Politics, Strategy, Campaigns, Elections
Security To Slavery
Australia's Struggle with Security And Freedom China's Tech Dystopia I: The Surveillance State On a recent visit to China, the first thing that struck me was the omnipresence of surveillance cameras. They loomed on literally every street corner, a silent yet potent symbol of the state's watchful eye. This brought to mind the unsettling parallels with George Orwell's ‘1984,’ where constant...
Geopolitics and The Non-Aggression Principle
For an example of how libertarians philosophically wrestle, behold this exchange between the Arizona Libertarians and Australian Brett Lombardi: It is eloquent in its brevity: realpolitik confronting Rothbardian idealism. One of the foundational concepts of libertarianism is the Non-Aggression Principle. Put simply, this is the idea that violence and coercion between parties should be avoided, and that people should act cooperatively...
A Chinese Australian’s Voice: NO
As a Chinese Australian who has called this nation home for the past 11 years, I am compelled to vehemently oppose the Voice referendum. The decision, for me, feels instinctive but is rooted in principles and values deeply ingrained in my perspective as a new migrant. In Upholding the Principle of Anti-Racism While society, media, and certainly politicians discuss “racism” all...
Brave New World Wide Web
The reverse correlation between the internet’s growing accessibility and its diminishing freedom can only be arrested by changes in user habits Much has been made of the ACMA ‘misinformation bill’ and its potential impact on free speech online in Australia. But the internet hasn’t been a bastion of free expression for quite some time now, and like always, it ultimately...
Join Me On The Watchlist
In my previous article, I asked readers to consider making a submission to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) regarding the draconian Misinformation Bill. I have always been sceptical of the effect of such submissions, but it is hard for government to fly in the face of overwhelming public backlash. Politicians, like prostitutes, are in the business of pleasing...
Exciting times ahead for uranium mining in Western Australia
During the 2017 WA election, McGowan’s Labor opposition campaigned hard to reinstate the ban on uranium mining. They followed through on this after winning the state election that year. Both Labor and the Greens ran scare mongering campaigns conflating uranium mining with the public’s historic nervousness regarding nuclear energy. Prior scare mongering has led to uranium mining projects being distrusted...
A Reply to “Centre-Right National Strategy”
Leaving aside for a moment the question (very ably posed by LibDems South Australia President James Hol) of when exactly the Liberal Democrats became known as a right-wing party, former Senator Bob Day’s diagnosis of the state of modern minor party politics to the right of the Greens is characteristically sharp. Henry Kissenger once said of Germany that it was ‘too big for Europe,...
Broken Systems and the Deteriorating Psyche of Our Nation.
Australia is on life support – politicians “and” the people are both to blame. Few people could deny that Australia is not well. The cost of living is unacceptably high. Home ownership is a long-lost dream. Our mental health is deteriorating rapidly. We are at war with one another over almost every issue. Polite debate has disappeared from our public discourse,...
Don’t Welcome Me to My Country
During the debate leading to the Voice referendum, prominent Voice supporter Marcia Langton was quoted in the media saying that if the referendum was defeated: “How are they going to ever ask an Indigenous person, a Traditional Owner, for a welcome to country? How are they ever going to be able to ask me to come and speak at their...
The New Gulag
In his famous three-volume masterpiece, The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described the frozen wastelands of Siberia where political prisoners and dissidents the Soviet state considered dangerous were held (for their speech, not their actions). A gulag was a Soviet prison; an archipelago is a string of islands; hence the term ‘gulag archipelago’ – a string of camps, prisons, transit...
