Archives For Political Theology

Victoria’s “Vichy” government is Undermining Australia’s Relationship Reset with the Chinese Communist Party

May 26, 2020 — Leave a comment

Sitting state Labor members defending the Communist Chinese Party, while simultaneously attacking their federal government colleagues is not a good look for Australian Labor. The attacks against Andrew Hastie, George Christensen, and Scott Morrison, reveal a party divided by arrogant far-left factions advancing Australia further into a social, cultural, moral, political and economic abyss.

The reason why Labor governments in both Western Australia and Victoria warm to any “kiss and make up” approach between the Australian and Communist Chinese governments, is because Labor has political capital invested in the relationship.

Tapping into China’s flawed totalitarian powerhouse, gives them the illusion of gaining power, and the hope of maintaining it. As long as it furthers their self-interest, their ideology, and assuages the egos of Communist Chinese sycophants on their payroll, to hell with the constitution and our national interest.

Victorian Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan, when questioned on whether Victorian Labor will use the newly signed ‘belt and road initiative’ deal with the Chinese Communist party to fund white elephant projects sinking deeper into the red, danced around it.

Despite Chinese officials denying that new 80% tariffs on barley exports were related to Australia’s push for a COVID-19 inquiry, Victorian treasurer, Tim Pallas gaslighted the Morrison government, saying the China’s new tariff war ‘was a consequence of the way that the federal government had conducted themselves.’ Sky news also reported that Pallas accused the LNP of ‘vilifying’ China.

Labor’s Western Australian “Asian Engagement Minister”, M.P, Peter Tinley hit out at Andrew Hastie in a long-winded rebuke of one of the few Australian politicians taking a principled stand in the ‘defense of Australian sovereignty, prosperity and security.’

Calling criticism of China “harmful”, Tinley aligned with the Victorian government, former LNP foreign minister, Julie Bishop, and former W.A. LNP premier Colin Barnett, advocating for ‘quiet diplomacy’. Which means surrender because it seeks to subdue, subvert and silence open criticism of the Chinese Communist regime within Australia.

The good news for Labor is that not all within the party share the same views on China. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Victorian Labor Premier, Daniel Andrews isn’t getting absolute support from his federal Labor colleagues.

“Some Labor MPs said the Victorian Labor Treasurer’s intervention was another concerning example of the Andrews government interfering in Australian foreign policy, after Victoria refused to cancel its Belt and Road agreements with the Chinese government.”

Contrary to Andrews, Premier Mark McGowan said “he had not spoken to the China’s consul-general in WA over the trade war, arguing he did not want to be accused of meddling in foreign affairs, which is a responsibility of the Commonwealth.”

Even somewhat Labor statesmen, Graham Richardson refrained from shooting blame in direction of the Prime Minister. Richardson hit the pause button talking about China’s guilt, and stated that ‘the biggest bully on the block can’t run, and can’t hide.’ So China should just own up to mistakes made in relation to COVID-19.

Richardson aligned with the sentiment in LNP’s trade minister, Simon Birmingham’s push-back against China’s ‘cheap politicking’, calling the Chinese ambassador’s glib remark about Australia ‘being a joke’, ‘a silly, childish pique’. [i]

The bad news for Labor is that this indicates a party in disarray, fundamentally fractured by divided loyalties. The Labor party appears divided between those loyal to Australia and those loyal to the Chinese Communist party; a division emboldened by a thirst for totalitarianism inherent in the utopian leftist ideological paradigm they serve.

Serving and protecting their own political, and ideological self-interests, appear more important than serving, and protecting Australia’s national interest.

This was made apparent when states went against federal advice, and buoyed by the teacher’s union, ran COVID-19 fear campaigns in order to keep schools shut.

While this may reflect the life-force of our vibrant, robust federalism, it wouldn’t be unfair to ask, if this is a sign that our federation is stuffed. How long will it be until Daniel Andrews declares Victoria’s succession, and rebirth as a province of the Communist Chinese regime?

The states turning against the Federal government isn’t new. States turning against the Australian constitution is. Daniel Andrews’ foray into foreign affairs gives him a newfound power, and he will yield it. With China’s ‘belt and road initiative’ Daniel Andrews doesn’t just have Chinese Communist party backing; he has the backing of its military. And vice versa, the Chinese Communist Party has the Andrews government’s backing, and now a beachhead on Australian shores.

Zero transparency equals zero accountability.

This smoke and mirrors deal, rightly condemned by commentators as an unconstitutional overreach into foreign affairs by Victorian Labor, binds Victorians to the Communist Chinese Party.

Furthermore, Victorian Labor has undermined Australia’s relationship reset with the Chinese Communist Party.  If Daniel Andrews won’t respect the Australian constitution, there’s no way he’ll be able to hold the Chinese Communist Party back from bypassing or even overthrowing the Australian constitution. Contempt for it is already sown. The proverbial cat is out of the bag. Good luck trying to put it back in.

The rise of the Victorian “Vichy” government under marshal Daniel Andrews, and their Communist Chinese puppet masters, has tightened the noose already being quietly wrapped around the neck of all Australians.

Though some may cheer, “all hail the Victorian “Vichy” Government and her Chinese Communist puppet masters.”

Let the rest of us say, “We will not go quietly into that cold night. We will never surrender. We will rage, rage against the dying of the light.” [ii]

May God have mercy on us all.

References:

[i] Richardson, G. Biggest Bully on the block can’t run and can’t hide, The Australian, paper edition, sourced 20th May 2020.

[ii] Dylan Thomas paraphrased

First published on Caldron Pool, 24th May 2020.

©Rod Lampard, 2020

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Appeasement of the Chinese Communist Party is Treason

May 25, 2020 — Leave a comment

When China rolled three warships with sailors decked out in full combat gear into Sydney harbour unannounced, the response was “there’s nothing to see here.”

This, along with the rhetoric blaming the Federal government for China’s first strike against Australia by way of a ridiculous 80% tariff on barley imports, and the verbal attacks against Andrew Hastie, George Christensen, and other outspoken Australian parliamentarians in recent days, conjures up images of Labor politicians with their heads stuck in the sand.

Worse, their first response to China’s first strike, would suggest that China could take half of Australia by military force, and some of our politicians would be out here telling us, “It’s not an invasion. Keep quiet, we don’t want to escalate tensions.”

Right on cue, the mainstream media would be telling us “not to criticize our benevolent Chinese Communist overlords, because they’re here to liberate us, not enslave us. You’re just racists and bigots”.

Not unlike the Nazi extension of Austria. Our elite would follow along with the rhythm of the media’s cadence.

They’d picket China’s critics. Chant virtue signalling slogans, and wave corflute signs from make shift welcome wagons. While their minions denounce, lynch, and prey on dissenters, as their goose-stepping, Christless Communist overlords, stomp in jackboot unison to cheers drowning out the purging.

Embers and ash from burning Australian flags, would be remembered by historians as metaphors for a nation wounded by backstabbing corrupted leaders, cashed up, and sheltered, who, despite red flags flying, preached “there’s nothing to see here”, whilst Australia lay dying.

If this kind of blame shifting isn’t treason, then the appeasement behind it is! It’s is a limp-wristed evasion tactic. It tells the Chinese communist party we’re a country of push-overs willing to let them slap us around whenever they so choose.

Appeasement precipitates an abdication of responsibility. It is one step away from total surrender.

Appeasement adopts the timidity injected into our subjective relativist addicted society by Leftists, who see phobias everywhere, and at work in everyone. Whose schizophrenic obsession with phobias causes us to doubt, question and reject everything about ourselves, while binding us to an inevitable defeat in the face of those who would capitalize on this Leftist induced paralysis, by turning us into an enemy.

Appeasement isn’t the ANZAC way.

Walking on egg shells around abuse enables the abuser.

Recall the words of French ex-Communist, Albert Camus, who, writing in support of the anti-Communist revolt in Hungary, 1957, said:

‘The Left is schizophrenic and needs doctoring through pitiless self-criticism, exercise of the heart, close reasoning, and a little modesty. Until such an effort at re-examination is well under way, any rallying will be useless even harmful. None of the evils that totalitarianism (defined by the single party and the suppression of all opposition) claims to remedy is worse than totalitarianism itself.’

He added,

‘To be sure, the Right is not brilliant. But the Left is in complete decadence, a prisoner of words, caught in its own vocabulary, capable merely of stereo-typed replies, constantly at a loss when faced with the truth, from which it nevertheless claimed to derive its laws.’ [i]

Chinese Communists have soured the relationship with Australia by pouring their abuse all over it. This cannot be wished away, discounted, or swept under the carpet in an act of compliant dismissal. We answer their belligerence with appeasement at our peril.

Healthy boundaries save lives.

Therefore, we add our voices to the growing chorus of those in the wilderness, advocating a correction of this blatant imbalance of power. We call for the redefinition of this relationship, in order to stop Australians from being pushed into the same mass graves, Chinese Communists dug for the Chinese victims of their Marxist infused, Maoist totalitarian regime.

As Camus said,

‘None of the evils that totalitarianism claims to remedy is worse than totalitarianism itself.’ [ii]

References:

[i] Camus, A. 1961 Resistance, Rebellion and Death: Essays; ‘Hungary: Socialism of the Gallows’, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. 1960 First Vintage International Edition

[ii] Totalitarianism: defined by the single party and the suppression of all opposition.

First published on Caldron Pool, 21st May 2020.

© Rod Lampard, 2020

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Keeping quiet” About Chinese Communist Interference, Isn’t a solution. It’s a policy of surrender

May 18, 2020 — Leave a comment

Firebrand Australian Tasmanian senator, Jacqui Lambie joins the Liberal National Party’s George Christensen, and Andrew Hastie, along with One Nation’s Pauline Hanson, and Mark Latham, in being among the few Australian parliamentarians to publicly challenge Chinese Communist interference in Australian society, education and politics.

Arguing for a “Make Australia Make Again” campaign, the senator channeled her fiery speech from December warning about government inaction with regards to the Chinese regime. Lambie took direct aim, and shot straight in the heart of the path of least resistance chosen by The Greens, Labor, and the LNP.

It was a clean shot across the bow of pro-Chinese Communist politicians like Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, Former W.A. Liberal Premier, Colin Barnett, and former Foreign minister, Julie Bishop. The speech was also a repudiation of poorly considered decisions from both sides of politics, such as Northern Territory Labor signing over the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company for 99 years, and corruption brought about by Chinese interference in state and federal politics, evidenced by disgraced NSW Labor senator, Sam Dastyari.

To recap: Andrews bypassed Federal government concerns about national sovereignty and signed up for the CCP’s expansionist “Silk Road” initiative. Barnett said that if he was Scott Morrison, he’d have told Peter Dutton to ‘be quiet’, after the Home Affairs minister, said that ‘Chinese Communist party’s values are inconsistent with Australian values’.

Julie Bishop just this week publicly remarked that what Australia needed in the face of Chinese belligerency was “more quiet diplomacy”. Bishop advocated for an approach that would appeal to the Chinese regime’s propaganda and its blame shifting, stating that the LNP government needs to include an investigation into the U.S and Europe, in order to get the CCP on board with any COVID-19 enquiry.

Without a doubt the official line when dealing with the belligerent Chinese Communist leviathan, from most of our politicians, is “keep quiet”.

This passivity communicates to the electorate that the majority of Australia’s elected representatives are more interested in giving Australians the run around, creating political bull, instead of cutting through it.

Their policy of silence furthers the idea that these politicians are in the back pocket of the Chinese Communist regime. Every time these politicians appear to be protecting Communist Chinese interests in Australia, over against Australia’s national interest, they lose legitimacy as elected representatives.

There is a tendency to play it safe. Up to and including playing the fiddle handed to them by the Chinese regime, where CCP’s belligerence is re-imaged as misunderstood benevolence. Public criticism is deflected – labelled racist and xenophobic. It’s no wonder that the Australian electorate finds themselves frustrated by the silence of politicians who, through a policy of appeasement, appear to put their own political self-interest, first and the interest of the nation last.

“Keeping quiet” isn’t a proactive solution. It’s a policy of surrender. Instead of our elected gate keepers defending the Australian constitution, and protecting Australian sovereignty, we hear crickets emanating from Canberra for fear of upsetting China or failing to be inclusive and “multicultural”.

If Charles Sturt Professor of Public Ethics, Clive Hamilton, is right, and the evidence backs him on this, Australians aren’t just facing a ‘Silent Invasion’[i]; they’re face to face with an elected political class who’ve signed Australia’s death warrant through a policy of quiet surrender.

This is why Christensen’s upcoming enquiry, Hastie’s resolute defiance, Hanson, and Latham’s persistence, and now Lambie’s impassioned speech to the Senate, are on par with the ringing of the Liberty Bell.

In defiance of this silence and its policy of quiet surrender, Australians are being rallied together. Not because of hatred for, or fear of the Chinese, but because of an inherent cultural disdain for totalitarianism; because of a deep respect for the many healthy aspects of our heritage, our laws, our faith, and our people; in defense of our constitution, in order to protect our national sovereignty. To do what our elected representatives have chosen not to do.

As Lambie warned back in December 2019,

“It is clear that China is actively trying to reshape our democracy, and no-one seems to be talking about that seriously enough…It’s about time the people in this place woke up to China’s attempts to infiltrate our economy and our democracy… Both sides of politics need to take a good hard look at themselves and make sure they’re acting in our national interest, which quite obviously, over China, they are not.”

References (not otherwise linked):

[i] Clive Hamilton, 2018. Silent Invasion, Hardie Books

First published on Caldron Pool, 16th May, 2020.

© Rod Lampard, 2020

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Sometimes Government needs to get out of the way: Here’s why I’m a Skeptic when it comes to Government programs

May 14, 2020 — Leave a comment

There’s a big difference between politicians doing something, and politicians making it look like they’re doing something. What looks good for us, isn’t always what’s good for us. The image we are sold is can often be dissimilar to the product we end up with.

For instance, social distancing laws have created an image of police protecting politicians, instead of the police protecting the people. Look at how famously the police have broken their own social distancing rules while enforcing the will of the political class.

Another example is the sleight of hand when it comes to taxation, the important social welfare safety net and healthcare. Governments like to tell you that they’re providing for the people, when for the most part, all they’ve done is take from the people to provide for themselves.

The government takes money from one pocket, puts it in the other, and we all applaud them for it. This is after they’ve taken their cut for giving us the privilege of rights, freedoms, and access to services. If, and it’s sometimes a big “if”, they consider us eligible.

If I’m coming across as an extreme sceptic in the benevolence of government programs, it’s because I am, and for good reason.

I grew up in a government owned house, on a government housing estate. I come from an abusive, highly dysfunctional home, where my family never broke out beyond its dependency on government programs. My parents were decent enough people. My mother did the best she could with what she had. My father didn’t do a whole lot, but our house was always clean, and food was always on the table. While they seriously missed the boat when it comes to parenting skills, they were neither drug addicted nor negligent of their responsibilities as citizens. My parents were stuck in the welfare cycle, couldn’t get out of it, and in the end, gave in to the idea that they never would.

In 2015, not long after my father’s death, I learned he had a criminal record. The news wasn’t all that surprising. He was a proud man. Reason enough for why he never spoke of word it to anyone for over 40 years. He didn’t fear work or fear having to work. He’d convinced himself that his multiple run-ins with the law as a teenager in the 1960s, made him unemployable. The only job I remember him having was a four year stint in the army reserve during the mid-late 1980s.

My father may not have gone to prison, but the social system, and the broken family he came from put him in a psychological one. While partly of his own making, this psychological prison was enabled by politicians who benefited from keeping him locked down in the “benevolence” of the welfare state.

Though both my mother and father had worked off and on, neither of them ever held down a full time job. My mother worked once in the 1970’s, but as she tells it, my father held her back from continuing, because he was concerned about how much what she earned would impact his social security payment.

The system enabled, and funded my father’s dysfunctional way of life. (In some ways he was probably a victim of the unintended side-effects of Whitlam’s Welfare reforms.)

He was a die-hard Labor voter, and he opposed communism, even though he lived on welfare for the majority of his life. When, in later years I questioned Labor initiatives, and their policy platform, he always vehemently defended the hands that had led, housed, healed and fed him for decades.

It was murky subject matter. Still it taught me that Marxist justifications for the welfare state rarely, if ever raise people up. These justifications come undone, when welfare dependent citizens like my father, are paid in similar ways to an aristocrat. They enslave, rather than liberate. One person is chained to the state for their livelihood, while others are condemned to a life of servitude in order to provide for it.

Like an aristocrat, in order to provide for a particular standard of living, the wages of workers are garnished. The only social contractual obligation is loyalty to the political party who pays the most, and asks the least amount of questions.

Thus the government takes on the role of patron. The worker takes on the role of serf. The welfare recipient takes on the role of aristocrat. This benefits bureaucrats, politicians and political parties because through government dependency they can create voters dependent on them for everything. Through the generational welfare dependency cycle, government takes over the role of extended families, and church charity. By default the government becomes a god.

I’m not advocating against social welfare safety nets. I believe in hand-ups, not hand-outs. Work for the dole, TAFE, tax offsets like the family tax benefit, pensions, or a basic Medicare system all have reasonable justifications for their existence.

Any program proven to be helpful, as opposed to harmful, should be given an attentive eye, complete with the checks and balances of review, and reform, for the sake of empowering successful initiatives.

No true conservative fits the uncaring, heartless straw man created by greedy Marxists, whose own sense of entitlement rivals that of those they seek to tear down.

Compassion and good government demand a manageable, life affirming answer to the perilous, unsustainable bubble of the welfare state. It should remove itself from enabling the cycle of welfare dependency, with the aim of liberating the people they’ve made dependent on it. This is Magna Charta, where economics and civil liberties go hand in hand.

The popularity of Donald Trump is largely because he looks to empower people, not his political party. This is proven by the way in which his own party seems to always be playing catch-up, unsure of what to do with him. He challenges the status quo, and has been able to keep himself beyond the bipartisan, stagnated swamp of cozy “business-as-usual”, governmental control.

Trump understands that there are times when the government needs to get out of the way.

In contrast, Australian politicians seem clueless. Labor leader, Anthony Albanese wants to extend Scott Morrison’s Job keeper and Job Seeker COVID-19 lockdown compensation, way beyond the initial six months allocated for it.

This isn’t a policy that helps Australians. It’s a policy that benefits the federal Labor Party. What Albanese really means is that Labor plan to politicize any COVID exit, shifting the language, and purpose of Job Seeker/Keeper from “covid countermeasures compensation”, to a pay rise for people on welfare benefits, who don’t have a legitimate exemption.

In his first major public appearance in months, Anthony Albanese should have been insisting on the return of civil liberties. He should have been calling for a way out of the police state, instead of advocating the kind of welfare dependency that benefits the welfare state.

Scott Morrison doesn’t get off easy either. Add China’s chest beating to Leftist calls for COVID-19 countermeasures to be permanent, and the Prime Minister is facing a damaging political storm. If Scott Morrison thought that he could avoid having to make Trump-like decisions, he was wrong. How he answers China’s belligerence, protects Australian sovereignty, and how he restores civil liberties post COVID-19, will be the defining of his Prime Ministership. If he fails here, and Labor continue to remain tone deaf to the Australian public, Morrison may not see a second term as P.M.

First published on Caldron Pool, 13th May, 2020.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

©Rod Lampard, 2020.

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There’s two sides to the Coronavirus: The actual crisis, & the one manufactured by bureaucrats for the cameras.

May 6, 2020 — Leave a comment

New Zealand’s Prime Minister will meet with Australia’s Covid Cabinet in a bid to discuss, and secure a plan, allowing restricted travel to and from New Zealand into Australia, and vice versa. They’re calling the plan a “trans-Tasman bubble”.

The idea is designed to help reestablish contact with other nations, and give New Zealand’s COVID-19 counter-measure shattered, tourism dependent economy a reboot.

Nine reports that the heavily policed measure should be operational in time for New Zealand’s September ski season. According to the report, ‘almost 40 per cent of international arrivals to New Zealand are from Australia, heavily contributing to the country’s greatest industry – tourism.’

Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison will also be trying to sell his “breakthrough” COVIDsafe app idea – and is ‘expected to suggest that Jacinda Ardern develop a similar app for New Zealanders.’

The Guardian, true to its usual gaga for both socialists, Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews and Jacinda Ardern, expanded on this, implying there was no need for Morrison to bother “mansplaining”, because the ‘politics of kindness princess’ had ‘already been in contact with officials in Singapore, the originators of the contact-tracing app that Australia has largely replicated.’

In the same article, The Guardian also managed to raise Labor up by tearing down the Liberal National Party. Squeezed into the article was a defense of Victorian Labor Premier, Daniel Andrews and his refusal to open schools. Despite a lowering of the curve, and Federal government advice that states and territories were clear now to do so. The Guardian used one example of teacher being reported to have Coronavirus, and a clash between Andrews and the Federal Education minister, as evidence of the soft on China, tough on Australians, Premier’s insightful and “benevolent” leadership.

The obvious politicking ingrained in the response of Governments to the Coronavirus should speak volumes about the Covid-19 crisis. I’m not suggesting that the COVID-19 crisis was created to serve politicians, but I think it’s fair to say that the crisis is being used, perhaps even exaggerated, in order to serve the interests of the political class. Sadly, many, especially those adopting the COVIDsafe app without question, are oblivious to it.

The Coronavirus crisis is a unique opportunity for politicians. They get to seize absolute power, and we applaud them for doing so. Only the naïve would think that government is benevolent enough; that the behemoth bureaucratic caste is holy enough, to willingly hand back power, once it’s been placed into their hands.

The warning signs should have been obvious enough already. Bar Mark Latham, and Pauline Hanson, not one Australian politician has reassured Australians of how civil liberties are being protected under the totalitarian COVID-19 counter-measures.

Simone Weil knew this, and it formed the backbone of her critique in Oppression & Liberty (1958),

‘the bureaucratic machine, though composed of flesh, and well fed flesh at that is none the less as irresponsible and as soulless as are the machines made of iron and steel. Instead of a clash of contrary opinions, we end up with an “official opinion” from which no one would be able to deviate. The result is a State religion that stifles all individual values, that is to say all values’ (pp.13, 15 & 16).

As you watch Jacinda Ardern soak up the hagiographic adoration, and take her bows, alongside Scott Morrison, Daniel Andrews and co. take note of how our politicians removed our freedoms, without debate and consultation with the legislative body.

Also note how fear is being used as a stick, and the promise of giving back those freedoms as a carrot in order to keep you on side with the narrative. Notice how those politicians are being lauded over as heroes, for returning some semblance of freedom, under their one party government – Covid cabinet – rule.

Then notice how that freedom is conditional. The first condition being that we denounce any neighbour we suspect of being not on board with the fiats, all sign on to a government program, and obey the strict rules ordered by that one-party government, without question.

Take note of how much this benefits them, and only them. Then ask yourself, are the COVID-19 crisis counter-measures more about saving, boosting and empowering the political lives of the political class, than they are about saving the lives of the people they’re paid to represent?

There’s two sides to the Coronavirus, folks. The actual crisis, and the one manufactured by bureaucrats for the cameras.

#bewaretheauctioneers

Related reading:

It’s Not a Sin to Be Cautious of the COVIDSafe App

Answering Cancel Culture with Unconquerable Joy

The Tyranny of the State Is a Denial of the Right to Life and a Livelihood

Despite Fear and Powerlessness Good Friday Remains Good News

Nigel Farage’s Coronavirus-Era Warning: “Say No To House Arrest”

New Zealanders begin to devour each other while Jacinda Ardern smiles and waves at the nation she’s put under house arrest

Are oppressive totalitarian measures necessary in order to fight against coronavirus?

War-time Crises Require War-time Speeches: How Scott Morrison Can Win the Battle for National Morale

First published on Caldron Pool, 6th May 2020.

Photo by Paweł Czerwiński on Unsplash

©Rod Lampard, 2020.

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Communist Chinese Apparatchiks Are Bullying & Intimidating Australian Citizens

May 4, 2020 — Leave a comment

In a 2016 Global Times hit piece on Australian swimmer Horton Mack, China’s ruling Communist Party echoed anti-Western sentiments straight out of the Tokyo Rose, and Hanoi Hannah, playbook, stating,

1. “We think Australia should feel embarrassed with Horton’s remarks. Otherwise, we would be surprised by some Australians’ sense of collective self-esteem.”
2. “It’s not a big deal to us. In many serious essays written by Westerners, Australia is mentioned as a country at the fringes of civilization. In some cases, they refer to the country’s early history as Britain’s offshore prison. This suggests that no one should be surprised at uncivilized acts emanating from the country. We should think the same way.”

The 2016 verbal attack was triggered by Horton’s criticism of the Chinese swimmer, Sun Yang during the Rio Olympics. Horton accused Yang to his face of being a drug cheat, and the accusation wasn’t without justification. [i]. Yang isn’t a stranger to bans for using questionable substances or hindering drug tests. [ii]

The reactionary outburst from China’s propaganda wing was to be expected. As The Guardian’s Stuart Leavenworth observed, Sun Yang’s wins are propaganda wins for the Communist Chinese Party. It stands to reason that they’d do everything they can to maintain the appearance of superiority over “evil Western capitalists.”

Criticism of Yang was received as criticism of China. It serves the interests of the regime to conflate criticism with racism, and conflate ideology with ethnicity; the Chinese Communist party with being Chinese. There’s political capital in discounting, and filtering all criticism of the Communist Chinese party down to the Chinese people as hate speech, and xenophobia.

This manoeuvring doesn’t just create political capital within China. It’s a magnet for the money, mouths and mandatory hatred afflicting many in the West, who’ve been taught, through the lens of cancel culture -Marxist critical theory – to hate, and doubt themselves, Western civilization, capitalism, Biblical Christianity – their own culture and history.

Take away the ‘Rocky IV’ melodramatic parallels, and what’s left is evidential proof of institutional disdain for Australia from within the Communist Chinese government. Sure it’s just rhetoric, but it’s also an insight into an obvious contempt, and racist-by-contemporary-standards, view of all Australians. Luke 6:45: ‘out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.’ When emotions are high, true intentions and inclinations are often laid bare.

Add this to China’s bullying and intimidation of the Australian government in regards to Australia’s just criticism of the C.C.P about COVID-19. Along with espionage, and its infiltration of Australian universities, the by-passing the Federal government through side deals with territory and state premiers (N.T and Victoria), and we don’t just have reason for concern, we have a problem with China, with an established negative pattern of behavior from the Communist regime as evidence of it.

China’s apparent breach of Australia’s national sovereignty, hostile posturing, and tactical maneuvering, is a clarion call, screaming out for an urgent redefinition of Australia’s relationship with the Communist regime.

LNP Senator Jim Molan stated yesterday, while this won’t involve

‘turning ourselves into “Fortress Australia”, isolating ourselves from the rest of the world and seeking self-sufficiency in every conceivable area: becoming the North Korea of the southern hemisphere.’ It would mean an ‘urgent and overdue correction of the excesses of globalisation from recent decades. COVID-19 has been a big wake-up call. We need to heed its lessons, to ensure that Australia is prepared in the years to come.’

To borrow the words of M.P. Andrew Hastie, we need action on protecting Australia’s sovereignty. We don’t need more politicians, ‘muddled and asleep at the wheel when it comes to Beijing.’

The Chinese communist party’s belligerent behavior speaks against the ‘cosy’ assertions of some in Australia’s Labor party, such as dubious Daniel Andrews, and his insistence that China is benevolent, not belligerent; a friend, not just a customer. Its belligerent behavior mocks the soft politics of Labor’s Madeleine King who acknowledged the need for a debate, but castigated Hastie, and discounted China’s tactics.

The cosy assertions from within Labor don’t gel well with Communist China’s bullying and intimidation of Horton Mack. The hate for Horton intensified last year when he reignited the ‘feud’ with Yang by refusing to share the podium with the Chinese swimmer.

Horton not only won overwhelming support, but a reprimand from authorities. It also earned him a great deal of harassment from who are presumed to be Communist Chinese operatives within Australia.

For brevity, here’s The Wentworth Report’s David Evans list of attacks designed to bully and intimidate Horton:

  • “The family home in suburban Melbourne was broken into amid threats against their youngest son, Chad, who was preparing for his Year 12 exams.
  • At the Rio Games, Brazilian commandos shadowed Mack [and his parents] Andrew­ and Cheryl.
  • The computer system at Horton’s firm was hacked.
  • The family was targeted with death threats and vile abuse online.
  • For nearly four years the family has lived in a virtual state of siege. Supporters of Sun, most believed to be on student visas, regularly bang pots and pans late at night in the alley behind the back fence and abuse the family from the driveway.
  • Plants have been poisoned, dog shit hurled over the fence.
  • A man speaking broken English calls Andrew Horton regularly to threaten his daughter (he has no daughter).
  • Last year, after South Korea, Cheryl was cleaning the family pool when she discovered “a bucket load” of broken glass at the bottom.”

Craig Lord, editor-in-chief of Swimming World Magazine also joined The Australian’s Luke Slattery, in raising awareness about the C.C.P’s alleged attacks on Horton.

According to Slattery,

“While most of Horton’s attackers are believed to be on student visas…The family’s ordeal is believed to be well-organised and part of a systematic pattern of harassment and intimidation directed at perceived critics of China. “This is not an amateur operation,” says a nationa­l security analyst who decline­d to be named. “The Hortons’ story is very disturbing … It says something about the reach of foreign powers within Australia.”

With China’s poor track record on athletes and drug cheats from 1994, 1998 and 2000, Sun’s temporary ban, and suspicion over a Chinese government cover-up, the swimming community is right to be on its guard. With governing bodies in the swimming world seemingly too afraid to stand up and serve the interests of those within the swimming community, Horton’s protest stands as justified.

As far as the bullying and intimidation of Horton and his family goes. This next level breach of Australia’s national sovereignty, by what looks like Chinese apparatchiks, is a clarion call for an urgent redefinition of Australia’s relationship with the Communist regime.

Horton’s experience is red flag for the Australian government. It proves Andrew Hastie right. It shows Australians the reach of the Chinese Communist Party, and the treacherous influence they have on Australian politics. The regime isn’t beyond, or afraid of bullying and intimidating Australian citizens in much the same way that they bully and intimidate their own subjects.

This is a convert, pay a tax or die religion, acting out its ideology of “you will do, say, speak and think what we tell you too, or else!”

As György Lukács, one of the fathers of Western Marxism wrote, “You cannot just sample Marxism […] you must be converted to it.” [iii]

Westerner’s should heed this as a warning.

‘When new gods were chosen, then war was in the gates.’ – (Judges 5:8).

References:

[i] The ABC’s China correspondent, Bill Birtles, wrote “Horton has long been critical of swimming authorities for allowing the Chinese star (Sun Yang) to compete after serving a three-month suspension in 2014 for testing positive to a banned stimulant.’ According to Birtle, Sun claimed that he didn’t know trimetazidine, which “makes better use of oxygen and energy in the heart cells”, was on WADA’s blacklist (W.A.D.A: World Anti-Doping Association) In an attempt to clarify this, The ABC’s Tracey Holmes, wrote a sympathetic article in favor of Sun Yang. Holmes implied that Horton had an ulterior motive. Holding fire on accusing Horton of racism, Holmes’ infers that Horton is the one up to no good, not Yang, and certainly not the Communist Chinese Party.

Holmes defended Yang’s alleged innocence by stating that trimetazidine ‘has since been downgraded on the WADA banned list because it was found not to be performance-enhancing.’ The ABC contributor than calls out Horton for not being consistent, snidely remarking that although ‘Horton maintains his criticism of Sun is justified. His stance has left questions over why Horton took exception to Sun while overlooking others on the Australian team, who’ve also been caught up in doping controversies.’

In other words, for Holmes, Sun Yang has been unfairly singled out, because ‘Horton hasn’t vocally condemned these [other] swimmers’. Therefore, Horton’s issue is probably xenophobia or racism against Chinese people.

[ii] Sun was handed an ‘eight year ban for his second doping offence – in which he smashed blood vials with a hammer before they could be tested in September, 2018.’ (Holmes claims that only thing smashed was the case that held the vials). (Alisha Rouse, The Daily Mail).

[iii] Record of a Life

First published on Caldron Pool, 3rd May, 2020.

Photo by Johnny Cohen on Unsplash

© Rod Lampard, 2020.

 

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The COVIDSAFE App Does Not Give You a Magical Immunity to COVID-19, or Make You a Christian

April 29, 2020 — Leave a comment

I took some serious heat recently, after raising questions about the usefulness, function, role and consequences of using the Australian Government’s recent COVDISAFE app. I outlined two areas of concern, then was forced to address a third. My primary point was about precedent. The second concerned emotional manipulation; peer pressure, and the third, data security.

Objections to this included asinine responses such as “it’s un-Christian not too”, that I wasn’t’ “loving my neighbor” and that “people will die if I don’t” sign up for the app. The more astute arguments included “Romans 13 and how it commands us to submit to the government as an institution put in place by God.” [i]

The less astute included an outright dismissal, saying my argument was “crap.”Another ridiculed my point about the app being almost on par with taking an ersatz Hitler Oath. (Not an irrational concern, given the social pressure and hostile responses.)

Most of the reactions only served to solidify the precedent and emotional manipulation points. Once we accept as the norm, governments labeling people, places or things arbitrarily as being “hazardous to public health”, how long will it be until this new normal is applied by less benevolent forces to the Israel Folau’s of the world? Or even those, like me, who share Margaret Court’s view of marriage as being the biologically compatible, God ordained union between a man and a woman.

An app that encourages people to potentially stigmatise, be suspicious of, and distance themselves from their neighbour, on the basis of that person having or (are being suspected of having?) an illness, isn’t all that conducive to Christian love, pastoral care or freedom.

Likewise, using emotional manipulation, regardless of how unintentional, to get people to sign up for the COVIDSAFE app by unfairly accusing them of not being a Christian, loving or Christ-like.

We’ve heard this same asinine, emotional manipulative non-sequitur before during the same-sex marriage debate, discussions about Islamic terrorism #illridewithyou, abortion, transgenderism, Apocalyptic Climate Change…really, any Leftist cause.

Speaking out against the potential abuse of power, manipulation, and manipulative political processes, in standing up for civil liberties, is living out a love for neighbour.

Since when did a no questions asked loyalty to politicians, or allegiance to an ideology such as Leftism, become a yardstick for being a Christian?

Starry-eyed supporters of the COVIDSAFE app seem more in tune with those condemning Jesus for liberating people designated by authorities as unclean, than it is supporting Jesus’ care for the wounded, vulnerable, downcast or outcast.

I doubt my detractors would align themselves so quickly with any statement like, “Yo, Jesus, did ya get that app about lepers, mate? No. Why the bloody hell not? Do you want people to die!?”

If this is justifiable on a social distancing level, than why not develop an app to also report the threat of STD’s, AIDS, Hepatitis or HIV? The fact we don’t, and won’t, indicate that COVIDSAFE, and the general response to COVID-19 is more about politics, than science or authentic Christian living. [ii]

If this is justifiable, and in the interest of public health and safety, why not fund an app for non-smokers to ping off the phones of people who choose to smoke? If you wouldn’t support this, and yet are starry-eyed about the COVID-19 app, why wouldn’t you support it?

Let me be clear. I agree with responsible social distancing. I agree with temperature testing. I agree to a slow reopening. I agree with defeating this virus. I agree with better hygiene management, because this, to me, is showing genuine care for others, based on a basic common sense justified by objective morality.

Perhaps one of the silver linings of the Coronavirus is a return to more concern for our neighbour. Especially when it comes to manners, and personal hygiene – practising a level of care, long forgotten; one discarded by the inconsiderate, self-destructive abandonment of healthy Western traditions. I’d welcome this because it has to do more with collective and individual responsibility – people free before God, for God, and accountable to God, not enslaved to government-as-god ruling madly without accountability.

Contrary to the sentiment coming from most of those applauding the app, COVIDSAFE does not make people using it magically immune to COVID-19.

It does however make you susceptible to potentially being denied service and employment if you don’t have the app. The government admits this latter point in its 78 page COVIDSAFE information manual, and doesn’t appear to be discouraging any third party application from denying employment or service to anyone who doesn’t have the app.

“3.19.4 The Australian Government has also given clear indications that it will not be mandatory for any person to install or to use the App. However, there may be a potential risk of circumstances in which a particular individual does feel pressured to download the App (e.g. a supermarket insisting on customers showing that they are using the App before being permitted to enter the store; or an employer insisting that their employees demonstrate that they are using the App before being permitted to start or continue work).”

It’s worth noting a report published during October last year, where The World Heath Organisation concluded that “active contact tracing is not recommended in general because there is no obvious rationale for it in most Member States.”

We don’t need a nanny state to wipe our noses.

How long will it be until sneezing in a public space automatically triggers a COVID-19 alert? Or worse, individuals quickly come under suspicion for blowing their nose into a tissue, or simply coughing in public.

If this sounds ridiculous, look back at panic buying. Look at the irrational, ludicrous interpretations and enforcement of social distancing laws, based on hysteria, hear say, or presumption. See the mounting examples of neighbour spying on neighbour, and neighbor denouncing neighbour for suspected breaches of the COVID-19 lockdown.

Look again at the reaction against anyone opting out of getting the COVIDSAFE app. Look also at how Cory Bernardi was treated for refusing to sign up for the app. Bernardi, the only person on the Skynews panel giving a defence of civil liberties, was told by host Prue MacSween to “give himself an upper cut”, and drown his concerns about government overreach in alcohol.

On the same panel, Melbourne City Councilor, Nicholas Reece accused Bernardi of not living in the real world, of making lofty “high school arguments about liberty and privacy.” It doesn’t appear that Reece fully understood the implications of his rebuttal. By placing Bernardi’s concerns over liberty and privacy, in the realm of school boy fantasy, Reece confirmed Bernardi’s point.

On the subject of data security, signing up to the COVID-19 app is not the same as signing up for an in-store card, or in-store credit. Those involve companies that operate under strict laws concerning privacy and use of personal information. They are accountable to the government, whereas the government is accountable to no one, but their party, their political supporters, and last of all, you the people – in a very, very limited sense.

For those who think that our fuehrers always know best, and will thus follow them blindly:

As Bill Muehlenberg and Matthew Littlefield have pointed out:

1. “ACT Policing has admitted it unlawfully accessed citizens’ metadata a total of 3,365 times, not 116 as previously disclosed in an explosive commonwealth ombudsman’s report on Monday. The new disclosures include a total of 240 cases that resulted in information valuable to criminal investigations and one that “may have been used in a prosecution”.
2. “When Canberra introduced metadata laws a few years ago, we were told they would only be used to find terrorists. But greedy councils were soon demanding access so they could catch litterbugs. Facial recognition tool Clearview AI was allegedly misused by members of Australian police departments.”
3. “Governments routinely go wrong as power grabs become the norm, and technologies are regularly used for evil purposes. Indeed, one clear lesson of history is what is merely ‘voluntary’ today far too often becomes ‘mandatory’ tomorrow – all for the common good of course.”

I get the point of the COVIDSAFE app. It’s to inform people of areas that have been recently exposed to COVID-19, and tell people to get checked if they’ve been exposed. What I question is its usefulness, function, role and the consequences of handing bureaucrats more power.

It’s one thing to look out for others; it’s another to encourage a precedent where innocent, domestic citizens/places are deemed by the government to be “unsafe” based on a virus they are unsure about.

Romans 13 may carry weight in why we respect the need for good government, but it doesn’t hold us back from questioning government initiatives like the COVIDSAFE app. Nor does Romans 13 discourage us from pointing out how our politicians, on both sides, have spectacularly failed, and still are failing, to give any reassurances about civil liberties; including how they will be respected, and reinstated, after the coronavirus counter-measures can no longer be justified under the current crisis.

My point is ultimately about the precedence of citizens signing onto a Government program without question, emotive, even manipulative peer pressure to do so, and the danger it poses.

My point is about concern for people signing on to government program, run by politicians who haven’t bothered to reassure the people they represent that they are protecting civil liberties. Not one politician has done this, before or since the implementation of totalitarian COVID-19 countermeasures.

Break through the jargon, and the COVIDSAFE app is essentially an app that has the potential to monitor citizens. It allows third-parties to deny employment or service to anyone not carrying it on their phone. Throw in the reaction against those questioning it, and the fine print gives cause for real and rational concern.

We, the people are not the virus.

As I’ve said in the past, the warning of the 20th century to government’s and their people today is this: any justifiable counter moves against an enemy become unjustified if they make the government as tyrannical as the enemy it fights.

References:

[i] As far as Romans 13 goes, while I concede that it’s a fair point, let me say again, that there comes a time when it’s necessary to remind the government that they only have, because God gives.

[ii] See the brilliant briefing on COVID-19 by Dr. Erickson for more on this (Link). Unfortunately, YouTube has removed, and continues to remove all links to the Erickson briefing; more information here.

Image cropped and filtered from a photo by Fredrik Bedsvaag on Unsplash

©Rod Lampard, 2020

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