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Comment by taitems | Hacker News Reader

Cries of "Tyranny!" and "Give me liberty or give me death" are imported concepts that don't resonate quite as well here in Australia. The pearl clutching "Save Australia" protests were good for a chuckle[1], but are also accompanied by people advocating we rise up and murder our police[2]? When Florida has 50x the per capita death rate than that of Australia, it's pretty clear that the US chose liberty AND death[3].

Lockdown is hard, police have overstepped here and there -- but my family is safe and healthy, and my parents are alive.

[1] https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/australians... [2] https://youtu.be/FUKqliBYIvM [3] https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/florida-s-per-capita-covi...

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> Cries of "Tyranny!" and "Give me liberty or give me death" are imported concepts that don't resonate quite as well here in Australia.

Maybe literally with those sayings, but up until sometime in the 80s, "its a free country" was a common refrain, which was rooted in the culture and expectations of the people.

Something changed though.

Huh! Amazing!

That’s something we used to say as children to each other at school.

I’m now 40 amd don’t recall the last time I heard anyone say that.

Me too - 42 and can’t recall the last time I heard someone say that. Very interesting observation from GP.

Same and same - although I recall hearing it in 2019 and it felt like an outlier.

We only said that because it was cold war rhetoric, it came from 'free' relative to communist ones. Now the contrast is gone it's rendered meaningless.

Ah yeah right, I dunno if I’d made that connection before, seems obvious now.

Something else we used to say to each other at a school in the 90s was “BANG! - The Victorian Police Force”, if I recall correctly that was a running gag Full Frontal or Fast Forward did.

No thread on surveillance and privacy is complete without this clichéd quote, might as well be me:

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." - Ben Franklin

Great quote.

This is the same attitude I see in Canada. The gov't can pass laws and all they need to do is point to the US and say "well at least we aren't as bad as them!".

Which of course completely ignores that it's still a terrible idea for Canada.

The fact Australians can't leave or enter their own country, is pretty insane, even China (social score China) allows (with quarantine) their citizens to leave or enter the country. Australians let this happen to themselves, and now are screwed forever, sad to see.

Pretty sure the primary conversation isn't about now, but the future and more about what your kids inherit. I don't think the 50x metric will stand the test of time, but wish you all the best.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean but the Florida 50x metric not standing the test of time?

Even if you were to look at it on a national level, the US death rate per million is 2,142, the Australian death rate per million is... 56. That's a 38x rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_...

Sorry, I wasn't disagreeing with your numbers. I mean that the procedures Australia implemented slowed the virus, but that inevitably Covid will go through the country and there will be a surge. Be it in breakthrough cases like Israel or the unvaccinated.

That's all good, it's why I asked what you meant. I think we've done a fantastic job of flattening the curve here compared to places like the US/UK. As long as we can continue to be on the right side of an ICU tipping point we should continue to ride this out.

How long will you do a great job flattening the curve. If t requires fifty years of this policy because covid is still endemic elsewhere will you be okay with people being born, living and dying under your current regime? If so why? If not why not?

We're expecting the policy to start to be lifted when we reach 80% double vaccination rates, in around 4 to 6 weeks time.

Good luck with surg of covid when that happens.

Australia is a beautiful country but you are not going to be granted an exception to the exact same sequence of events as other countries with high vac rates that opened up.

Hope you actually get your promised freedom.

A surge in cases, but there's unlikely to be the same surge in deaths if Australia's vaccination campaign continues to be successful.

An vaccines and medications have become significantly more successful. Probably enough to make it not much worse than the flu soon

> and my parents are alive.

It was a hard trade off but a good trade off. I'll be interested to see what the sentiment is going to be 12 months from now here with regards to that.

> It was a hard trade off but a good trade off

Speak for yourself! It's just another thing to add to the long list of inter generational thefts.

One estimate I saw here earlier in the pandemic suggested it takes 50 person months of lockdown to save one person month of life. Not sure if those numbers have been updated but when I am elderly I hope that I don't enforce that upon others.

Per my other comment, this is one of the tyrannical neighbors that wants to control you. Should he / she really have a say in what you are able to do? I find the idea horrifying.

Your liberties end where they affect someone else. It’s why we have laws. You’re free to not get vaccinated and house up in your home and never leave. But once you go into public, your sickness affects other people, and those people can die.

No they don't. You have the liberty to assemble peacefully even if they inconvenience or upset someone else. You have the liberty to have privacy against the government, who must make an actual substantiated accusation and get a warrant to invade your privacy even if you really did commit a crime. You have the right to face your accuser even if that will emotionally harm them

So no... Your rights of life and liberty are inalienable.

The words “tyranny” and “authoritarian” have become so overused since 2020 it’s almost comical. All over the English speaking world, not just Australia. Every little thing an authority does that someone doesn’t like is now called tyranny. Masks are tyranny. Vaccines are tyranny. Kicking a jerk out of your store is tyranny. The word has been watered down and exaggerated to the point of meaninglessness. After the boy cries wolf too often, if some kind of tyranny actually does happen, there won’t even be a strong word to describe it anymore.

Why, it's almost like said authority ought to do less, and order less, doesn't it? Like people should be asked, rather than told? The nerve!

Seriously this is an amazing shift of the Overton window.

You have never had a right to do whatever you want on someone else's private premises, and the number of Americans in America - land of the gated community - who forget this selectively is staggering.

Quoth the frog, enjoying his warm bath.

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