Australia has turned totalitarian so fast I can hardly believe it:
Residents in apartment blocks locked-down by NSW Health are having their alcohol deliveries policed as part of a policy to limit the number of drinks being consumed each day.
NSW Health has imposed rules limiting people in “NSW Health controlled buildings” to a certain amount of alcohol each day in a bid to “ensure the safety of health staff and residents”...
Residents are allowed to receive a ration of one of the following: six beers or pre-mixed drinks, one bottle of wine, or one 375ml bottle of spirits.
Excess alcohol is being confiscated until lockdown rules are lifted...
However it is unclear what powers NSW Health has to limit the delivery of alcohol to people isolating in their own homes; public health orders do not mention alcohol limits...
A spokeswoman for the Sydney Local Health District said when NSW Health took control of apartment buildings for the purposes of limiting the spread of coronavirus, the buildings became subject to alcohol consumption restrictions.
What's next, mandatory calisthenics? You might be thinking that I shouldn't be giving them any ideas, but they already got the ideas from Orwell.
5 comments:
I said a long time ago those loyalty cards would play the role of both snitch and policeman if the Left gets their way. Watch as your Kroger card won't work for buying a birthday cake because your doctor coded in that you need to lose weight. This doesn't surprise me one bit.
I am really disappointed by this. I always thought Australians were an independent breed. :(
A new teacher at school, a European, cannot understand why people like us oppose these slave papers. "We need government permission to drive, we need government permission to be teachers, we should be used to government documentation." There's quite a difference between demonstrating competence and needing permission to go the grocery store, but when you worship government....
Beyond the observation that a 6-pack of beer a day is a lot of alcohol, didn't the US completely ban all alcohol for a few years? Were we a totalitarian country during Prohibition? Even now, many states still forbid the sale of marijuana. I disagree with that, but I wouldn't suggest that those states are totalitarian. European teenagers can walk into a pub or restaurant with their parents and order a beer or a glass of wine. Maybe Europeans think that we are totalitarian for not allowing that.
Prohibition was a dark spot in our history; in fact, it's the only time I can think of when the Constitution was amended specifically to take a freedom away from Americans.
We can have different laws about drinking--but there's no *law* saying that those Australians can't have booze. Instead, a state health department has merely decreed that certain people who live in certain buildings must be restricted for their own good. I'm reminded of the CS Lewis quote:
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
It is the rule by decree that makes the Australian situation totalitarian. Don't think I don't hold Sleepy Joe to the same standard.
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