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Also, "soldiers are enforcing their covid curfew" is not an accurate characterisation of what's going on here. (I'm not in Sydney where the major outbreaks/rest

Also, "soldiers are enforcing their covid curfew" is not an accurate characterisation of what's going on here. (I'm not in Sydney where the major outbreaks/restrictions are happening now but I'm in Melbourne where they were last year, and the military involvement then was the same). For a start, there's no "curfew". There is a stay-at-home order, but people are still allowed go out where necessary for shopping, exercise, education and work. The main restriction is on visiting other people's homes. Military personnel have been deployed to provide logistical support and additional bodies to help police, medical and welfare services. They're helping set up and staff covid testing facilities, and doing checks on infected people quarantining, both for compliance and welfare. And yep there's also some walking around the streets with police, but there's basically no hostile engagement with citizens or anything remotely like martial law. Mostly it's polite reminders to people of what they need to do - i.e., just wear masks and avoid gathering in big groups. Most people are accepting of it as Australians are not accustomed to or comfortable with a serious disease just tearing through the community causing significant numbers of deaths, so they're accepting of measures to prevent that from happening. > No doubt any video about a lab source of Covid would have been banned too. Nothing remotely like this has happened. I've watched plenty of videos about this, as well as many about vaccine concerns, ivermectin, etc. Australia isn't restricting any content like this at all. The only blocking of content is being done by YouTube in the USA.

refurb 5y ago
A lot of semantics it seems. “No curfew” just “restrictions on when you can leave your home”. So basically a curfew.
- tomhoward 5y ago
  People getting histrionic about this try to portray it as though there are tanks rolling down the streets and weapons shoved in people’s faces. In reality it’s a few uniformed personnel out with police saying “hey guys if you could just put a mask on that’d be great”. Sure if people refuse they get fined by the police, because, you know, rule of law matters. The reality of this is not as outrageous as some people want to imagine. Various forms of lockdowns have happened all over the world, with varying degrees of success. Australia has so far kept total covid fatalities under 1000, avoided medical systems being overwhelmed, and kept the economy going quite well. We can debate the relative merits of masks and lockdowns vs “letting it rip”. I continue to contemplate and research it and waver in my own position. I don’t know how anyone couldn’t, given that no position is without huge costs, whether to short-term liberties and economic wellbeing or to long-term health and survival. But if you’re going to have restrictions, like so many other countries have done, Australia’s use of the military as a part of managing them has been very restrained and benign. Australians are accustomed to the military helping out during natural disasters - bushfires, floods, etc. They see this involvement no differently. If you want to continue the discussion, it would be helpful for you to consider and signal whether you actually want to understand the way things are in Australia, vs just heaping scorn on it.

refurb 5y ago

A lot of semantics it seems. “No curfew” just “restrictions on when you can leave your home”. So basically a curfew.

tomhoward 5y ago
People getting histrionic about this try to portray it as though there are tanks rolling down the streets and weapons shoved in people’s faces. In reality it’s a few uniformed personnel out with police saying “hey guys if you could just put a mask on that’d be great”. Sure if people refuse they get fined by the police, because, you know, rule of law matters. The reality of this is not as outrageous as some people want to imagine. Various forms of lockdowns have happened all over the world, with varying degrees of success. Australia has so far kept total covid fatalities under 1000, avoided medical systems being overwhelmed, and kept the economy going quite well. We can debate the relative merits of masks and lockdowns vs “letting it rip”. I continue to contemplate and research it and waver in my own position. I don’t know how anyone couldn’t, given that no position is without huge costs, whether to short-term liberties and economic wellbeing or to long-term health and survival. But if you’re going to have restrictions, like so many other countries have done, Australia’s use of the military as a part of managing them has been very restrained and benign. Australians are accustomed to the military helping out during natural disasters - bushfires, floods, etc. They see this involvement no differently. If you want to continue the discussion, it would be helpful for you to consider and signal whether you actually want to understand the way things are in Australia, vs just heaping scorn on it.