Month: February 2021


We Used to Sacrifice Lives to Preserve Our Freedom


When I was entering my teens, the Vietnam war was still being going. I assumed then who’s would embark on indefinitely which when I turned eighteen my name would enter in the lottery and I too could possibly be called up. I dreaded the candidate, though, still, I could be aware of the rationale of conscription and why dad supported it so strongly. Our society ended up being built on democratic principles that enshrined fundamental human freedoms. Those freedoms were under threat from your godless ideology of Communism (possibly even we was told) and so it was right and proper we stand together to shield our country and protect those freedoms, even though it meant countless numbers of the young men must die, perhaps including me!

Times have changed. I thank God that I didn’t have to go and fight in Vietnam, and I am now unequivocally against the practice of conscription. That’s because I don’t believe just how our wars are purchased to us – as noble causes. The ‘domino principle’ that’s used to justify the stand it Vietnam turned into vacuous. We had no enterprise being in Vietnam any further than we did in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria. I no more believe in conscription because I don’t trust the federal government. Even so, I accept the standard principle, we now have things worth dying for, understanding that we needs to be ready to pay a cost to protect our freedoms. So… what actually transpired?

I remember when lockdowns were first announced, I posted a relevant video on Facebook, expressing concern and suggesting we should think about where we draw the queue. If we accept social distancing and stay-at-home orders, what is the point where we draw a line? When we’re no more allowed to embrace our youngsters – is the fact where we draw the cloths line?

I posted that in March 2020, and received a quick call from my bishop, asking me to adopt it down. He said, “nobody is saying that individuals can’t embrace our”, just as if I had ventured in the absurd. I took the playback quality down. Within a couple of weeks of that mobile phone call I watched news footage of your man disembarking his plane in Darwin where his young son ran around embrace him. Dad stepped back together with his hands via a flight. Lockdown rules had enter in to force while he ended up being in flight and, indeed, the person was forbidden to embrace his child.

Not even after that my position as parish priest was terminated – a situation that I’d held for 30 years. At least that meant I could repost my video. Yes, I’ve been in a position to speak freely since, though without a doubt many had hoped that by denying me a pulpit, I’d remain preaching right into a void.

I have not accepted, and I usually do not accept now, that what’s driving our government’s respond to this ‘great pandemic’ is purely a problem for public health. That is largely since the statistics usually do not justify, and have not justified, how much totalitarian response we now have endured.

Yes, folk have died. Indeed, a superb friend of mine died from COVID 19. He died in Syria and never in Australia, but I don’t deny for the second which the virus is real and deadly. Even so, there are tons of things these days that can kill us, as well as governments should play some role in seeking to protect us, but it is a matter of balance.

The roads is usually deadly. People die every single day from vehicle accidents but and we don’t reduce the national speed limit to 40 km/hour, though we know full well that would reduce expenses than a thousand lives on a yearly basis!

We be aware that by allowing families to develop in-ground pools of their backyards how the number of domestic drownings will in the end increase. We still allow them to do it.

We understand that by banning the sale and use of alcohol, because US did for just a full thirteen years (between 1920 and 1933, road deaths could be reduced, domestic violence cases would decrease, and there could well be way less brawling within the streets. Even so, practically we not ban the sale of alcohol, but even during the most serious lockdowns, the sale of alcohol may be considered a necessary service!

I simply don’t believe that public health was ever the only and sufficient reason for locking down huge quantities of healthy people, and when it were, surely excess fat would have been fond of the health tariff of the lockdowns.

Lockdowns destroy small business owners and lose people their jobs, which then causes stress, poverty, depression and domestic tensions. Moreover, while lockdowns may possibly be a minor disruption for your well-to-do along with the well-healed, for the people who are around the edge, lockdowns threaten to push them above the edge.

As I mentioned, I have lost one friend to COVID. Even so, I know of seven who may have died through suicide of these lockdowns. One with the boys during my boxing club informed me one night of how he gone to see his dad but got there to get that he previously had hanged himself. How do you get over something like that?

I read that over the Melbourne lockdown, youth suicide rose by 180%. I’m surprised it’s actually not more.

I haven’t had paid employment myself since I lost my position inside church and I’ve been struggling. Lockdowns are suffocating. The universe will no longer seems like an amiable place. Stopping the anguish through self-destruction actually starts to look like a credible way forwards. It is not, naturally. It never is. Even so, I have felt the pull from your abyss, and I weep for all those for whom that pull has become just too great.

We accustomed to think that freedom was worth dying for. What happened? Well… the narrative changed.

In today’s official narrative we’re also indeed at war, even so the enemy is COVID and were all standing together to combat against it.

Yes, we’ll all ought to endure some hardship and, inevitably, some will need to sacrifice in excess of others, but once we now have achieved victory on the virus enemy, each one of these hardships will be forgotten. The economy will recover, smaller businesses will thrive again, the us government will relinquish all emergency powers, and electronic tracking and surveillance will be gone forever. Those who suicided will be resurrected. so we won’t even remember what social distancing was as we’ll all be too busy embracing each other in celebration!

Does this sound about right?

The only thing which enables the official narrative look plausible is always that the counter-narratives, many of which point to secret cabals plotting the destruction in the human race, look even less plausible. Personally, I don’t accept these narratives. Rather, I believe that what’s driving the worldwide reply to the virus are similar twin forces that drive pretty much everything else on earth – namely, the lust for power and funds, because both versions feed on fear.

Fear sells newspapers, fearful populations are simple to control, and, naturally, on this extraordinarily litigious culture, both companies and governments are terrified to become sued once they be held to blame for someone’s death simply because did not do enough to guard them!

The institutional church works exactly in this way. I remember while I was still being in seminary hearing a bishop warn us we (the church) should be careful not to ever apologise to your Indigenous population lest we be sued such as church in Canada which had been then resembling it might soon be insolvent! I believed to the bishop then, “but shouldn’t we do precisely what is right and allow the chips fall where they could?” I don’t think I received a solution.

With any large company or government or institution, the conclusion will always be in general, so the church can’t make risk of allowing website visitors to worship for your same reason we can’t grab the risk to be honest about our history.

We cannot open the way in which for a lot of litigants into the future forward and say “my grandma would nevertheless be alive if you have only closed the doors with the church”. No! We must do whatever is important – close the doors, stop people singing, talking, embracing, deny the faith if we now have to… just protect the final outcome!

There are alternate paths using this mess.

For our leaders, we want them to be guided by love rather than by fear. As the Apostle John said, “perfect love casts out all fear”. (1 John 4:18), If love is just too big much to request for, simply a basic respect for human dignity is going to do.