Led By A Clown Park Of Idiots: Australia Destroyed

"What prepares men for totalitarian domination in the non-totalitarian world is the fact that loneliness, once a borderline experience usually suffered in certain marginal social conditions like old age, has become an everyday experience of the ever growing masses of our century. The merciless process into which totalitarianism drives and organizes the masses looks like a suicidal escape from this reality. The "ice-cold reasoning" and the "mighty tentacle" of dialectics which "seizes you as in a vise" appears like a last support in a world where nobody is reliable and nothing can be relied upon. It is the inner coercion whose only content is the strict avoidance of contradictions that seems to confirm a man's identity outside all relationships with others. It fits him into the iron band of terror even when he is alone, and totalitarian domination tries never to leave him alone except in the extreme situation of solitary confinement. By destroying all space between men and pressing men against each other, even the productive potentialities of isolation are annihilated; by teaching and glorifying the logical reasoning of loneliness where man knows that he will be utterly lost if ever he lets go of the first premise from which the whole process is being started, even the slim chances that loneliness may be transformed into solitude and logic into thought are obliterated. If this practice is compared with that of tyranny, it seems as if a way had been found to set the desert itself in motion, to let loose a sand storm that could cover all parts of the inhabited earth." Hannah Arendt. The Origins of Totalitarianism.

Once again the streets were quiet, virtually empty, with the government pushing another scare campaign over Covid; a truly preposterous, truly ridiculous carry on by a truly incompetent pack of self-aggrandising bastards. Basket cases the bloody lot of them. That was the year that Australia destroyed itself, the state borders slammed shut, millions of people thrown onto the dole queues, tens of thousands of businesses destroyed, all for what?

For an act of sheer, utter and total stupidity. 

For a disease no more deadly than the common flu.

An insanity gripped the West and effectively destroyed it; led or deployed by fantastically self-serving self-aggrandising bureaucrats and politicians. Fear stoked. The masses followed.

"We've been shut most of the year, from March to September," the man at the cafe down at Pier 8 on the edge of Sydney Harbour said. "We've lost so much money. Now this. Everybody's spooked.

"What's most frightening is the people, the way they behave. A politician opens their mouth and they believe them."

They agreed to agree as the sun streamed through windows and at last the cold, blustery summer began to warm up. 

"We're with you now. We will never leave you." 

The vivid colours of Sydney Harbour fluxed through a temporal plain.

He was more relaxed this time, understood it better. There came a time. A place. A circumstance. 

We were warned and warmed; but an ignorant population embraced their own servitude, shrugged off the loss of their freedoms, cleaved to the government of the day. It was an evil afoot. It was a mass engineering of compliance. There was no complaint. Well not among the slaves, who's individuality had been dissolved. 

"What will it take for them to rise up?"

They would not rise up; they would lie down, be steamrolled into their own abyss, and not have even the slightest cognitive ability to understand what was happening to them.

Now we looked afar, further and further afield, and those flying sylphs, those disembodied wings and frightening overlays; those disturbance in the ether of things, they were here to serve a higher purpose. 

What was most disturbing was how simply stupid so much of the population could be. All that romantic claptrap about the commonsense of ordinary people, it all went straight out the window. 

There was no common sense. There was no rationality. They clung to beliefs without a shred of evidence; succumbed to government fear campaigns without a shrug of resistance. 

And he? He walked free across a vaulting sky. 

And wished he could care not. 

THE BIGGER STORY:

ACT Police will be stationed along the Federal Highway from Tuesday as part of the enforcement of the ACT's travel restrictions on people from Sydney, the Central Coast and Wollongong.

Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman and Chief Police Officer Neil Gaughan made the call on Monday afternoon, but said the random checks weren't the same as a full border closure.

"ACT Policing will be conducting random interceptions to speak with drivers about the new public health directions and any requirements to quarantine in the ACT," Dr Coleman and Deputy Commissioner Gaughan said in a statement.

"This will not be a permanent measure and will supplement ACT Policing's compliance activities."

Cars travelling into the ACT from NSW weren't being stopped by police and checked on Monday, but it's expected a police vehicle will be stationed on the Highway from Monday night.

While there is no permit process to cross the borders, any ACT resident returning from COVID-affected areas in NSW must complete an online application form and complete 14 days quarantine.

Questions over resources and the power to make the call appeared to delay the decision to man the border, with the decision made against attempting to man the dozens of border crossings between NSW and the ACT.

The ACT recorded no new cases of COVID-19 on Monday, with just one case in the territory in hotel quarantine.

Dr Kerryn Coleman said ACT residents should re-consider their need to travel in NSW in coming days and be prepared for the requirements to change as more information comes to hand.

She also said Canberrans should be prepared for the current restrictions on travellers from Sydney, the Central Coast and Wollongong to still be in place on Christmas Day, but a final decision would be made in coming days.

At the press conference earlier on Monday, Deputy Chief of Police Michael Chew said there was planning around border strategies in March and April but resourcing those strategies was an issue.

"We're not at a stage where we will be checking every vehicle or every person that comes back into Canberra through the roads," he said.

"We're looking at some presence on the Federal Highway to capture traffic coming down the highway that would predominantly be from Sydney."

Dr Coleman said she didn't want to rely on police enforcement to make sure people did the right thing and followed the public health orders.

Earlier on Monday, Dr Coleman said on ABC radio she expected the police to have some kind of presence on the Federal Highway.

"We have a great tradition in the ACT, over the past nine months people have really come along with us, people's compliance to date and coming on board with all of our measures has been fantastic," she said.

"So while we are looking at this option to try and support and strengthen that, and ensure we protect residents, we are really relying on people to do the right thing."