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Comment by vermilingua | Hacker News Reader

The tech industry in Australia has for some time existed in an impossibly hostile climate, with onerous tasks to betray their own users able to be handed out to individuals at any time, with virtually no oversight. [1]

This has all happened under the auspices of the most overtly corrupt and authoritarian government we’ve had in my lifetime, within four years.

If I had the option, I’d pack up and move, but having written this and other anti-government sentiment, it’s entirely possible that they stop me at the border. [2]

Combining this with the political apathy of nearly everyone here that I know, the current vilification of protestors (not entirely wrongly given the circumstances), and the utter spinelessness and complicity of the “opposition”, I don’t see a future for my country that doesn’t involve violent revolution (we’ve tried it before [3]) or tyranny.

But it gets better: the tech industry is not only under attack, they’re complicit. Beyond even the ordinary run-of-the-mill scumbaggery we see from tech companies, a number have recently formed the Tech Council of Australia [4], aiming to make Australia a startup capital of the world. Scroll down that page and you’ll see a list of member corporations, several of which sent opposition to the AABill when consultation was open. Now, apparently, they’ve decided that it’s too hard to beat ‘em, so they’ll join ’em.

[1] https://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/download/legislation/bi...

[2] https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/leaving-australia

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Rebellion

[4] https://techcouncil.com.au

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As a near neighbour I can neither confirm or deny my support for the cause.

However, its baffling to me normal people are so compliant in the clear authoritarianism.

Being in full lockdown where I'm not allowed to go outside and all stores are closed and food stocks are so low at the supermarket their is no point in waiting an hour in line.

Speak out out has very real social and career consequences you are reminded daily on the media.

The only place to get information from your community, is Facebook comment section news articles, but if you know programming you can clearly see these posts are filtered and highly curated and any post that has slight disagreement with the governments actions is quickly corrected by government employed commentors paid 95k to tackle disinformation.

People are lead to believe if they just follow along and be good they will get their freedoms back.

These people are right. You should address your disdain forwards rule breakers and not those imposing the rules. Because that would be incitement.

I'm thankful I am a high wage earner and can work from home and don't have to rely on government rations ($600) like most people.

I believe we are witnessing history, in the fog. And only from the future does everything make sense. In my personal opinion I believe we are preparing for war with *insert enemy here* and covid was a dress rehearsal for real biological war.

With the USA leaving Afghanistan the "pivot to pacific" is almost complete.

Has the government of Australia given any rational for banning Australians from leaving? What is the public discourse like over this?

I also heard that Australia was making it very difficult for Australians who were abroad prior to COVID from coming back, is that true? Has that changed much? Again, does the government give a rational for this decision? And the discourse?

I think that Australia and NZ were right to lock down hard and stamp out COVID but I'm a bit baffled by the fact that it has managed to get in a few times and more specifically how it has managed to get in.

It seems to be that once if you're an island the size of Australia and you've eliminated domestic transmission the simple solution is to route all international flights to an airport in remote location (not one in a large city) where absolutely everyone involved in the process be they passangers, crew or quarantine staff must stay for two weeks with zero exceptions.

If you did that then you could easily repatriate Australians living abroad.

> where absolutely everyone involved [...] must stay for two weeks with zero exceptions.

You might be infecting some more people during those two weeks, which means you'd have to prolong the quarantine.

> I also heard that Australia was making it very difficult for Australians who were abroad prior to COVID from coming back, is that true? Has that changed much?

As an Australian living abroad - nope, nothing has changed. It's near impossible for us to get back although at this point, why would I want to..

> And the discourse?

Australians overseas are distraught with many being forced to watch friends and family go through tragedy from afar. The ones living at home don't seem to give a crap at all - "you left, serves you right" isn't an uncommon sentiment.

It's been discussed in other posts recently on HN about Australia - life there is pretty good and Australians are generally laid back to a fault. If a problem doesn't affect an individual on a personal level, it doesn't exist.

</rant>

Because you might have family you love and care about living there who you'd want to see?

Feeling a bit East and West Berlin right now.

That’s what I read many times. Politicians and corporations can do whatever they want because “life is good”.

The rationale for preventing citizens leaving is that they may catch COVID abroad then rely on govt. intervention to get back home as a "stranded" Aussie. This is of course nonsense, as govt. intervention to get home has been worth exactly fuck all over the last 18 months. An acquaintance of mine went overseas for his mother's funeral, was told he wasn't allowed to return, managed to get back on the constraint that he flew business (we want rich people back here, after all), then had to fly to South Australia (we are in NSW), quarantine for two weeks, hire a car, and drive back to NSW where he was required to quarantine for two weeks at the border before returning home.

Whether all that was indeed necessary to prevent the spread of COVID (despite several negative tests and all but total isolation in that time) is up for debate, but yes the government certainly makes it as hard as possible to enter the country, virtually impossible unless you can purchase upper-class tickets (bribe the border force).

They did that; Howard Springs is a remote quarantine facility. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/20/world/australia/howard-sp...

> Has the government of Australia given any rational for banning Australians from leaving?

Somewhere after "flatten the curve", Australia aimed for "covid zero" - so they don't want any cases in the country, at all. They did well at that for most of the pandemic, but now delta is running rampant.

They don't want anyone leaving, because they know you'll just come back again and you might bring covid in.

> What is the public discourse like over this?

There was a court case about it being unconstitutional, but it got over ruled because "dangerous times". [1]

> I also heard that Australia was making it very difficult for Australians who were abroad prior to COVID from coming back, is that true?

(for what it's worth, I returned to Australia from Canada in late June 2021 - so I went through all of this).

Again, they're trying to keep covid out, so they have a strict limit on the number of people that can fly into the country from the outside world. Right now it's 3,035 people per week for the entire country [2]. With numbers so restricted, and a mandatory 2 weeks of being locked in a hotel for the cost of $3000, it's difficult to get a flight. From Canada it wasn't nearly as bad as the media makes it out to be, but supposedly there are well over 10,000 people "trying" to get back... though in my experience, and talking to everyone in my quarantine hotel and on my flight, I don't actually believe that's true.

> Has that changed much? Again, does the government give a rational for this decision? And the discourse?

The incoming people cap was halved in July because of the current Delta outbreak (which escaped hotel quarantine). The government's justification is "dangerous times". The discourse is "this is being done for your safety, and you should be thankful".

> I'm a bit baffled by the fact that it has managed to get in a few times and more specifically how it has managed to get in.

After going through it myself, I'm shocked covid didn't escape quarantine more. Just in Sydney airport more than 10 people spoke face to face with all of us arrivals, touched my passport with bare hands, etc. etc. Multiple people picked up and moved my bags, were physically close to me in elevators, etc. etc. If I were running the show, anyone coming into the country would be treated like they had the zombie plague and nobody would get within 10 feet of them. Certainly nobody would be touching their bags and physically touching documents.

> the simple solution is to route all international flights to an airport in remote location (not one in a large city) where absolutely everyone involved in the process be they passengers, crew or quarantine staff must stay for two weeks with zero exceptions.

Surely good in theory, but where will you find a remote location with a big enough airport and enough accommodation you can just take over? also remember staff want to have days off, food must be delivered, people in quarantine want packages delivered, etc. etc.

[1] https://apnews.com/article/asia-pacific-australia-lifestyle-...

[2] https://www.mondaq.com/australia/health-safety/1090494/decre...

>supposedly there are well over 10,000 people "trying" to get back... though in my experience, and talking to everyone in my quarantine hotel and on my flight, I don't actually believe that's true.

Speaking for myself, I am not wanting to return permanently, so I do not want to take the quota place of someone who does want to. There is also uncertainty for me if I would be able to leave the country.

I do want to see my family however, and I have no idea when that will be possible. Video calls only do so much.

I'm in a similar boat, and I chose to come back. I'll be here for 18 months.

I will now have to apply for an "exemption" to leave, though with my proof of residency and personal business in another country, I should be fine (all fingers are crossed)

> If I were running the show, anyone coming into the country would be treated like they had the zombie plague and nobody would get within 10 feet of them.

> Surely good in theory, but where will you find a remote location with a big enough airport and enough accommodation you can just take over? also remember staff want to have days off, food must be delivered, people in quarantine want packages delivered, etc. etc.

The planes full of zombies can land in an air force base with a suitable air strip and then they are lead to quarantined trailer camps like you would find in many remote mining and oil and gas operations around the world.

At the end of it all the camp that you've built can be dismantled and either sold to the mining industry in Australia or redistributed to the armed forces.

Why would a mere 2 week quarantine be sufficient to prevent someone coming in from spreading it domestically? AFAIK 2 weeks is only good enough to catch around 99.99% of cases. That's plenty of cases getting through.

I don't believe Australia or NZ has had anyone leave quarantine after 2 weeks and then test positive. The only exception might be where there was transmission inside a facility.

Actually the famous case that escaped in Adelaide quarantine was exactly that.

Guy tested negative before the flight, and on days 2, 7 and 14 of quarantine. Then drives around and spreads it. They assume he caught it on his last or second last day in quarantine.

Which is why I had to have tests 72 hours before my flight, then on days 2, 7 & 14 of quarantine, then yet another test on day 16

I am aware that has happened on a couple of occasions. "might be" was probably the wrong choice of words, "have been" would probably have been better.

This happened in NZ, so they started separating into cohorts.

Old don't mix with new arrivals, previously anyone could go to the common room

Well that's just pure luck. Incubation periods of 34 days for this thing are not unknown

I think a generous interpretation of my comment regarding 2 week quarantine would be "the period that is sufficient to catch 100% of active infections of COVID-19."

Perhaps that is 2.5 or 3 weeks?

Either way, the fact remains that Australia's decision to leave thousands of their citizens stranded abroad and to lock their citizens in their country is both peculiar and unreasonable.

I was actually taking that generous interpretation - that you might mean 21 days since that's what HK demanded for example. But my point is that nature doesn't work that way as far as I know. There is no 100% point, just increased 9s on the end of 99.9. Scientists have identified 34 days as what seems like the upper end now, but that doesn't mean we'll never see a case of an infection showing up only after a longer period.

Meanwhile if 10,000 people enter the country, 1 makes in to the community and incubates on the 34th day, and things aren't detected immediately with amazing contact tracing it can turn into 1000 cases in no time.

All at the incredible cost of already having put 9,999 unnecessarily through a ridiculously long 34 days quarantine.

So there is a certain impracticality in this type of thinking, since a human lives for only so long. A human has only so many years of his life with which to develop his career and save for his old age. A lot of 0 covid policy countries are seriously going to spiral into territory where the sacrifice of individual human lives by "portion" is no longer insubstantial if we don't see some 180 degree reversals (perhaps by violent revolt). Like if NZ and AZ carry on for 5 years like I expect them to.

> route all international flights to an airport in remote location (not one in a large city) where absolutely everyone involved in the process be they passangers, crew or quarantine staff must stay for two weeks with zero exceptions.

That's not practical.

You need capacity to house at least 10,000 people in quarantine, then another 1,000 staff to look after them. Ideally you'd also be close to a major hospital and the airlines certainly wouldn't sign up to having their staff made to quarantine after every inbound flight.

So increase the price until it's a break even proposition?

A country shouldn't be lock their population inside and refuse to let citizens back in for an indefinite period of time. That's insane.

I didn't say anything about price.

A large federally-funded quarantine facility on the outskirts of each state capital would fulfill the need for quarantine that can operate at capacity, whilst limiting transmission. It's not rocket science, but unfortunately it is politics.

The past couple of years have caused me to really become ashamed of being Australian. Being part of an increasingly globalised society, I found the government's blanket dictat of "Australians come home now" to belong to another era. With 4% of its population living in other countries, one would assume they would try harder to not alienate their diaspora.

It's not rocket science but does require some foresight. Realistically it would take 6 months - 1 year to fully build out quarantine sites that could fully replace hotel quarantine.

If the governments had started on this in March 2020 it would have been worthwhile but these facilities are only just starting to be built now, are too small to entirely replace hotel quarantine, and will be largely redundant by the time they open if NSW and VIC continue on their current paths.

You assume there won't be a variant for next year. IMO covid is going to be like the flu.

Maybe we could use some of the 600 million earmarked for politically convenient carparks? [1]

Compared with the eyewatering sums thrown about to keep the economy alive while closed off to the world, a series of quarantine facilities that allow us to open up is surely doable.

1 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-04/cph-minister-denies-t...

It's not really a cost issue it a logistics (better to locate them on the edge of large cities rather than remote areas) and timing (these facilities weren't seriously considered until it was already too late) issue.

Singapore has allowed ~240,000 people to enter since Covid hit last March and that's with a few months where entries were a couple hundred.

They are a pretty strict process from the time you step off the plane to when you leave the hotel quarantine. It's certainly possible.

It got in because quarantine is a complex system (unless you completely seal your borders, and don't accept things like medicine), and complex systems do not operate perfectly forever.

Australia foolishly believed that they could choose if and when Covid entered their country, which explains the sheer complancy at all levels of government in dealing with it. This was never true.

The result was that Australia purchased, at enormous cost, some covid-free time, and then proceeded to piss it up against the wall.

(As an aside: I'm Australian, and live outside Australia. I do not want to be "repatriated", I want to simply be able to visit the country I'm a citizen of, without being banned from leaving again, and without spending thousands of dollars on quarantine.)

> Australia foolishly believed that they could choose if and when Covid entered their country

No. They believed they could limit covid cases and they were right. Australia's still got some of the best covid results in the world, even with the currently rising case numbers:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Well, they have lower numbers of confirmed cases, but they have a higher death rate than some countries. As an example, Norway has registered 3 times as many cases, but fewer deaths. And while Norway, especially Oslo, has had strong lockdowns, they were nowhere near as onerous as what Melbourne and Sidney have gone through.

Australia bought themselves time, but squandered it rather than ensuring that as many people as possible were vaccinated.

Squandered is not really an appropriate take. Australia's cases are just about to leave triple digits daily and we've already got 30% of the country vaccinated, and most people have been given at least a first dose. This is an enviable position, the edge is going to be taken right off when the case numbers are get high. And the elderly have nearly finished with the vaccination campaign.

And we were struggling to lay hands on the vaccine a few months ago. Supplies were going to countries that honestly needed it more than Australia (cough India cough).

> Well, they have lower numbers of confirmed cases, but they have a higher death rate than some countries. As an example, Norway has registered 3 times as many cases, but fewer deaths.

Norway's population is 5,469,887. Australia's population is 25,839,176.

Norway's covid deaths per million is 149. Australia's covid deaths per million is 38.

Australia's doing much better than Norway.

Our, Norway's, economy has already recovered to pre-COVID levels. We have never needed a lock down. We expect to have 95% of the eligible over 18s fully vaccinated before the end of October.

We have never been forbidden from travelling abroad, just advised against, always been able to return. Now that I am fully vaccinated I can return without having to quarantine, without tests, I don't even have to fill in a passenger locator form.

We have never had any violent protests, or violent reactions to protests, about COVID restrictions.

> Australia's doing much better than Norway.

It seems to me that reducing performance to a single dimension is counter productive both literally in GDP terms and qualitatively on a personal level.

> We have never needed a lock down.

You chose not to. That's why your deaths per population is four times higher than Australia's.

And yet, Canada did do lockdowns and is around 4.7x worse than Norway. Plus the gov’t spent $240 billion by Dec 2020; a significant part of which ($80B) was the unemployment program introduced so that people didn’t go broke when they couldn’t work.

The retrospective studies on all of this across different countries is going to be really interesting.

At what cost? Hasn’t NSW been under a severe lockdown for months now? And it’s being further tightened because cases are at an all time high and still going up? I mean they had to designate approval of friends for single people so they at least have human contact.

So sure, great job on keeping Covid numbers down until now, but it’s not like it wasn’t costly in other ways.

And I say this as someone with family in Vietnam who took a similar approach. They felt like it would be a great time to create a domestic vaccine industry since they had zero cases for most of last year - plenty of time to develop their own Covid vaccine.

Well in the past 4 months cases have increased by almost 200x (2,000 to near 400,000), same with deaths and it still hasn’t peaked. Total number full vaccinated is a little under 2% (though 1 dose is almost 20%).

Now they are scrambling like mad to get any vaccine they can. And they have the military distributing food in their biggest city because nobody can leave their homes - unless for medical care.

To the grandfather’s point, the control of Covid was admirable, don’t get me wrong, but it was squandered out of complacency that they could always get it under control.

> At what cost? Hasn’t NSW been under a severe lockdown for months now?

It's a meaningless question without any numbers. Show me the economic impact for, for example, the UK versus Australia. Who comes out better in growth and GDP?

Why is growth and GDP the determinant? How about mental health?

Singapore had the highest suicide rate last year since 2012. No doubt the lockdown contributed to it.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/suicide-highest-re...

If your pursuit of "best covid results" (and all the goal post shifting justifications that come with it) requires that your ostensibly democratic, free country turns even more towards something resembling East Germany, i'd say you've failed in some more fundamental way. Many other countries also managed to decently deal with a highly difficult and fluid situation like this without imposing absurd Stasi-like equivalents of exit visas. What a shameful thing for a western democratic state to shift to and what a shame that so many idiots defend the normalization of these things in their terror of this relatively moderate virus.

No. You're confusing public health measures with political ideology.

This confusion is one of the reasons that the US covid response was, and continues to be, such a failure. The US is at 649,754 deaths from covid and counting.

The U.S. response has been extremely variable and has operated under circumstances entirely different, geographically and politically from those of a much smaller, island country like Australia. Comparing the two as countries is absurd. With that said, there are many legitimate criticisms of the Australian government reaction, and yes, on authoritarian grounds as well. The U.S response is in many ways worth criticizing as well. Furthermore, what has Australia really gained? Endless rolling lockdowns and a fragility against covid upticks that's laughably tenuous while also being highly authoritarian. It's wonderful to see the exceptionally low death count among COVID cases in the country (taking into account its unique geographic situation) but had vaccination not become available, this would have been a very fragile, unsustainable thing bought at enormous social cost.

> The U.S. response has been extremely variable

Yes, the US has failed as a nation in its covid response.

You claim Australia's health measures are now "normalized" which is absurd. They are abnormal measures to deal with an abnormal situation.

Let's make a bet: I bet Australia will remove its lockdown restrictions when either the covid case numbers are under control or it decides to just give up and let covid infections rise (like the UK did).

You bet the lockdowns are "normalized" and Australia remains an "authoritarian regime".

Let's see who turns out to be right.

In WA we've been pretty much living a normal life sans about ~4 lockdowns, most of which went for 4-7 days. It feels like ancient history. Last one we had was around April 24

> Furthermore, what has Australia really gained?

A lot, economically. Australia & NZ returned to growth faster than just about anywhere else on the planet, and the states that locked down hardest returned to growth fastest.

So it was a big win heath wise, and a big win economically. Whether the new rules were a big loss of freedom is a matter of taste I guess, but we already have lots of rules like don't drive too fast, don't yell Fire! in a theatre, your kids must be schooled, don't has sex with minors. More rules than you can poke a pointed stick at in fact. In comparison the new ones were a drop in the ocean, and they disappeared as soon as they weren't needed (ie, when the lock downs worked). I sincerely wish the other rules were reviewed as quickly.

> It seems to be that once if you're an island the size of Australia and you've eliminated domestic transmission the simple solution is to route all international flights to an airport in remote location (not one in a large city) where absolutely everyone involved in the process be they passangers, crew or quarantine staff must stay for two weeks with zero exceptions.

Good luck staffing such a facility.

> but having written this and other anti-government sentiment, it’s entirely possible that they stop me at the border.

I've seen "Border Control Australia", and if leaving the country is anywhere near as difficult as entering it, you're in for a rough time.

"Do you have dirt from another country under your shoes?"

Reading the link, it appears that travel abroad is currently restricted due to COVID.

Ordinarily, I don't believe Australia practices any meaningful exit controls beyond the usual: visa overstays, warrants. Certainly not capriciously based on your feelings regarding the current administration. In fact, I believe it's automated.

I remember having to do a full on interview at the airport to leave Australia. That didn’t seem normal to me

I assume they suspected you of something or your name matched a person of interest. After all, while the US has no formal interview to leave, if you're trying to do so by air, the manifest is forwarded to the FBI and DHS well in advance of departure. If they want to chit-chat, they'll be waiting for you at the gate. I've seen people yanked off the jet bridge haha.

If you're trying to do so over the land border with Canada, I believe the Canadians will notify the Americans on your way over, and happily hold onto you for a hot minute.

You'll always have to answer to an authority when attempting to leave a country.

However, ordinarily, neither AU, US nor CA will stop you from exiting. Now re-entry is another matter.

Australia is nuts when it comes to overprotecting their bio-integrity. Even withing Australia, you're not allowed to bring an apple when you're crossing a state border.

There are extremely good reasons for that:

https://www.agriculture.gov.au/pests-diseases-weeds/plant/fr...

There's a disposal bin for fruit a stone's throw away from the border. And I bet you that the apples you can buy in, say, Victoria, are imported from the same place as the ones you can buy in South Australia.

That's not just Australia. You'll encounter similar rules going to Hawaii, and even to California - although I think they have a harder time due to the number of land crossings.

Another example, specifically about apples even.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Maggot_Quarantine_Area

I agree with most of your points, and I want the current government gone, but would you mind elaborating on the following?

> ... but having written this and other anti-government sentiment, it’s entirely possible that they stop me at the border. [2]

> [2] https://covid19.homeaffairs.gov.au/leaving-australia

It seems like a bit of a disingenuous stretch to push your points across.

This is truly a whole new level. I can understand countries that lock their borders down to arrivals, but not letting your own citizens depart as a general policy? I can't even think of any country other than North Korea that still has exit visas for citizens, which is basically what this is.

Yeah, it is a whole new level.

The level was created by the 350,000 Australians living overseas noticing Australia had almost no covid while all the infections were going through the roof everywhere else. Understandably, they all wanted to come home.

Sadly, they couldn't because of three reasons. The first is the airline industry collapsed, and so flights went from $3K to $30k each - or more, and there was a very limited number. The second is we don't have the quarantine capacity. The third is every so often quarantine system leaks, which can cost billions.

They demanded the government fly them home for free, they said they the government had to do it because they had a duty to protect all Australians, even ones who earlier on decided not to fly home when covid started, and to bolster their case they went to the media with on sob stories about needing to see their dying long lost cousin or whatever.

No one came out out it smelling like a rose. Some came out of it dead. And understandably, no one wanted a repeat performance. Other solutions, like insisting they had an open return ticket were kiboshed by the travel industry not honouring return tickets or anything else.

Which is how we ended up with the current ham fisted approach at people needing visa's to leave Australia. It's not a good look I agree, but fortunately every politician is very aware of how unpopular it will be when the country open up after the vaccinations are done. Australian's like their travel. The policy will be dropped like a hot potato as soon as the majority political sentiment becomes "it's OK to open up". The vaccination program has been a monumental clusterfuck so it's progressing god awfully slowly, but nonetheless it's looking like we will be in that position by Xmas.

Can you not leave by boat? I heard about some guy who nearly escaped on a jet-ski and would have succeeded if not being actively pursued by the police?

In theory yes, but there is a whole lot of empty ocean in all directions but the north (New Zealand nonwithstanding), and that happens to be an intensely monitored region of the globe due to Australia's desire to prevent refugee arrivals by boat. "Stop the boats" is Australia's "build the wall".

Whether the border force will put any effort into apprehending a boat that's leaving, rather than entering, I can't say, however it's hard to slip under the radar (or sonar, as the case may be).

https://osb.homeaffairs.gov.au/

> having written this and other anti-government sentiment, it’s entirely possible that they stop me at the border.

The reference you linked was a national travel restriction related to Covid, not a case of preventing dissidents from leaving as some form of punishment. Maybe you meant to link a different article?

I wonder if any South Africans in Australia are wishing they had stayed. Pick your poison right?

In all seriousness, do you think the Australian citizens stand a chance of succeeding at a violent Revolution, when your citizens have largely surrendered [0] the necessary freedom to bear arms capable of fighting said civil war? Do you think that act of civil disarmament emboldened the current rise of totalitarian authoritarianism?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_of_Australia

There doesn't really seem to be any countries in the world which let their citizens arm themselves in ways which would enable meaningful revolution.

Not even the US - which famously has guns all over - would have any kind of chance against their own military.

Like... "people with guns" vs "stand off artillery, over the horizon warfare, etc".

> Not even the US - which famously has guns all over - would have any kind of chance against their own military

That is correct, if the objective is to glass the entire place. The US military is the mightiest force in the world when it comes to that.

As far as quelling armed rebellions among the citizenry goes, I think just pointing to this months' news should suffice in lieu of an argument?

> I think just pointing to this months' news should suffice in lieu of an argument?

Thankfully, I'm not from the US. Was there there really an armed rebellion there?

Neither am I, I was referring to Afghanistan.

No worries. :)

I'm not understanding how they're linked though.

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