I could live and breathe and enjoy the outdoors normally,
without re-breathing my own CO2 or attaching a germ magnet to my face. CO2 is for plants anyway.

Everywhere else, I stayed home and did not go shopping. Even for food, I was fortunate to avoid supermarkets,
and I buy my own bulk produce from businesses that buy from wholesalers.
My weight stayed constant, I ate more fruit than usual, but most of my friends lost weight.
I did not eat much meat during covid without the supermarkets though. Sometimes we ordered pizza.

I just did routine runs. Fortunately, I had no routine runs when toilet paper was scarce. I gained and lost about fifty pounds during the bioweapon event. I ordered pizza way more than just sometimes, but the delivery drivers got to know "it's that guy again".

[CosmoLady]

I just did routine runs. Fortunately, I had no routine runs when toilet paper was scarce. I gained and lost about fifty pounds during the bioweapon event. I ordered pizza way more than just sometimes, but the delivery drivers got to know "it's that guy again".

The supermarket-related craziness, hoarding, fighting over toilet paper, etc, when the pandemic started,
was enough to keep us away from the supermarkets for the next few years!

[Tooting Carmen]

Earlier, the BBC News had the power outage of McDonalds as its main headline! A small but significant part of me would wish for a dictatorship to ban, or at least severely restrict all that.