A classic example of why you really shouldn't be giving the government too much power, because even so-called "modern democracies" can and will go bad.
Backdoors in encryption, free for all to hack citizens, etc. What a mess. Hope some people fight back.
The only reason Australians (generalising) vote at all, is because we'd get fined if we didn't. With donkey votes (vandalised ballots) counted as votes for the current government, this country exists to hold the status quo.
That is completely untrue. Informal votes are not counted at all.
"The number of Blank Votes and Spoiled Ballots are read out at the count, along with the results and are also included in subsequent reports. Your apathy towards the political parties will be heard not just forgotten."
They're counted here too - just not towards any particular political party.
I've never heard that before. Do you have a link?
Usually it is highlighted when an unlikely candidate gets a better than expected result, and the pundits would attribute it to the "donkey vote"
https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7273583/bandt-looks-t...
This is how most Labor parties end up meek allies of capital - career politicians injected into the parties are funded by, promoted by and supported by institutions that owe their allegiance to capital. It's very much the safe route into politics that ends with a cushy job (which is critical coz most political careers end in failure). These people are often the best at co-opting political machinery (e.g. getting on the right committees, swinging important but less visible votes, figuring out how to get "difficult" members ejected based upon trumped up accusations of racism).
For anyone else taking a political career route you risk ending up unsupported, overworked, villified and subsequently ejected into unemployment.
If attempts to co-opt political groups edging closer to power using internal party political machinery fail, there's always a media under the full control of the upper classes that can villify individual politicians that are a threat, which a good 1/2-2/3 of the population will usually believe. Sometimes this works hand in hand (e.g. creating a facade of "unelectability" via the media and then using that internally to nix career progression).
None of this happens in parties with zero chance of getting into power (e.g. most green parties) so ironically they often end up with the best platforms.
German example: The BND has been caught spying on all Germans' communication (most probably still does so), as well as connections to foreign countries. They are only supposed to watch foreign countries. So they came up with a legal theory, called "Weltraumtheorie", where satellites are in space, so outside the jurisdiction of any state. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltraumtheorie Later on, when this got out, it was just legalized and extended to fibre connections, because, well, that just replaces space, doesn't it?...
Also, later on, the government just legalized what the BND was doing, thereby invalidating any future attempt at prosecution for that past crime against the BND. Yet still maintaining the illegality for everyone else.
>"I think we've started to fill a void, a niche for the Americans to get around a few legal hurdles domestically"
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-06-10/nsw-operation-ironsid...
I'm not an expert, but I'm under the impression that Australia uses a "first past the post" / "simple majority" voting system. If that is true, calling it a "modern democracy" seems deeply misguided, democracy yes, modern no.
Australian politics is dominated by the two major parties, but the minor parties form a reasonable percentage of held seats, and occasionally neither major party holds a majority, which leads to a hung parliament where the balance of power is open to negotiation.
https://www.aph.gov.au/Senators_and_Members/Senators/Senate_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_House_of_Representa...
By making a false comparison between the two, you are muddying any argument made against the electronic freedom restrictions.
Regardless of what the justification given is, limiting people's freedom of movement and association is by definition a restriction of their freedom.
To restate: I think the COVID lockdowns are a very different case from these electronic restrictions, in scope, duration, reason, and advisability. A critique which cites both as similar examples of government overreach is missing its mark.
Freedom is about being able to do whatever the hell you want, so long as you don't restrict the freedom of others. It's not about being good or wise or socially responsible or even sane - it's just about nobody being able to stop you from doing whatever it is you want.
Importantly, there is NO PLAUSIBLE WAY to "stop COVID" by lockdowns or any other measures. Eventually you'll have to end the lockdowns, and it'll be waiting for you. COVID is the Taliban of diseases - it can't be defeated, but we can kinda sorta peacefully coexist.
And yet, in Australia you can be forcibly detained and quarantined (in a camp, no less), forced to disclose health information, authorities can also use whatever force necessary to enter your dwelling (this would be a perilous affair in the US in particular), and so on. That is as far from "freedom" as anything I've seen. And it's also utterly and completely pointless and counterproductive as well.
So while we have less freedom initially, it seems to play better in the long term.
And if there are any epidemiological recommednations, _voluntary_ compliance would too mean freedom, but _only_ voluntary.
By your definition people in prisons are "free" too - most of them are locked up for a reason. And yet they can't go anywhere, and are most definitely non-free.
Genuinely curious, do you not think the US government has better guns than its citizens? How exactly would this work?
How exactly did that work in Afghanistan?
The US in Afghanistan, for all its successes and failures was on a nation building adventure, hoping to win hearts and minds. It was following rules of engagement, not operating an outright slaughterhouse.
In the context of abject authoritarianism, the government will just straight up execute you, or crush you with a tank like the PRC at Tiananmen Square.
This feels like a romanticized Lone Ranger against Big Brother kind of thing. The Fantasy of the Good Guy with a Gun™. I don't think it plays out that way in real life.
A counter narrative would be the Cultural Revolution as I pointed out. China's population in 1966 at the start of the Cultural Revolution was about 750mm people. By the time Tiananmen Square happened, it was 1.1b people. I'm looking for the numbers but I believe guns were pretty common.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eV8N0bUzA0
In general, it's perfectly legal for US residents to own RPGs, artillery, tanks etc. If operational, they're classified as "destructive devices", so they have to be registered with the feds, and every transfer happens with their approval as well. It's also very expensive, obviously. But still possible.
The order of ammendments is chronological, not one of importance.
"He [king] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce."
This was removed from the final version during committee review. Much later, Jefferson explained what he believed the reason for this was:
"The clause...reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under these censures; for tho' their people have very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others."
The supreme irony here, of course, is that Jefferson himself was a slave owner until his death. And he had something to say on that, as well; written in 1820, on the occasion of the Missouri Compromise:
"... as it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other."
> sufficiently potent weapons to give the government trouble
and prove far more about how the US federal government has and continues to be reluctant to pursue anyone that has support from "small-government" right-wing groups, even if they continuously ignore or break federal laws.
We expect our government to protect our individual rights and allowing citizens to maintain some degree of dangerousness is a nod to that effect. Even basic arms are great equalizers allowing anyone to protect themselves fairly well in practice.
because they pose plenty of threat to each other, which was in fact one of the reasons for the biggest change in modern Australian history, the Port Arthur massacre[1]
Australia, like many other nations does not have the same tolerance that the US has when it comes to violence.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Arthur_massacre_(Australi...
It is interesting that these restrictions pre-date the country's more authoritarian move. Disarming the populace occurred prior to communist takeovers, eg. Russia early 20th
Gun control has broad support in Australia - in a poll, 40% of respondents think the laws are fine as they are, 45% said they should be even stronger, and 6% said they were too strong.