Post by NFA on Dec 12, 2020 20:38:16 GMT 8
[Nothing new as such but a good summary]
Triumph of the Deep Nanny State
Christopher Carr 11th December 2020
The approach of Christmas is an appropriate time to reflect on an extraordinary year.
The Wuhan virus, otherwise known as COVID-19, upended or accelerated a number of disturbing trends.
Whatever one might argue about the necessity of certain restrictions during the peak of daily infections, the practical reality is that our political leaders appointed themselves our masters, not our servants.
The notion that government answers to the citizenry in a free society was rendered at the stroke of a chief health officer’s pen no more than an interesting but superseded theory.
Fear, far out of proportion to the real risk of serious illness and death for the great majority, drove a wholesale surrender to State power, such that freedom of movement and association were restricted in unprecedented ways.
The spectacle of state premiers and chief medical officers ruling by executive fiat, wagging their fingers at us children and commanding total obedience, might have been hilarious were it not so depressing.
And while the lectures and admonitions rained down, huge swathes of our economy became dependent on government largesse.
...
In response to COVID, instead of a targeted and proportionate response to protect the elderly and those with co-morbidities, the Deep Nanny Staters, often leading elected politicians by the nose, saw opportunity to expand the range of controls over all our lives.
Not surprisingly, addiction to power being stronger than heroin, they have been reluctant to let go.
...
The messianic Left regard COVID as an opportunity for reordering of society, in part by crimping or outright destroying the very freedoms for which past generations fought.
...
If the medicos ever develop a vaccine for weak spines and general fecklessness, there will be no shortage of sleeves in need of being rolled up.
Your standing in it Australia!
