Perhaps because of its incredibly brave troops in WWI and WWII, not to mention the Crocodile Dundee films, Australia shared with America a reputation for being a wild and free place.  That's not so anymore.  New South Wales, home to Sydney, the largest city in Australia, has gone so overboard with COVID hysteria that the state is under martial law, and people are not only being told not to talk to each other anymore, but also being urged to spy and report on scofflaw neighbors.  North Korea couldn't have done it better.  And all this is happening in a state with 5.3 million people solely because of 12,588 cases and 91 deaths since last February.

The Daily Mail summarized where New South Wales stood vis-à-vis COVID as of August 11:

New South Wales has recorded 345 new cases of Covid-19 and two deaths of men in their 90s - as more suburbs are slapped with harsher restrictions in Sydney's west.     

One of the men had a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine while the other had two doses of Pfizer.

Both vaccines are around 90 per cent effective at stopping death after two doses.

One died at Liverpool Hospital after catching the disease as part of the hospital's outbreak which has now killed seven.

The other died at Royal North Shore Hospital and was a resident at Wyoming Residential Aged Care Facility in Summer Hill, in Sydney's inner west.

Here, you can see it in graphic form:

We are not talking about the Black Death or Ebola here.  This is a flu.  Nevertheless, the nannies governing New South Wales have imposed martial law and are trying to isolate people so completely that rebellion is impossible.  The Western Journal explains:

And yet, parts of the state are currently in nearly total lockdown, with stay-at-home orders for the Greater Sydney area and people only able to leave their home if they "have a reasonable excuse" — including obtaining food, going to work, getting medical treatment and exercising, according to the state government website.

No visitors to your residence unless you live alone — in which case, you can have a "nominated visitor," provided they aren't a nominated visitor for someone else. Places of worship aren't open to the public. Outdoor gatherings are limited to two people. Most retail outlets are closed.

And in what was once a liberal democracy, on July 27, Gladys Berejiklian, the premier, told people to inform on each other:

Can I also stress that people should expect a greater police presence, a greater focus on compliance because we know the recurring incidents where the disease is transferring — it's in workplaces and it's within households.

And we really need people to do the right thing at all time. Do not let your guard down. If you see somebody not doing the right thing, please, report it. When any of us see anything which is not according to the health rules, or you see even in your own workplace, report it.

We can't put up with people continuing to do the wrong thing because it's setting us all back.

Berejiklian's diktats were enthusiastically echoed by New South Wales's health officer, another woman — Dr. Kerry Chant.  She's the one who told people in her state that they shouldn't even talk to each other:

Here's the reality about COVID: the Chinese engineered it to be the perfect virus for infecting humans, and the same will be true for its endless variants.  It's here to stay.  We need to focus on treatments because we cannot vanquish it with a vaccine (unlike smallpox), nor will stopping the world in its tracks make it go away.  We also must turn China into a pariah nation by isolating it completely from trade and tourism.  No nation should get a pass for doing what China did.

Australia's New South Wales, though, shows that Western societies are infinitely more invested in destroying themselves as their elected officials revel in their sudden totalitarian power than they are interested in making smart decisions to move forward and teach China never to sin again.

Image: New South Wales premier Gladys Berejiklian.  YouTube screen grab.

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