While I’m not one to suggest that our Prime Minister leans a little bit towards the authoritarian/socialist side of things, here are a few of the changes that we’ve experienced- with scarcely a criticism – over the last two weeks:
- Government has decided which of our businesses are “essential” and which are “non-essential”. It has forcibly closed down the latter. Business owners have not been given the right to debate, argue or dissent this decision.
- More than one million New Zealanders have been forced out of work and onto government benefits. Finance Minister Grant Robertson has stated that “generations will be paying” for this, for decades to come.
- Citizens have been denied the right to freely associate with our friends and family, and to freely travel within our own country, when and where we choose. If we were a free country, we are no longer.
- Police now have the right to enter your home whenever they wish, if they suspect a gathering is taking place. They can also set up roadblocks to prevent Kiwis travelling freely within their own country.
- New Zealanders are being encouraged to spy on and report their neighbours, should they disobey the new rules. Coming soon: rewarding people for dobbing their neighbours in.
- Regular, daily Kremlin-style announcements are taking place, where debatable statistics and dodgy information are being doled out, and there is no parliament to question or criticise any of it.
- We have been instantly denied the right to protest. All public gatherings are banned.
ABSOLUTE POWER IN NEW ZEALAND
The trouble with giving governments more power is they don’t generally like to give it back.
While we doubtless will eventually be allowed out of our homes, there are other ways to control and monitor the population which, just a few weeks ago, would never have been palatable.
Recent media suggests our government is considering contact tracing phone app technology which, while possibly very effective, raise a whole slew of privacy and security concerns. Some apps are able to not only report back contacts but also “ring fence” phone owners, reporting back to authorities when citizens leave their homes or designated allowable vicinity.
DO SOCIALISTS EVER VOLUNTARILY GIVE UP POWER?
I predict that, once this lockdown ends, we’ll be given some of our freedoms back as a token gesture, but they will be returned with many strings attached. Mass surveillance of New Zealanders by our government will almost certainly be part of the deal. We will be impoverished by Ardern’s decisions through this pandemic event. Criticism will not be tolerated.
Prepare to give up your freedom, your privacy, and your right to live without being harassed and questioned by your government.
In return, you may be allowed to open your business up again. You may be allowed to leave your home again. You may be allowed to see friends and family again. If you obey, of course.
I believe that, unless we are prepared to fight for our freedom, our democracy is in danger of being replaced with a totalitarian state.
We can argue that safety is important – and I do – but I’m not sure safety is so important that I am willing to sacrifice everything that makes New Zealand different from Communist China.
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