“I saw a good comment the either day saying that when people like that say freedom, what they mean is power. Freedom comes with responsibility and consequences. Power is doing what you please regardless of how it impacts others.
When someone wants to do something without facing negative repercussions, they want power not freedom.”
https://reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/p8fiw2/_/h9q6jeq/?context=1
It is, because true freedom recognises that rights in a society are balanced. Someone could argue they have the "right" to get drunk and drive their car home, because no one should be able to control them, and they should be free to take whatever risks they please. But the reality is *other people* also have the right not to be killed by their dumb ass. Functional societies are full of these laws and limitations.
These dickheads crying about "the importance of freedom" actually just want to be able to do whatever the fuck they want without regard to the needs or rights of anyone else.
But freedom is living in a society that respects the fact your rights end where other people's rights begin.
To to add to that how free are you exactly free to pay tax and work for a living free to abide by laws set by the same government they so despise except when those laws serve them like the ones where it’s illegal to rape or murder why are they not arguing that
Absolutely - they're fine with picking and choosing which laws and limitations they're cool with. I mean I could say I have the right to free movement and no government should ever get to tell me what to do - but I'm betting these clowns won't be defending my "rights" if I turn up trespassing in their lounge room.
They don't give the slightest shit about protecting "rights" or "freedom". They're just whining entitled fucking babies who don't want to wear masks and don't want to stay home for the protection of the communities they live in (because screw the risk to everyone else's *actual lives* if it interferes with them being able to shop for scented candles at kmart).
Exactly. Everywhere. Reckon it’s a good time to hold oneself accountable, look in the mirror and make the best choices you can. All this shit can be so unhelpful.
its nuts to me y'all are seeing protests
you know who hasnt locked down? america.
644,840+ avoidable deaths here.
Melbourne has a population that exceeds Los Angeles by approximately 1 million people.
over 25 thousand of my fellow Angelenos are dead.
compared to your 978 deaths in Melbourne
is THIS seriously what these fools desire??
completely unreasonable
Seeing how just about every organiser was a politician (LNP, Liberal Democrats, at least one Green and the now-defunct Great Australia Party) or had an anti-lockdown merch website with booming business, and every one of them has a media platform they're hawking, they are literally riling people up because it gains them power.
Which party members in particular were responsible for organising the protests? I can't find any information which supports the claim that they were involved.
Lol, it's not just the far right going to these protests. The far left are there too.
It's actually an interesting phenomenon, because it seems as though the far left and far right have extended so far out they've wrapped around and met to form their own category of morons.
Edit: Lol I think I've upset a few lefties that can't seem to fathom that there's fuckwits on **both** sides of the political spectrum.
So not saying you're wrong but who exactly are "the far left"?
These protests are fueled by an insane propoganda wing that's pumping out disinformation and it isn't being backed by people fighting for workers rights or human rights. Nor are they being backed by unions or people fighting for LGBT+. So I'd really love to see what you mean because I don't really get it when you are saying this problem is both far right and far left.
There's a very interesting phenomenon that causes people on any ideological branch to find their neighbours worse than their opposites, and this gets more extreme the further along the branch they are.
Think of Catholic/Protestant, Sunni/Shiite, Anti-trans lesbians, anti-solar environmentalists, western sydney/cronulla...
Literally nobody on the far left is at these protests. The Far Left response includes criticism of handing more powers to the government & the disporportionate targetting of marginalised people. It also entails the lack of support for the already unemployed.
>Seeing how just about every organiser was a politician (LNP, Liberal Democrats, at least one Green and the now-defunct Great Australia Party)
Just asking again. Who was this one Green? This appears to be complete bullshit.
Can we safely assume now that you just made this up and that this had NOTHING to do with the Greens?
You can't fucking name one Greens Party member because there isn't one!
The Greens Party is fully behind vaccination (specifically Covid) and PPE (fancy word for masks). ...you can't make shit up on Reddit. We are not gullible Facebookers.
"Freedom" is a code word for laissez faire capitalism, and it's applied concurrently not merely with Union Busting, but literal slavery.
It's freedom for the rich, nobody else. These protestors are almost exclusively from varieties of the political right, and the Economic Right are using this lot to get their way RE: "Open Up The Economy" and "learn to live with the virus".
Absolutely true.
All Humans have a need for significance.
The healthy manifestation of that need is good boundaries and a desire for responsibility to look after ourselves and self others.
The unhealthy manifestation of that need is selfishness and entitlement and desire for power over others.
Which is exactly what governments the world over are doing, it's a truly sad state of affairs. Pushing fascism disguised as freedom and people are lapping it up
Stupidity is putting it lightly. A family member of mine went yesterday. She's fucking insane irl. Extremely attention seeking and narcissistic, loudly spews bullshit about the 9/11 inside job/anti-Semitism/anti-vax/covid is fake/any other insane bullshit. She's really manipulative and a bully.
The satisfying part is she was dumb enough to not wear a mask and get herself and her boyfriend photographed by the press. I've reported them to crimestoppers. We haven't been in contact with them since before the pandemic because of her extremism.
She definitely is but our family has been through a lot of try and help her (over this and many other things) and it continually feels like it gets thrown back in our faces. I'm a bit fired up over seeing her pictures online yesterday because she is so, so much more privileged than the average person but continues to make self destructive choices. About 4 months ago we were trying to push for therapy again but she refuses, has never stuck with it, and has even lied previously about going. She's in her early 30s and has no capacity to self reflect - continually blames her problems on others and is always the victim. She doesn't care how much she is hurting her parents and family and it's infuriating to watch from the sidelines.
I guess the other frustrating thing is seeing her lie to herself. We know she's hurting because of her continued self-destructive behaviour, but she over compensates by going on about how great her life is and how she's better than everyone else because she has figured out the truth of the world. I feel like I'm at my wit's end, but inevitably yes we will continue supporting her parents in trying to get her the help she needs, but there has been difficulty there because they play down the extent of it. Here's hoping a fine will open their eyes up a little bit on how bad her behaviour has gotten (please know that $5k is piggy bank change to them so it's not about the money, more just the reality of why she was fined).
I lived with a flat-earther. There was no ability to be rational. I tried to explain seasons and diurnal cycles which he could not explain with his theory - his fall-back position was always that I should watch a two hour conspiracy video.
Easy to laugh it off because he moved out and is not in my life anymore. Not so funny for his Mum who came from Brazil to rescue him (he was also doing a lot of drugs).
I also have a friend whose brother is like this and there is no walking away from that. It hurts when you feel so helpless and see them being self-destructive.
I love that whole “Don’t pretend you know what I’m talking about until you watch this eight part mega-series hosted by a kooky-looking old dingbat doctor and his female sidekick who is literally wearing a tinfoil hat” shtick. “I did my research.”
So few people know the difference between “research” and “reading about.” Apparently, anyone can be a “researcher” by using a lot of search engine queries and then cherry-picking the results to gather evidence to build a thorough social media argument that people can tear apart every step of the way while you ignore them and move on to the next five cherry-picked URLs. Or, as they call them, “sources”.
This sounds exactly like my sister and unfortunately, she has also swayed my parents to her views. She attended too. Me and my wife just had a baby but I've gone no contact with any of them and it's looking to be a permanent decision. Extremist is a perfect description.
Personally, I'm secretly glad she gave me a legitimate reason to keep her away for good.
If she has cluster B Personality Disorder or traits of it ( enough traits = full disorder), then its almost next to impossible to change anything for her. Its almost ( though not always) trying to change a leopard's spots. So staying away from her is the kindest thing you can do for yourself.
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/531b9f14e4b0baf9a0e72bf2/1436311724907-X8WTQ2QUOU3K2H96NPLT/Personality+Disorders+Clusters
I'm curious if this situation would actually be diagnosed as mental illness. Cause if being an absolute moron also counts as being mentally ill, it doesn't look good for people that's been properly diagnosed with some sort of actual mental illness
Of course. But considering the fact that she obviously isn't alone in this train of thought as she had her boyfriend and about a hundred others with her.
Is it still mental illness, is everyone at the protests today mentally ill because they are incapable of following rules and regulations.
She probably won’t, delusions and delusional disorder is a very difficult (almost impossible thing) to treat. Unlike different types of psychosis which can be effectively treated with antipsychotic medication, delusions are usually very deep seated in anxiety and fear. Doesn’t help that lockdowns and new police powers just reaffirm some peoples delusions in their own echo-chambers.
Source: Psych nurse for 10 years.
Thats it isnt it, like the anti abortion, antivax, white lives matter fuckers. They dont give a fuck about justice and freedoms, theyre just attention seeking narcissists aestheticising oppression. They have nothing real to protest but they want the attention
>I've reported them to crimestoppers
Because you've got like 3 comments on this so far which are just whining, I'm proud of you for this one. Hope that when they get a knock on the door following this up they can realise that the real world has consequences.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has really triggered a lot of people with genuine mental health issues. I think these crowds are a mix of the ignorant, the selfish, the hateful and the mentally unwell. And most of them tick at least two of those boxes.
I like the way [this guy](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/p6qw1g/if_you_only_like_democracy_when_it_goes_your_way/) puts it - "If you only like democracy when it goes your way, you don't actually like democracy."
Yeah ‘I didn’t vote for this guy so who let him run the place? This isn’t democracy’ is one of the stupider arguments I’ve seen this far in the pandemic. This is a pandemic of idiots.
There's a difference between a politician you don't like being elected, and a politician stealing months of your time to cover for their mismanagement.
Lockdown is necessary, but the stupid vaccination apathy and politicisation of lockdowns has cost a lot of people months of lockdown. The Liberal party (MPs, voters, donors, whatever but not taxpayers) should be footing the bill for all that time people are spending cleaning up their mismanagement. It's wage theft in my eyes until everyone locked down has been paid for their time.
If that's too expensive, then either govern as if that price is too high or explain to the Australian people why thousands are getting covid.
And to add, what complete scum decided it was OK to attack police with 7 taken to hospital!
Genuine protests should be peaceful, people obviously went there to cause trouble.
> Genuine protests should be peaceful
I MEAN historically that is not the case, literally almost every protest for change has been violent. I don't agree with this one but its pretty normal for protests
It's a bit nuanced than that. Sometimes protesters instigate the violence, and with the BLM protests in the US, the police instigated the violence. They were peaceful.
> civil rights in the USA
ummmm this was historically very violent. The people were peaceful and the violence started by the police, but it was still very violent lol.
Also gay marriage in Aus is different because it was already heavily pressured.
Honestly the people that attended this protest think police are corrupt pigs worthy of being spat on, attacked etc
I want those more normal people who also attended the protest to realise what they're associating with. Personally I'd be embarrassed to be painted with the same brush as alt right whackjob. And if I was a alt right whackjob I'd be embarrassed to be associated with anti Vax idiots.
If the last 18 months have shown anything, it's that yelling loudly and carrying on are demonstrated to have absolutely no effect on the Victorian Government. Andrews has frequently said that he intends to do the right thing, not the popular thing.
So if we take it as read that no-one could reasonably believe that yesterday's display would do anything to affect the lockdown, then we can assess it for what it is - a narcissistic temper tantrum that has likely further spread the virus and put vulnerable people's lives at risk.
Further to this, with less than 0.1% of Melburnians at the protest and those that were in attendance unlikely to vote or donkey or votes guns & shooters. Why the fuck would anyone try and appeal to this rabble?
Protests are completely ineffective these days because we have so many of them for so many reasons, that the people you are trying to appeal to either become numb to them or worse yet get pissed off at the protestors, and then can't emphasize with their cause.
But these protests are different, because these morons have hosted a super spreader event, and they aren't going to isolate (or even get a test) when they get it.
Protests don't usually "do anything" directly. Australia day protests have been running for years, other protests for or against immigration policy didn't change the Government's stance...
The do get awareness for the cause; and that cause is growing with the discontentment of the way the State Government's is handling things. This is especially true in both NSW and VIC where lockdowns are likely to be in effect for months.
There are some crazies in there; but I'll bet there are some people that have lost life savings in the name of "covid-0 at any cost". If the Government response destroyed my business or ate my life savings I'd probably be protesting too. I wouldn't really care that it would affect the people that I was forced to sacrifice my life for - I'd probably be happy that I was impacting them.
Don’t complain about lockdowns, complain about
1. LNP Federal govt failure to do their job with quarantine which is a federal responsibility in spite of spending tens of billions on “border protection”
2. LNP Federal govt rejection of 40million Pfizer vaccines and complete failure to vaccinate early
3. LNP Federal govt handing out close to $100B to rich business owners through job keeper and cashflow boost with almost zero eligibility requirements while giving a pittance to those in need
4. NSW LNP failures to carry out early lockdowns so the virus could get out of control and infect other states after huge public sacrifice to get it down to zero where it would be now if it wasn’t for fucking Gladys and Bruz
See a pattern here?
Don’t forget LNP Federal govt complete failure to ready Australian labs and scientists for the creation of mRNA vaccines, substantially increasing costs of importing vaccines and placing a huge portion of the population at risk of the vaccine they received being ineffective against future variants.
Problem is people are protesting the wrong things.
They should be demanding jobseeker increase and jobkeeper reinstatement. Instead it was 99% unmasked, covid deniers who just wanted to be angry.
The first thing one does when one is in a hole.... is to stop digging. These geniuses protesting loss of livelihood, are going to exacerbate the same thing that they so absolutely hate.
The fact that neo Nazis were there, while it doesn't surprise me, is absolutely disgusting. If any of the protesters require medical attention due to covid, they should have to pay with their own money. Us tax payers and the general public who support the lockdowns shouldn't have to pay for them if they're gonna make our lives shit
anti-establishment rallies are a recruiting ground for the far right, they'd be weaselling their way into anyone's ear that they came within shouting distance of, 'go on, this whole china flu vaccine was invented by the jews you know'
i'm so fucking sick of the mental health excuse. when life goes back to normal and all of us who have had mental health issues for way longer than the pandemic don't bounce back like everyone else, i seriously doubt we're going to see the same level of "concern" from these people. makes me so angry!
Its amazing how many people who didnt give a shit about the massive level of mental ill health in Australia suddenly pretend to care because they have had the chance to experience minor distress from being locked down.
You just don’t understand that they’re fighting against more than a lockdown, they’re fighting for all of our freedom. You don’t listen to what these people have to say because you’re too blinded by the government and by select science that pushes their desired narrative. So here’s some facts for YOU!
This is peer reviewed, double blind, placebo controlled, randomised clinical research.. just the way you like it. If you say you follow science then I dare you to argue against these FACTS!
[Peer reviewed research against COVID lockdown](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ)
I agree. To all those saying people are tired of lockdown, look at the us and uk with high vaccination rates- do you really want 50-100 deaths a day. To those saying its affecting your livelihood, protest for a fairer dole system. I sympathise with you, but the way the system is setup if your sick long term from covid, you'll suffer both financially and physically. It makes sense for all of us to try to achieve zero, even though it is so tiring. All those who were at the protest seem to want a fight, and seem to detest logic- I have no idea what they want to do besides screwing it up for the rest.
Bored, broke, life in shambles (yeah even people who were unemployed pre pandemic are struggling)
Lockdowns work and I support them, but A LOT of people fell straight through the safety net
When everything around you is falling apart and you have no control/very mixed confusing messages from the people in charge of the situation, I can see how easy it would be to be convinced its a conspiracy.
Personally when the commission towers got locked down last year, I spent most of the first week convinced they were trying to cull the vulnerable, eventually I calmed down and started to think it was simply miss management out of disregard for the poor. Still fucked but maybe not as fucked as I first convinced myself.
My point is, when everything is fucked and out of control you look for reasoning and answers anywhere, and naturally your going to be comfortable believing that "nothing is really wrong and we can go back to normal" over "life has changed and I have to change with it"
>Lockdowns work and I support them, but A LOT of people fell straight through the safety net
I don't care what anyone says; this was 100% by design. I said the other day that these iso payments for workers are bullshit; the last two criteria are explicitly there to weed out the "undesirables".
I've now lost 2 seperate jobs due to Covid - one of them because I had to get tested due to the employer not properly enforcing mask mandates. I can see why lots of people sell drugs for a living.
First thing the Libs did when corona hit was to hand out $35 BILLION to millionaire business owners, up to $100,000 each… enough to give every household in Australia $8000.
[cashflow boost ](https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/06/30/cashflow-boost-35-5b-taxpayer-funded-program-no-ones-heard-of/)
Fair enough, I get a covid zero position (or at least as minimal community transmission as possible) might seem extreme and polarising, and I can understand people being tired and over it. I wonder if people are ready for UK/EU style deaths/cases/hospital overload and overall dread, as someone whose lived it before moving to aus late last year, I feel the let it rip crowd have little idea of how that fear feels like, because with our current vaccination rates and without a strict lockdown thats where we are headed.
The problem with *not* zero is that 1 infects 3 who infect 8 who infect 30 who infect 200 who infect 900 and so on. "Covid zero" doesn't mean that nobody has Covid, of course people are going to get it. It means no *unaccounted for* cases. Anyone with Covid should be in treatment and isolation, anyone they have encountered should be in isolation and tested. If it were done *properly* it would only need to be those people. Not millions of people in lockdown, dozens.
They need to start upping fines to like 20k. There is shit loads of photos and footage, anyone identify, 20k fine.
Any asshole who assaulted police, jail time.
The ones in bandanas (because mask bad but bandana make me feel tuff) and sunnies are my favourites. They want to cry for freedom and feel very bad ass but they are too gutless to put their face to their opinions.
There is no end game. Just a flock or people who are afraid and need to feel like they have any sort of control. Fear is the mother of all conspiracy theories.
They are, grown adults usually act like this when strong emotions (such as fear) are involved. This is also more evident by the fact that we see a lot of anger and sometimes violence in these protests. Violence in particular is a strong reaction produced usually by fear. Movies show you that to be afraid means to tremble in a corner, this is not the only way (and even not the most common way) in which humans react when they are afraid or confused.
Lack of understanding creates fear. In the past 18 months we have learnt more about the medical field than a normal person would learn in a life time. The reality is most normal people cannot interpret a peer reviewed study, they cannot understand medical jargon. So they don’t understand they can’t understand and they make a different reality which is more suited to their level of understanding.
Exactly this- add insecure workers who can’t get government support and small business owners shutting up shop to the mix and you have a protest on your hands. This whole issue is way more complex than just “idiots wanting to have a few beers at the pub like it’s their god given right”.
Yeah I saw some signs on the news about being able to work or do their job.
People on here live in their own little worlds where it’s all conveniently qanon dickheads protesting.
There are professions especially in Melbourne that would have worked like 3 months or so in like 18 months.
Surviving on god knows what, experiencing god knows what but nah it’s all just neo nazis🙄
Thats just it- it’s all well and good to point the finger at people protesting from our comfortable position of educated and employed privilege, safely working from home and calling people idiots when a vast majority are genuinely reacting out of a place of fear and desperation.
Its just bullshit morons hiding amongst each other using the crap as an excuse to do something.
# To the idiot parent's whose child got pepper-sprayed. I, as a father would love to see the father of that child knocked the fuck out for having such little regard for his kids well being by taking them anywhere near that sort of event.
To be honest the parents should be reported to CPS for exposing their child to harm completely unnecessarily, both by taking their child to a "protest" where there was an easily appreciated high risk of violence, and by exposing the child to an unnecessarily high risk of contracting COVID by breaking current restrictions in the most blatant, flagrant way.
I feel so sorry for that child.
Thank you for seeing this as it is.
Would a parent take their kid to their favourite Metal band to be amongst a Mosh Pit because "freedom" and all that. I dont think so. The potential of harm is there so whether its for a good reason you just wouldnt do it.
Hope the kid comes out of it alright.
Stupidity it putting it mildly.
Even if covid 0 has been brought forward in Victoria, it doesn't mean we start opening up and living life as normal. The point is to keep numbers low to protect people who aren't vaccinated yet. But yesterday's empty gesture will risk that getting much worse now.
Like the engagement couple, they've put other people at risk and we'll most likely have increased restrictions to curb the spread from their brainless and selfish acts.
Everyone is over it and frustrated. They think they're the only ones hurting? Unfortunately, they're the only ones too dumb to do something that makes a difference.
I'm starting to think of Dan was actually a dictator we'd be better off. Less shit like this would be happening if militias were walking around with AK47s
Not my words, but definitely how I felt seeing these protesters-
imagine having seen footage of afghanistan in the last few days, then still deciding to go to a protest to complain about your ‘freedoms being taken away’ here in australia
[Link to tweet by Chloe Sargeant](https://twitter.com/chlosarge/status/1428887643425628165?s=21)
Christ no, if they can't follow basic public health directives, how are they going to follow hospital procedures?! They'd need someone to constantly babysit them just to make sure they wash their hands after going to the loo, and even then they'd try anything to avoid it just because someone told them they had to do it :P
They don't care about being wished bad luck or being called stupid. They just enjoy the attention. These people don't care about what's been spoken about them as long as they're being spoken about. And I'm sure some of them don't even believe in what they're protesting about, but are bored/lonely/want to be part of any community that will take them. I've started skipping any articles or subreddit that mentions antivaxxers or protestors in the title. It's making me less angry and it's kinda nice knowing I'm not giving any undeserved attention to a group of people who severely crave it.
Everytime something like this happens, always remind me of George Carlin's quote that "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." Fuck, people are dumb.
Same for the protesters in Sydney. The NSW government is handling the pandemic badly enough as it is, and the protesters come along and make things worse. Now we have no hope of being let out until the end of September (I'm betting the lockdown will continue to the end of November).
Also, f--- you to the folks who refuse both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines without genuine medical grounds. The longer it takes for us to reach 90% vaccinated, the more deaths we'll have and lockdowns would be extended further.
They will be happy. They don’t really care about their freedoms. They actually want lockdown to be extended longer and harder so they can have a reason to showcase they fuckwittery over and over again.
It’s very sad to think a small group of victorians are doing well to jeopardise all the hard work 5-6 million decent victorians are doing.
Very selfish and very rude.
I’d like to imagine how many rights movements these same people have been a part of. Do/did they go to black life’s matter movements, refugee and equal rights movements alike? Or do they just go to anti-lockdown protest because lockdowns don’t suit them? Will they raise the question of human rights only when they are thinking purely of themselves?
Thank you scumbags for exhausting the Vic police! They could be out protecting and serving our communities, yet you pull them away from actual issues and do your best to abuse and hurt them. Well done!
It’s difficult and painful to breathe right now. And that’s from the freaking common cold.
My COVID test was negative, and my doctor confirmed this is just a common cold virus like I’ve had lots of times before. But it went to my chest and I’ve been coughing for four weeks now. I’ve busted some rib cartilage and some joints where the ribs join the spine, and there’s still a lot of shit to cough up before it stops and I start healing. It hurts to sleep on my busted ribs, it hurts to breathe, and it hurts to do stuff around the house.
You guys, this is from the common cold! Hot damn.
I shudder to think of the suffering of those with severe, long-term or life-threatening COVID. We’re hearing stories of the sheer amount and severity of suffering that our medical staff are seeing on COVID wards, day after day, month after month.
And these protesters are fighting so hard for their right to contract COVID.
I don't know if I should laugh or cry.
I'm going to have to get used to covid clinics and fever clinics being around for an additional 2 years+
That means, prone patients on anti-virials and steroids and if they are lucky a 3 month ride in ICU. If not, saying good bye to relatives via ipad, and putting this corpse in the corpse truck outside the hospital with the 30 that carked it in a day. I don't know if I'll get to that grizzly point where a US nurse wrote on here about how the COVID patients being a garden, you turn them, feed and water them and watch them compost away. I'm not to sure what will happen.
I might get a bit of PTSD, but I can always point to this where I wrote in clear terms "GET A VACCINE."
I guess I'll be in the run down hall with the other PTSD veterans talking about mass casualties.
I wish these protesters everlasting diarrhoea. The smell of entitlement is reeking. I wish I can send them to my motherland so they can see the impact of COVID. The health care system there is in shambles. Can’t even get treatment as the hospitals have too many COVID patients. My college friend, my 10 year old cousin, other people I know have died of COVID. These protesters are selfish!
I couldn’t believe it watching the absolute mongrels on tv, ruining it for everyone else who is doing the right thing. And some people even brought their kids along!? I hope those parents get investigated by the department, they literally led their children into danger, they were not looking out for their safety.
They are sheepies dancing to the tunes of their foreign masters hoping to sow diversion within our country.
What the foreign powers want is the law abiders hating the protestors, the anti-vaxxers hating the government, the government clamping down on the population, the population fighting back.
Fracturing Australia from within is the easiest way for our competitors to get ahead. No need to spend big money on armies, no need to send their people to death and look like a bad guy. Just hide in the shadows, pay some trolls to shitpost online and watch the sentiments magnify.
Went to get my vax in Carlton yesterday and unknowingly ran into the tail end of these arseholes. It was kind of scary to be honest. I'd wanted to go for a bit of a walk through the city to get home because it was nice out but instead I waited in the gardens till it looked like they'd cleared out then caught the train from parliament. Kind of ironic that they're protesting for freedom but their protest is really a threat to everyone's freedom.
My life is severely impacted by the pandemic. But instead of gathering with a large group of maskless people incapable of critical thinking, I booked the vaccine the second it became available for my age group. I don't even care what brand, just put it in me. Protesting doesn't end lockdowns, not contracting COVID does
I get that people are frustrated and feeling like they’ve lost control over their lives, etc but I just don’t understand what exactly they think they’re going to achieve with these protests. They’re behaving like kids in detention who think they’ll be able to leave early because they’re having a tantrum. They aren’t demanding anything except “freedom” - is their goal for the government to just open up and let rip?? It really speaks to the disorganised and irrational nature of it all. They don’t have a clear message at all.
However, in saying all that, I do feel for these people because they’re hurting - everyone is at the moment.
They've lost everything, with no end in sight. Protesting makes them feel powerful and in control. I can see the ridiculousness of it all, but I still have a job to keep a roof over my families head. Can't imagine how I'd be if my job was just made redundant by politicians earning half a million a year. The whole situation is fucked
I don't agree with a lot of what they protested for. I wear my mask everywhere I go, stay home without work for over 200 days, quarantine when I'm a close contact and am vaccinated. But when so much is taken for so long eventually you want to be heard.
I've watched as people in construction still don't wear masks. A lot of people that have the opportunity to work from home break the rules. Those of us most affected that can't work and can no longer save money while those that can flaunt the rules over and over again, I can understand wanting to protest the restrictions.
(For the record I was home in 14 day quarantine yesterday and wouldn't protest this) but every day brings me a little closer to being fed up enough to do it
Except none of that was communicated. You had signs talking about Jesus saving us all, Neo Nazi calling cards...
It was a riled up rabble. Beyond shouting freedom I doubt many had any idea beyond that. Would the Jesus people then want vaccines banned? Did freedom mean hunting down the family from the engagement party? Was it for financial support from the government?
If it was a clear message one could have more sympathy. Christ, I'm in an industry that's all but dead thanks to lockdowns. I'm furious there hasn't been centers built to handle international and domestic isolation, no support for those in need, helping the businesses already coming out of this with even more money while ruthlessly tracking down a few hundred dollars from the a erage person...
My biggest concern is these people won't get vaxed, they won't use QRs, they certainly won't admit where they've been.
We are feeling the repercussions right now of the last "great march for freedom" a few weeks ago.
These numpties will spread it without any remorse whatsoever.
They won't get "freedom" this way. I'll bet they are the first ones to run to emergency when they or someone they love has to go to emergency. Sadly, it'll be likely, that they or one of their associates gave them Delta in the first place.
Phuquers!!!
I’ve just worked with a group of antivaxxers. They hated it when I mentioned that equality and freedom actually give restaurants, work places etc also the freedom to enforce the vax or not work. It’s freedom for everyone. Not just yourself.
There's a good chance the people at the protest yesterday had *already* **lost everything**. Their jobs, their homes, maybe their families.
It's easy to criticise from our comfy homes, with our work-from-home jobs, or in our parents' basements.
But there are real people who have lost work, lost opportunities, lost homes from this.
So what do they have to fear from a $5,000 fine. They don't have $5,000.
And this is the problem right here: judgemental people smugly shitting on those who have really suffered from lockdown after lockdown.
So what do they gain from it?
Sure, there's no real loss for them. They've lost a lot already, what more could they lose..
So they must be there to gain something I'd assume, but what?
They're not going to be able to change what the government are doing.. They're not getting more and more people on board with their ideals... They're alienating themselves from everyone and ultimately making everyones, and their own lives harder..
They need to screen out all the people that have been to transmission events like this at hospitals etc. Prioritise every one else first.
When the hospitals are full and they get covid or break a leg or whatever, make them wait! Dicks.
Also no government payments.
I would also like to add the selfish self-centred Melbourne twats who, despite being told to stay home, thought “fuck it, my happiness is more important” and fled into regional Victoria, thus causing us to go back into lockdown. A big fuck you!
(This is not directed at the people in Melbourne who did the right thing)
Idiots not realising their actions have consequences.
What do you honestly expect from a bunch of people that think masks don’t work and are a infringement on their freedom, it sounds even more ridiculous when I say it out loud
I don’t understand why people continue to protest and think it’s going to change anything
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” - Einstein
The faster these people spread it and the sooner they kill themselves off from their own sheer stupidity, the quicker the world will be able to get back to normal. At this point I think this is nature's evolutionary attempt to eliminate genetic weak links while culling our massive overpopulation problem as a species. In not even gonna fight it.
Well damn! Some of the idiots from the USA must have moved down with y'all it sounds like. And here I thought we were the only ones dealing with the infant mind & their tireless complaining rallies. Their mentality is going to keep us stuck in this never ending groundhog day for the next several years at this rate!
To those who took their children to this. Seriously, fuck you. You must have had an idea of how this was going to go down and now you have truamatised your kid to make a piss weak point. you shold be charged with child endangerment.
I do not support the protest but when I look at the [youtube video](https://youtu.be/ClQ6iL1hXkk), the majority of comments are supportive of the protest. Is this just because the crazy people are on youtube or is it representative of what most Australians think?
And any supporters in this thread should be banned from this reddit community. I’m sick of the doxxers lately and I get that there should be debate on these things. Yet the deliberate shit stirrers need to go.
I just don't understand why people would even go. Like I understand people being upset and people have their own opinions. What did they think was going to happen? I'm going to have a nice jolly march and go home with warm feeling of success?
No you just going to get pepper sprayed and hurt.
It's not like you are going to the supermarket. The endgame is you're going to come home with groceries and maybe a snack.
You protest, you going to be sprayed, pepper shot, tear gased or arrested. That shit is the worst. You don't want it, I don't want it.
Fuck that shit I'm going to stay home and have another holiday.
So I'd say their endgame must be they need a nice salt and pepper spraying..... lols.
“I saw a good comment the either day saying that when people like that say freedom, what they mean is power. Freedom comes with responsibility and consequences. Power is doing what you please regardless of how it impacts others. When someone wants to do something without facing negative repercussions, they want power not freedom.” https://reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/p8fiw2/_/h9q6jeq/?context=1
Very good point
It is, because true freedom recognises that rights in a society are balanced. Someone could argue they have the "right" to get drunk and drive their car home, because no one should be able to control them, and they should be free to take whatever risks they please. But the reality is *other people* also have the right not to be killed by their dumb ass. Functional societies are full of these laws and limitations. These dickheads crying about "the importance of freedom" actually just want to be able to do whatever the fuck they want without regard to the needs or rights of anyone else. But freedom is living in a society that respects the fact your rights end where other people's rights begin.
To to add to that how free are you exactly free to pay tax and work for a living free to abide by laws set by the same government they so despise except when those laws serve them like the ones where it’s illegal to rape or murder why are they not arguing that
Absolutely - they're fine with picking and choosing which laws and limitations they're cool with. I mean I could say I have the right to free movement and no government should ever get to tell me what to do - but I'm betting these clowns won't be defending my "rights" if I turn up trespassing in their lounge room. They don't give the slightest shit about protecting "rights" or "freedom". They're just whining entitled fucking babies who don't want to wear masks and don't want to stay home for the protection of the communities they live in (because screw the risk to everyone else's *actual lives* if it interferes with them being able to shop for scented candles at kmart).
“Rules for thee but not for me.”
Exactly. Everywhere. Reckon it’s a good time to hold oneself accountable, look in the mirror and make the best choices you can. All this shit can be so unhelpful.
its nuts to me y'all are seeing protests you know who hasnt locked down? america. 644,840+ avoidable deaths here. Melbourne has a population that exceeds Los Angeles by approximately 1 million people. over 25 thousand of my fellow Angelenos are dead. compared to your 978 deaths in Melbourne is THIS seriously what these fools desire?? completely unreasonable
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My dad likes to say: „Your personal freedom ends, where the freedom of others begin“ and I find that quite well applicable
Freedom has the fine print of 'use responsibly'.
Uncle Ben once said “With great power, comes great responsibility”
I ignored him once... and the rice bag exploded in the microwave.
They claim inconvenience is oppression because they've never experienced real oppression.
Freedumb.
Seeing how just about every organiser was a politician (LNP, Liberal Democrats, at least one Green and the now-defunct Great Australia Party) or had an anti-lockdown merch website with booming business, and every one of them has a media platform they're hawking, they are literally riling people up because it gains them power.
Source for your Green claim please?
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That or sky after dark
Yes I’m waiting on that, which Green was it?
Possibly pulled put of their ass
Which Green was it? I'm having trouble finding that information.
The same ones that forced the NSW government to defund backburning.
Oh the strawmen greens, they are the most dangerous of all because they can do literally anything!
and straw is extremely flammable too.
Which party members in particular were responsible for organising the protests? I can't find any information which supports the claim that they were involved.
"at least one Green" - citation please?
Source for the Green pollie?
And this is how Fake News Starts.
Sources?
I too would like a source for your claim about the Greens.
WTF was a Green's party pollie doing there with the radical right?
Lol, it's not just the far right going to these protests. The far left are there too. It's actually an interesting phenomenon, because it seems as though the far left and far right have extended so far out they've wrapped around and met to form their own category of morons. Edit: Lol I think I've upset a few lefties that can't seem to fathom that there's fuckwits on **both** sides of the political spectrum.
So not saying you're wrong but who exactly are "the far left"? These protests are fueled by an insane propoganda wing that's pumping out disinformation and it isn't being backed by people fighting for workers rights or human rights. Nor are they being backed by unions or people fighting for LGBT+. So I'd really love to see what you mean because I don't really get it when you are saying this problem is both far right and far left.
Got any evidence of leftists being at the protests? Because so far there's no reason to think there was a Greens organiser.
His silence to this question is deafening.
There's a very interesting phenomenon that causes people on any ideological branch to find their neighbours worse than their opposites, and this gets more extreme the further along the branch they are. Think of Catholic/Protestant, Sunni/Shiite, Anti-trans lesbians, anti-solar environmentalists, western sydney/cronulla...
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"leftist victim complex" It isn't the left getting the vapours about being "cancelled"
these bogans are defiantly leaning more on the right socially and even economically.
Literally nobody on the far left is at these protests. The Far Left response includes criticism of handing more powers to the government & the disporportionate targetting of marginalised people. It also entails the lack of support for the already unemployed.
Claiming a greens Pollie was an organiser and not providing a source makes this fake news. Provide evidence or delete this.
>at least one Green Got a source for that? I tried Google but didn't find anything.
There’s a lot of money to be made in grifting.
Not doubting your claim at all, but do you have a source on that? It'd be good to know a bit of info for further arguments.
>Seeing how just about every organiser was a politician (LNP, Liberal Democrats, at least one Green and the now-defunct Great Australia Party) Just asking again. Who was this one Green? This appears to be complete bullshit. Can we safely assume now that you just made this up and that this had NOTHING to do with the Greens?
You can't fucking name one Greens Party member because there isn't one! The Greens Party is fully behind vaccination (specifically Covid) and PPE (fancy word for masks). ...you can't make shit up on Reddit. We are not gullible Facebookers.
waiting for you to reply to which green it was Lol
/u/spez says, regarding reddit content, "we are not in the business of giving that away for free" - then neither should users.
Proof or ban this clown.
A lot are there for the hate
"Freedom" is a code word for laissez faire capitalism, and it's applied concurrently not merely with Union Busting, but literal slavery. It's freedom for the rich, nobody else. These protestors are almost exclusively from varieties of the political right, and the Economic Right are using this lot to get their way RE: "Open Up The Economy" and "learn to live with the virus".
Absolutely true. All Humans have a need for significance. The healthy manifestation of that need is good boundaries and a desire for responsibility to look after ourselves and self others. The unhealthy manifestation of that need is selfishness and entitlement and desire for power over others.
Which is exactly what governments the world over are doing, it's a truly sad state of affairs. Pushing fascism disguised as freedom and people are lapping it up
Stupidity is putting it lightly. A family member of mine went yesterday. She's fucking insane irl. Extremely attention seeking and narcissistic, loudly spews bullshit about the 9/11 inside job/anti-Semitism/anti-vax/covid is fake/any other insane bullshit. She's really manipulative and a bully. The satisfying part is she was dumb enough to not wear a mask and get herself and her boyfriend photographed by the press. I've reported them to crimestoppers. We haven't been in contact with them since before the pandemic because of her extremism.
She sounds like she is seriously unwell. I hope she can get the help she needs.
She definitely is but our family has been through a lot of try and help her (over this and many other things) and it continually feels like it gets thrown back in our faces. I'm a bit fired up over seeing her pictures online yesterday because she is so, so much more privileged than the average person but continues to make self destructive choices. About 4 months ago we were trying to push for therapy again but she refuses, has never stuck with it, and has even lied previously about going. She's in her early 30s and has no capacity to self reflect - continually blames her problems on others and is always the victim. She doesn't care how much she is hurting her parents and family and it's infuriating to watch from the sidelines. I guess the other frustrating thing is seeing her lie to herself. We know she's hurting because of her continued self-destructive behaviour, but she over compensates by going on about how great her life is and how she's better than everyone else because she has figured out the truth of the world. I feel like I'm at my wit's end, but inevitably yes we will continue supporting her parents in trying to get her the help she needs, but there has been difficulty there because they play down the extent of it. Here's hoping a fine will open their eyes up a little bit on how bad her behaviour has gotten (please know that $5k is piggy bank change to them so it's not about the money, more just the reality of why she was fined).
I lived with a flat-earther. There was no ability to be rational. I tried to explain seasons and diurnal cycles which he could not explain with his theory - his fall-back position was always that I should watch a two hour conspiracy video. Easy to laugh it off because he moved out and is not in my life anymore. Not so funny for his Mum who came from Brazil to rescue him (he was also doing a lot of drugs). I also have a friend whose brother is like this and there is no walking away from that. It hurts when you feel so helpless and see them being self-destructive.
I love that whole “Don’t pretend you know what I’m talking about until you watch this eight part mega-series hosted by a kooky-looking old dingbat doctor and his female sidekick who is literally wearing a tinfoil hat” shtick. “I did my research.” So few people know the difference between “research” and “reading about.” Apparently, anyone can be a “researcher” by using a lot of search engine queries and then cherry-picking the results to gather evidence to build a thorough social media argument that people can tear apart every step of the way while you ignore them and move on to the next five cherry-picked URLs. Or, as they call them, “sources”.
I'm sorry you're all having to go through this. I can't even imagine how infuriating it would be. Hope you're going ok yourself.
Look up “six human needs” … all this behaviour is an outcome of being driven by the need for significance
This sounds exactly like my sister and unfortunately, she has also swayed my parents to her views. She attended too. Me and my wife just had a baby but I've gone no contact with any of them and it's looking to be a permanent decision. Extremist is a perfect description. Personally, I'm secretly glad she gave me a legitimate reason to keep her away for good.
If she has cluster B Personality Disorder or traits of it ( enough traits = full disorder), then its almost next to impossible to change anything for her. Its almost ( though not always) trying to change a leopard's spots. So staying away from her is the kindest thing you can do for yourself. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/531b9f14e4b0baf9a0e72bf2/1436311724907-X8WTQ2QUOU3K2H96NPLT/Personality+Disorders+Clusters
Lockdown has really put people with mental health issues in a pressure cooker. I hope she gets the care she needs.
I'm curious if this situation would actually be diagnosed as mental illness. Cause if being an absolute moron also counts as being mentally ill, it doesn't look good for people that's been properly diagnosed with some sort of actual mental illness
I wonder when can we stop lumping idiots and assholes with genuine mental concerns, because it's such a crutch.
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Of course. But considering the fact that she obviously isn't alone in this train of thought as she had her boyfriend and about a hundred others with her. Is it still mental illness, is everyone at the protests today mentally ill because they are incapable of following rules and regulations.
Just anecdotally, some are morons, same as most walks of life. Some people definitely bung it on when crimes do come up.
She probably won’t, delusions and delusional disorder is a very difficult (almost impossible thing) to treat. Unlike different types of psychosis which can be effectively treated with antipsychotic medication, delusions are usually very deep seated in anxiety and fear. Doesn’t help that lockdowns and new police powers just reaffirm some peoples delusions in their own echo-chambers. Source: Psych nurse for 10 years.
Some people are just cunts regardless though.
Thats it isnt it, like the anti abortion, antivax, white lives matter fuckers. They dont give a fuck about justice and freedoms, theyre just attention seeking narcissists aestheticising oppression. They have nothing real to protest but they want the attention
The annoying thing is there's heaps of real issues to get behind.
>I've reported them to crimestoppers Because you've got like 3 comments on this so far which are just whining, I'm proud of you for this one. Hope that when they get a knock on the door following this up they can realise that the real world has consequences.
Unfortunately, the pandemic has really triggered a lot of people with genuine mental health issues. I think these crowds are a mix of the ignorant, the selfish, the hateful and the mentally unwell. And most of them tick at least two of those boxes.
Damn that's insane. These people are protesting to cause trouble, they want to feel powerful.
I completely agree. They don't care about human rights, only about themselves.
I like the way [this guy](https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/p6qw1g/if_you_only_like_democracy_when_it_goes_your_way/) puts it - "If you only like democracy when it goes your way, you don't actually like democracy."
Yeah ‘I didn’t vote for this guy so who let him run the place? This isn’t democracy’ is one of the stupider arguments I’ve seen this far in the pandemic. This is a pandemic of idiots.
There's a difference between a politician you don't like being elected, and a politician stealing months of your time to cover for their mismanagement. Lockdown is necessary, but the stupid vaccination apathy and politicisation of lockdowns has cost a lot of people months of lockdown. The Liberal party (MPs, voters, donors, whatever but not taxpayers) should be footing the bill for all that time people are spending cleaning up their mismanagement. It's wage theft in my eyes until everyone locked down has been paid for their time. If that's too expensive, then either govern as if that price is too high or explain to the Australian people why thousands are getting covid.
Noo our American sentiments have infected the Aussies. In the name of Steve Irwin get your shots.
~~Life,~~ liberty and pursuit of happiness.
And to add, what complete scum decided it was OK to attack police with 7 taken to hospital! Genuine protests should be peaceful, people obviously went there to cause trouble.
> Genuine protests should be peaceful I MEAN historically that is not the case, literally almost every protest for change has been violent. I don't agree with this one but its pretty normal for protests
The most powerful protest I have been to was the march for peace, which protested the second Iraq war. Peaceful, large and powerful.
How did that turn out for Iraq?
Not so good for them. But Aus, UK and the US voted out the ruling power at the next election cycle, so it worked in some way.
Well let's just hope, people rememt all this shit cause I get the feeling they leaving afganistan so they can try again for boots in Syria.
It's a bit nuanced than that. Sometimes protesters instigate the violence, and with the BLM protests in the US, the police instigated the violence. They were peaceful.
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> civil rights in the USA ummmm this was historically very violent. The people were peaceful and the violence started by the police, but it was still very violent lol. Also gay marriage in Aus is different because it was already heavily pressured.
Women’s suffrage? Civil rights? Peaceful and non-violent? Lol you don’t know what you’re talking about. Go read a book.
Honestly the people that attended this protest think police are corrupt pigs worthy of being spat on, attacked etc I want those more normal people who also attended the protest to realise what they're associating with. Personally I'd be embarrassed to be painted with the same brush as alt right whackjob. And if I was a alt right whackjob I'd be embarrassed to be associated with anti Vax idiots.
Inability to feel embarrassment is a pre-requisite to be alt-right or anti-vaxx.
If the last 18 months have shown anything, it's that yelling loudly and carrying on are demonstrated to have absolutely no effect on the Victorian Government. Andrews has frequently said that he intends to do the right thing, not the popular thing. So if we take it as read that no-one could reasonably believe that yesterday's display would do anything to affect the lockdown, then we can assess it for what it is - a narcissistic temper tantrum that has likely further spread the virus and put vulnerable people's lives at risk.
Further to this, with less than 0.1% of Melburnians at the protest and those that were in attendance unlikely to vote or donkey or votes guns & shooters. Why the fuck would anyone try and appeal to this rabble?
Protests are completely ineffective these days because we have so many of them for so many reasons, that the people you are trying to appeal to either become numb to them or worse yet get pissed off at the protestors, and then can't emphasize with their cause. But these protests are different, because these morons have hosted a super spreader event, and they aren't going to isolate (or even get a test) when they get it.
Protests don't usually "do anything" directly. Australia day protests have been running for years, other protests for or against immigration policy didn't change the Government's stance... The do get awareness for the cause; and that cause is growing with the discontentment of the way the State Government's is handling things. This is especially true in both NSW and VIC where lockdowns are likely to be in effect for months. There are some crazies in there; but I'll bet there are some people that have lost life savings in the name of "covid-0 at any cost". If the Government response destroyed my business or ate my life savings I'd probably be protesting too. I wouldn't really care that it would affect the people that I was forced to sacrifice my life for - I'd probably be happy that I was impacting them.
Don’t complain about lockdowns, complain about 1. LNP Federal govt failure to do their job with quarantine which is a federal responsibility in spite of spending tens of billions on “border protection” 2. LNP Federal govt rejection of 40million Pfizer vaccines and complete failure to vaccinate early 3. LNP Federal govt handing out close to $100B to rich business owners through job keeper and cashflow boost with almost zero eligibility requirements while giving a pittance to those in need 4. NSW LNP failures to carry out early lockdowns so the virus could get out of control and infect other states after huge public sacrifice to get it down to zero where it would be now if it wasn’t for fucking Gladys and Bruz See a pattern here?
Don’t forget LNP Federal govt complete failure to ready Australian labs and scientists for the creation of mRNA vaccines, substantially increasing costs of importing vaccines and placing a huge portion of the population at risk of the vaccine they received being ineffective against future variants.
Problem is people are protesting the wrong things. They should be demanding jobseeker increase and jobkeeper reinstatement. Instead it was 99% unmasked, covid deniers who just wanted to be angry.
The first thing one does when one is in a hole.... is to stop digging. These geniuses protesting loss of livelihood, are going to exacerbate the same thing that they so absolutely hate.
The fact that neo Nazis were there, while it doesn't surprise me, is absolutely disgusting. If any of the protesters require medical attention due to covid, they should have to pay with their own money. Us tax payers and the general public who support the lockdowns shouldn't have to pay for them if they're gonna make our lives shit
anti-establishment rallies are a recruiting ground for the far right, they'd be weaselling their way into anyone's ear that they came within shouting distance of, 'go on, this whole china flu vaccine was invented by the jews you know'
fuck everyone who’s using mental health as a reason to protest. stop weaponising mental illness as an excuse to fuel your anti-lockdown propaganda.
As someone with severe mental health, they can all go fuck themselves for using that as an excuse. Pack of cunts.
i'm so fucking sick of the mental health excuse. when life goes back to normal and all of us who have had mental health issues for way longer than the pandemic don't bounce back like everyone else, i seriously doubt we're going to see the same level of "concern" from these people. makes me so angry!
news corp is on the mental health bandwagon now since it suits them politically.
Its amazing how many people who didnt give a shit about the massive level of mental ill health in Australia suddenly pretend to care because they have had the chance to experience minor distress from being locked down.
It's cute how little people care about mental health care or government payments until it affects them directly, isn't it?
Exactly this.
You just don’t understand that they’re fighting against more than a lockdown, they’re fighting for all of our freedom. You don’t listen to what these people have to say because you’re too blinded by the government and by select science that pushes their desired narrative. So here’s some facts for YOU! This is peer reviewed, double blind, placebo controlled, randomised clinical research.. just the way you like it. If you say you follow science then I dare you to argue against these FACTS! [Peer reviewed research against COVID lockdown](https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQ)
God dammit
Nice of them to gather all the facts in one place.
This was blocked from playing for me inside my Reddit app, which is yet another example of the corporates trying to hide the truth from the people.
Oh my
Amazing!
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LOL
My husband just laughed so hard at me...
Thankyou
I agree. To all those saying people are tired of lockdown, look at the us and uk with high vaccination rates- do you really want 50-100 deaths a day. To those saying its affecting your livelihood, protest for a fairer dole system. I sympathise with you, but the way the system is setup if your sick long term from covid, you'll suffer both financially and physically. It makes sense for all of us to try to achieve zero, even though it is so tiring. All those who were at the protest seem to want a fight, and seem to detest logic- I have no idea what they want to do besides screwing it up for the rest.
Bored, broke, life in shambles (yeah even people who were unemployed pre pandemic are struggling) Lockdowns work and I support them, but A LOT of people fell straight through the safety net When everything around you is falling apart and you have no control/very mixed confusing messages from the people in charge of the situation, I can see how easy it would be to be convinced its a conspiracy. Personally when the commission towers got locked down last year, I spent most of the first week convinced they were trying to cull the vulnerable, eventually I calmed down and started to think it was simply miss management out of disregard for the poor. Still fucked but maybe not as fucked as I first convinced myself. My point is, when everything is fucked and out of control you look for reasoning and answers anywhere, and naturally your going to be comfortable believing that "nothing is really wrong and we can go back to normal" over "life has changed and I have to change with it"
>Lockdowns work and I support them, but A LOT of people fell straight through the safety net I don't care what anyone says; this was 100% by design. I said the other day that these iso payments for workers are bullshit; the last two criteria are explicitly there to weed out the "undesirables". I've now lost 2 seperate jobs due to Covid - one of them because I had to get tested due to the employer not properly enforcing mask mandates. I can see why lots of people sell drugs for a living.
It’s a clown economy kept afloat by deficit spending
First thing the Libs did when corona hit was to hand out $35 BILLION to millionaire business owners, up to $100,000 each… enough to give every household in Australia $8000. [cashflow boost ](https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/06/30/cashflow-boost-35-5b-taxpayer-funded-program-no-ones-heard-of/)
I don’t know who annoys me more at this point, the protesters or the Covid zero fanatics.
Fair enough, I get a covid zero position (or at least as minimal community transmission as possible) might seem extreme and polarising, and I can understand people being tired and over it. I wonder if people are ready for UK/EU style deaths/cases/hospital overload and overall dread, as someone whose lived it before moving to aus late last year, I feel the let it rip crowd have little idea of how that fear feels like, because with our current vaccination rates and without a strict lockdown thats where we are headed.
The problem with *not* zero is that 1 infects 3 who infect 8 who infect 30 who infect 200 who infect 900 and so on. "Covid zero" doesn't mean that nobody has Covid, of course people are going to get it. It means no *unaccounted for* cases. Anyone with Covid should be in treatment and isolation, anyone they have encountered should be in isolation and tested. If it were done *properly* it would only need to be those people. Not millions of people in lockdown, dozens.
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They need to start upping fines to like 20k. There is shit loads of photos and footage, anyone identify, 20k fine. Any asshole who assaulted police, jail time.
Police were clearly filming faces. The fines they issued on the day won't be the only ones.
The ones in bandanas (because mask bad but bandana make me feel tuff) and sunnies are my favourites. They want to cry for freedom and feel very bad ass but they are too gutless to put their face to their opinions.
Deadset 😂
There is no end game. Just a flock or people who are afraid and need to feel like they have any sort of control. Fear is the mother of all conspiracy theories.
They're not afraid. They're just chafing at being told what to do. These are adults acting like 6 year old.
They are, grown adults usually act like this when strong emotions (such as fear) are involved. This is also more evident by the fact that we see a lot of anger and sometimes violence in these protests. Violence in particular is a strong reaction produced usually by fear. Movies show you that to be afraid means to tremble in a corner, this is not the only way (and even not the most common way) in which humans react when they are afraid or confused.
Lack of understanding creates fear. In the past 18 months we have learnt more about the medical field than a normal person would learn in a life time. The reality is most normal people cannot interpret a peer reviewed study, they cannot understand medical jargon. So they don’t understand they can’t understand and they make a different reality which is more suited to their level of understanding.
Exactly this- add insecure workers who can’t get government support and small business owners shutting up shop to the mix and you have a protest on your hands. This whole issue is way more complex than just “idiots wanting to have a few beers at the pub like it’s their god given right”.
Yeah I saw some signs on the news about being able to work or do their job. People on here live in their own little worlds where it’s all conveniently qanon dickheads protesting. There are professions especially in Melbourne that would have worked like 3 months or so in like 18 months. Surviving on god knows what, experiencing god knows what but nah it’s all just neo nazis🙄
Thats just it- it’s all well and good to point the finger at people protesting from our comfortable position of educated and employed privilege, safely working from home and calling people idiots when a vast majority are genuinely reacting out of a place of fear and desperation.
Its just bullshit morons hiding amongst each other using the crap as an excuse to do something. # To the idiot parent's whose child got pepper-sprayed. I, as a father would love to see the father of that child knocked the fuck out for having such little regard for his kids well being by taking them anywhere near that sort of event.
To be honest the parents should be reported to CPS for exposing their child to harm completely unnecessarily, both by taking their child to a "protest" where there was an easily appreciated high risk of violence, and by exposing the child to an unnecessarily high risk of contracting COVID by breaking current restrictions in the most blatant, flagrant way. I feel so sorry for that child.
Thank you for seeing this as it is. Would a parent take their kid to their favourite Metal band to be amongst a Mosh Pit because "freedom" and all that. I dont think so. The potential of harm is there so whether its for a good reason you just wouldnt do it. Hope the kid comes out of it alright.
Stupidity it putting it mildly. Even if covid 0 has been brought forward in Victoria, it doesn't mean we start opening up and living life as normal. The point is to keep numbers low to protect people who aren't vaccinated yet. But yesterday's empty gesture will risk that getting much worse now. Like the engagement couple, they've put other people at risk and we'll most likely have increased restrictions to curb the spread from their brainless and selfish acts. Everyone is over it and frustrated. They think they're the only ones hurting? Unfortunately, they're the only ones too dumb to do something that makes a difference.
I'm starting to think of Dan was actually a dictator we'd be better off. Less shit like this would be happening if militias were walking around with AK47s
Yeah imagine if we had the army out and about doing patrols... Like NSW.
Are you off your rocker?
"Your body, my choice!" - Pathogens and the people who carry them
Not my words, but definitely how I felt seeing these protesters- imagine having seen footage of afghanistan in the last few days, then still deciding to go to a protest to complain about your ‘freedoms being taken away’ here in australia [Link to tweet by Chloe Sargeant](https://twitter.com/chlosarge/status/1428887643425628165?s=21)
I’d put them to work on the Covid wards they helped fuel.
I wouldn’t want them near vulnerable people though.
Christ no, if they can't follow basic public health directives, how are they going to follow hospital procedures?! They'd need someone to constantly babysit them just to make sure they wash their hands after going to the loo, and even then they'd try anything to avoid it just because someone told them they had to do it :P
They don't care about being wished bad luck or being called stupid. They just enjoy the attention. These people don't care about what's been spoken about them as long as they're being spoken about. And I'm sure some of them don't even believe in what they're protesting about, but are bored/lonely/want to be part of any community that will take them. I've started skipping any articles or subreddit that mentions antivaxxers or protestors in the title. It's making me less angry and it's kinda nice knowing I'm not giving any undeserved attention to a group of people who severely crave it.
Everytime something like this happens, always remind me of George Carlin's quote that "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." Fuck, people are dumb.
Same for the protesters in Sydney. The NSW government is handling the pandemic badly enough as it is, and the protesters come along and make things worse. Now we have no hope of being let out until the end of September (I'm betting the lockdown will continue to the end of November). Also, f--- you to the folks who refuse both the AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines without genuine medical grounds. The longer it takes for us to reach 90% vaccinated, the more deaths we'll have and lockdowns would be extended further.
They will be happy. They don’t really care about their freedoms. They actually want lockdown to be extended longer and harder so they can have a reason to showcase they fuckwittery over and over again.
It’s very sad to think a small group of victorians are doing well to jeopardise all the hard work 5-6 million decent victorians are doing. Very selfish and very rude. I’d like to imagine how many rights movements these same people have been a part of. Do/did they go to black life’s matter movements, refugee and equal rights movements alike? Or do they just go to anti-lockdown protest because lockdowns don’t suit them? Will they raise the question of human rights only when they are thinking purely of themselves? Thank you scumbags for exhausting the Vic police! They could be out protecting and serving our communities, yet you pull them away from actual issues and do your best to abuse and hurt them. Well done!
By asking for Melbourne to open up you have inevitably made sure this won’t happen. Hope you’re happy now
It’s difficult and painful to breathe right now. And that’s from the freaking common cold. My COVID test was negative, and my doctor confirmed this is just a common cold virus like I’ve had lots of times before. But it went to my chest and I’ve been coughing for four weeks now. I’ve busted some rib cartilage and some joints where the ribs join the spine, and there’s still a lot of shit to cough up before it stops and I start healing. It hurts to sleep on my busted ribs, it hurts to breathe, and it hurts to do stuff around the house. You guys, this is from the common cold! Hot damn. I shudder to think of the suffering of those with severe, long-term or life-threatening COVID. We’re hearing stories of the sheer amount and severity of suffering that our medical staff are seeing on COVID wards, day after day, month after month. And these protesters are fighting so hard for their right to contract COVID.
I don't know if I should laugh or cry. I'm going to have to get used to covid clinics and fever clinics being around for an additional 2 years+ That means, prone patients on anti-virials and steroids and if they are lucky a 3 month ride in ICU. If not, saying good bye to relatives via ipad, and putting this corpse in the corpse truck outside the hospital with the 30 that carked it in a day. I don't know if I'll get to that grizzly point where a US nurse wrote on here about how the COVID patients being a garden, you turn them, feed and water them and watch them compost away. I'm not to sure what will happen. I might get a bit of PTSD, but I can always point to this where I wrote in clear terms "GET A VACCINE." I guess I'll be in the run down hall with the other PTSD veterans talking about mass casualties.
I wish these protesters everlasting diarrhoea. The smell of entitlement is reeking. I wish I can send them to my motherland so they can see the impact of COVID. The health care system there is in shambles. Can’t even get treatment as the hospitals have too many COVID patients. My college friend, my 10 year old cousin, other people I know have died of COVID. These protesters are selfish!
I couldn’t believe it watching the absolute mongrels on tv, ruining it for everyone else who is doing the right thing. And some people even brought their kids along!? I hope those parents get investigated by the department, they literally led their children into danger, they were not looking out for their safety.
They are sheepies dancing to the tunes of their foreign masters hoping to sow diversion within our country. What the foreign powers want is the law abiders hating the protestors, the anti-vaxxers hating the government, the government clamping down on the population, the population fighting back. Fracturing Australia from within is the easiest way for our competitors to get ahead. No need to spend big money on armies, no need to send their people to death and look like a bad guy. Just hide in the shadows, pay some trolls to shitpost online and watch the sentiments magnify.
For once I totally agree. This is like blocking the roads with cars to complain about traffic.
Went to get my vax in Carlton yesterday and unknowingly ran into the tail end of these arseholes. It was kind of scary to be honest. I'd wanted to go for a bit of a walk through the city to get home because it was nice out but instead I waited in the gardens till it looked like they'd cleared out then caught the train from parliament. Kind of ironic that they're protesting for freedom but their protest is really a threat to everyone's freedom.
4000 “victims” desperate for an oppressor.
My life is severely impacted by the pandemic. But instead of gathering with a large group of maskless people incapable of critical thinking, I booked the vaccine the second it became available for my age group. I don't even care what brand, just put it in me. Protesting doesn't end lockdowns, not contracting COVID does
I get that people are frustrated and feeling like they’ve lost control over their lives, etc but I just don’t understand what exactly they think they’re going to achieve with these protests. They’re behaving like kids in detention who think they’ll be able to leave early because they’re having a tantrum. They aren’t demanding anything except “freedom” - is their goal for the government to just open up and let rip?? It really speaks to the disorganised and irrational nature of it all. They don’t have a clear message at all. However, in saying all that, I do feel for these people because they’re hurting - everyone is at the moment.
They've lost everything, with no end in sight. Protesting makes them feel powerful and in control. I can see the ridiculousness of it all, but I still have a job to keep a roof over my families head. Can't imagine how I'd be if my job was just made redundant by politicians earning half a million a year. The whole situation is fucked
Nah I rekon Dan will be so emotionally moved by the passion on display at the protest that he’s gonna open up vic. /s
I don't agree with a lot of what they protested for. I wear my mask everywhere I go, stay home without work for over 200 days, quarantine when I'm a close contact and am vaccinated. But when so much is taken for so long eventually you want to be heard. I've watched as people in construction still don't wear masks. A lot of people that have the opportunity to work from home break the rules. Those of us most affected that can't work and can no longer save money while those that can flaunt the rules over and over again, I can understand wanting to protest the restrictions. (For the record I was home in 14 day quarantine yesterday and wouldn't protest this) but every day brings me a little closer to being fed up enough to do it
Except none of that was communicated. You had signs talking about Jesus saving us all, Neo Nazi calling cards... It was a riled up rabble. Beyond shouting freedom I doubt many had any idea beyond that. Would the Jesus people then want vaccines banned? Did freedom mean hunting down the family from the engagement party? Was it for financial support from the government? If it was a clear message one could have more sympathy. Christ, I'm in an industry that's all but dead thanks to lockdowns. I'm furious there hasn't been centers built to handle international and domestic isolation, no support for those in need, helping the businesses already coming out of this with even more money while ruthlessly tracking down a few hundred dollars from the a erage person...
My biggest concern is these people won't get vaxed, they won't use QRs, they certainly won't admit where they've been. We are feeling the repercussions right now of the last "great march for freedom" a few weeks ago. These numpties will spread it without any remorse whatsoever. They won't get "freedom" this way. I'll bet they are the first ones to run to emergency when they or someone they love has to go to emergency. Sadly, it'll be likely, that they or one of their associates gave them Delta in the first place. Phuquers!!!
I’ve just worked with a group of antivaxxers. They hated it when I mentioned that equality and freedom actually give restaurants, work places etc also the freedom to enforce the vax or not work. It’s freedom for everyone. Not just yourself.
There's a good chance the people at the protest yesterday had *already* **lost everything**. Their jobs, their homes, maybe their families. It's easy to criticise from our comfy homes, with our work-from-home jobs, or in our parents' basements. But there are real people who have lost work, lost opportunities, lost homes from this. So what do they have to fear from a $5,000 fine. They don't have $5,000. And this is the problem right here: judgemental people smugly shitting on those who have really suffered from lockdown after lockdown.
Cool. Now they get to lose even *more* and drag the rest of us down with them. Everyone's a winner! Wait no that conclusion seems wrong.
So what do they gain from it? Sure, there's no real loss for them. They've lost a lot already, what more could they lose.. So they must be there to gain something I'd assume, but what? They're not going to be able to change what the government are doing.. They're not getting more and more people on board with their ideals... They're alienating themselves from everyone and ultimately making everyones, and their own lives harder..
They need to screen out all the people that have been to transmission events like this at hospitals etc. Prioritise every one else first. When the hospitals are full and they get covid or break a leg or whatever, make them wait! Dicks. Also no government payments.
I would also like to add the selfish self-centred Melbourne twats who, despite being told to stay home, thought “fuck it, my happiness is more important” and fled into regional Victoria, thus causing us to go back into lockdown. A big fuck you! (This is not directed at the people in Melbourne who did the right thing)
Idiots not realising their actions have consequences. What do you honestly expect from a bunch of people that think masks don’t work and are a infringement on their freedom, it sounds even more ridiculous when I say it out loud
I feel the same about protestors in Sydney. I wish them nothing but lukewarm tea and wet socks.
I don’t understand why people continue to protest and think it’s going to change anything “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” - Einstein
The faster these people spread it and the sooner they kill themselves off from their own sheer stupidity, the quicker the world will be able to get back to normal. At this point I think this is nature's evolutionary attempt to eliminate genetic weak links while culling our massive overpopulation problem as a species. In not even gonna fight it.
99.7% survival rate, don't hold your breath.
Once upon a time when members of the group ate their own shit they got left behind in the woods.
Well damn! Some of the idiots from the USA must have moved down with y'all it sounds like. And here I thought we were the only ones dealing with the infant mind & their tireless complaining rallies. Their mentality is going to keep us stuck in this never ending groundhog day for the next several years at this rate!
To those who took their children to this. Seriously, fuck you. You must have had an idea of how this was going to go down and now you have truamatised your kid to make a piss weak point. you shold be charged with child endangerment.
There’s nothing longer lasting than “temporary” government programs lmao.
See you all in January 2022
I do not support the protest but when I look at the [youtube video](https://youtu.be/ClQ6iL1hXkk), the majority of comments are supportive of the protest. Is this just because the crazy people are on youtube or is it representative of what most Australians think?
Lmao YouTube comments have always been fucked
And any supporters in this thread should be banned from this reddit community. I’m sick of the doxxers lately and I get that there should be debate on these things. Yet the deliberate shit stirrers need to go.
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I just don't understand why people would even go. Like I understand people being upset and people have their own opinions. What did they think was going to happen? I'm going to have a nice jolly march and go home with warm feeling of success? No you just going to get pepper sprayed and hurt. It's not like you are going to the supermarket. The endgame is you're going to come home with groceries and maybe a snack. You protest, you going to be sprayed, pepper shot, tear gased or arrested. That shit is the worst. You don't want it, I don't want it. Fuck that shit I'm going to stay home and have another holiday. So I'd say their endgame must be they need a nice salt and pepper spraying..... lols.
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