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A comment on How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and still call itself free?. Parent comment

Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by abrazame on Thursday September 02, 2021 @08:36PM (#28399189)
It's worth noting how little debate there was (or is) on any of this here in Australia, by the by. The government decides this is happening, and the media cheer them on. Any critical voice is instantly branded anti-science, told they don't care about lives, etc. The opposition parties, if anything, want more of it (irrespective of whether they're left or right in a given state). We're a reasonably small country, so often the media and the politicians know one another rather well (revolving doors, small social circles, etc), but it honestly doesn't feel like we have a free and critical media or opposition at all right now.

PS: Watch this short clip for an idea of what news looks like in Australia at the moment: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1429786126815010820

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Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by josephcsible on Thursday September 02, 2021 @10:30PM (#28399796)
> the media cheer them on

These four points seem to be in contradiction with each other:

1. Most of Australia's media supports the lockdowns

2. Most of Australia's media is owned by Rupert Murdoch

3. Rupert Murdoch's media is right-wing

4. The right wing opposes the lockdowns

Yet I hear combinations of those points all the time. What's happening here?

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Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by austhrow743 on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:19AM (#28400379)
Where did you get 4 from? They specifically point out that our institutions being unanimously pro strict lockdown is irrespective of the party being left or right.
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Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by dtn on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:37AM (#28400458)
The federal government have been frothing at the mouth to get states to open up since the start of the pandemic, especially focused on VIC. They've only changed their messaging temporarily to be pro-lockdown recently when NSW initially dropped the ball, and then pivoted again to focus on vaccines and "living with COVID" when it was clear NSW couldn't recover.

https://twitter.com/joshfrydenberg/status/131622619140619059...

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Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by nl on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:56AM (#28400548)
The Murdoch press is mostly opposed to anything progressive governments (eg Victoria) do.

Once the conservative government in NSW implemented lock downs they were (mostly) suddenly on board.

This of course is more of an indictment than them just being opposed to lockdowns. They aren't opposed for ideological reasons, just for political convenience.

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Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by president on Thursday September 02, 2021 @08:59PM (#28399316)
> Any critical voice is instantly branded anti-science

This has been the fishiest thing for me during the entire pandemic. It seems the slightest questioning of the mainstream narrative results in censorship. Even pointing this out can result in censorship or people lashing out.

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Re:How long can a democracy maintain emergency limits and st... by morpheos137 on Friday September 03, 2021 @12:24AM (#28400389)
People prefer safety to abstract concepts like democracy or free speech.
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