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Tipsheet

Reason Editor Notes What's Key About Australia's Descent into COVID Lockdown Madness

AP Photo/Gregory Bull

Australia’s COVID zero policy is probably something that Anthony Fauci, the CDC, Democrats, and the liberal media salivate over. It’s total authoritarianism. And while the nation’s lack of a bill of rights has permitted this quick descent into something out of V for Vendetta, we may follow suit. Just because we have a constitutional Bill of Rights doesn’t mean we’re immune from the lockdown madness that’s engulfing the land down under which is experiencing a COVID spike so small it’s pathetic. It’s just a way for the government to enslave its citizenry. J.D Tuccille of Reason has a great piece about how anyone who’s worried about the increasing clout of medical fascism should look at what’s going on in Australia. It’s the “canary in the coal mine,” as he put it:

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What's remarkable is how quickly Australia has fallen. Just months ago, as reports from The Economist, Freedom House, and the University of Gothenburg's V-Dem Institute tracked the eroding health of liberal democracies in recent years, accelerated by authoritarian pandemic policies, Australia seemed to be holding on more effectively than countries including France and the United States. Admittedly, it wasn't so much swimming upstream as losing ground more slowly, but that was something.

[…]

One problem is that Australia has no Bill of Rights to which a liberty-concerned minority can turn when politicians push restrictions on freedom that enjoy at least temporary popular support, as they have in the United States as well as Australia. Some Australians even boast about that absence.

"The essence of my objection to a Bill of Rights is that, contrary to its very description, it reduces the rights of citizens to determine matters over which they should continue to exercise control," former Prime Minister John Howard told an audience in 2009. "I also reject a Bill of Rights framework because it elevates rights to the detriment of responsibilities."

True, constitutional protections for rights shield individuals from majority preferences—which is their whole purpose. In the U.S. during the pandemic, that has meant courts invalidate lockdowns, eviction moratoriums, and restrictions on private schools, even when a panicked public latches on to promises of safety. That's important partially because authoritarian dictates make trade-offs that many people wouldn't choose for themselves, and also because such impositions often prove to be ineffective.

[…[

None of this should be taken as grounds for complacency on the part of Americans who want to pretend that liberty is more secure here. The United States might have stronger constitutional protections for liberty, but that only slows the decline if the culture embraces authoritarianism—it's not an absolute barrier. Pandemic restrictions are popular with much of the public here, too. The surveillance state is alive and well in America. And the health of liberal democracy in our country has eroded in recent years as Americans turn against each other.

Australia is suffering a surge of authoritarianism, in part because of its lack of constitutional protections for liberty. But developments down under may be showing where America is going.

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Enough living in fear. The vaccines are here. Take the masks off. For the unvaccinated, I’m not going to ever hurl scorn at you. My decision to get the shot was my own. After months of the experts being wrong, exaggerating the risk, and peddling straight-up science fiction in recent weeks, I can see why so many are on the fence. The government now saying ‘we won’t answer your concerns about long term side effects but take this $100 bill to get vaccinated’ doesn’t help either. Hesitancy will remain, especially when coated with such contempt for the American voter. Then again, if the experts are made that vaccination levels have stopped, they can only blame themselves. They did their best to undercut their own narrative about the vaccine, so can you really blame those who have become completely immobile in this debate? I don’t. 

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