Jan 17, 2022 | World
Mark Dolan has made some excellent observations in his commentary, “Novak Djokovic has won the argument, game set, and match“:
Keypoints:
- Djokovic is a twofold hero…for a “brave battle he didn’t have to fight, he is a global standard-bearer for bodily autonomy.”
- large parts of Australia have effectively become a police state
- Djokovic willingly relinquished trophies as a matter of principle.
- “How ironic that Australia should be the home of a kangaroo court.”
- Zero Covid, lockdown policy has failed
- the vaccine, whilst fantastic at preventing severe illness and death, has to be a matter of personal choice.
Related: Novak Djokovic: Deported for ‘Thought Crimes’ in Austrailia
Jan 16, 2022 | Politics, World
The number one tennis player in the world, and reigning Australian Open champion, Novak Djokovic, was deported for the ‘thought-crime’ of being a symbol of those who opposed dystopian vaccine mandates.
According to the WSJ:
“Australia’s decision to cancel tennis star Novak Djokovic’s visa for a second time was driven by fear that letting him stay could foster antivaccine sentiment during a surge in Covid-19 cases, court documents show. Immigration minister Alex Hawke didn’t dispute Djokovic’s claim of a medical exemption from rules that travelers to Australia must be vaccinated against Covid-19, according to documents made public Saturday. Hawke, who canceled Djokovic’s visa on Friday, said allowing the player to stay could sway some Australians against getting vaccinated.”
[…] “Djokovic’s lawyer Nick Wood argued in a late-night court hearing on Friday that Hawke’s reasoning was flawed because he hadn’t considered that Djokovic’s deportation could have an impact on antivaccine sentiment.”
[…] “Hawke didn’t refute Djokovic’s contention that he posed a negligible health risk, documents showed. Djokovic has said his Covid-19 infection in December confers similar protection to a vaccine, the documents said.” [Australia Feared Letting Novak Djokovic Stay Would Fuel Antivaccine Sentiment, Stuart Condie, 15 Jan 2022″]
It is instructive to note that Djokovic was not finally deported for an invalid medical exemption (the Australian federal government ended up not questioning that validity in the final hearing), nor that he was a physical threat to others (as he tested negative for COVID), nor that he was unvaccinated (as he has “natural immunity” from previous COVID infections which exempts him from the vaccination).
Djokovic was deported because he may be seen as a symbol for “anti-vaccination sentiment” by the Federal government, according to Mr. Hawke, and that under section 133C(3) of the Migration Act he has the legal power to cancel the visa held by Djokovic “on health and good order grounds, on the basis that it was in the public interest to do so.”
Comments Mr. Hawke:
“Mr Djokovic is such a person of influence and status. Having regard to the matters set out above regarding Mr Djokovic’s conduct after receiving a positive COVID-19 result, his publicly stated views, as well as his unvaccinated status, I consider that his ongoing presence in Australia may encourage other people to disregard or act inconsistently with public health advice and polices in Australia.”
“In addition, I consider that Mr Djokovic’s ongoing presence in Australia may lead to an increase in anti-vaccination sentiment generated in the Australian community, potentially leading to an increase in civil unrest of the kind previously experienced in Australia with rallies and protests which may themselves be a source of community transmission.”
“These matters go to the very preservation of life and health of many members of the general community and further are crucial to the maintaining the health system in Australia, which is facing increasing strain in the current circumstances of the pandemic.”
(Note that in Australia’s population of those age 16 and over, more than 90 percent have been double vaccinated.)
***
This brings to my mind these wise words by Rav Arora:
“Honesty, nuance, and compassion are especially needed when it comes to personal health choices. We are only born with one body and we must make medically informed decisions at our own volition without governmental coercion or political pressure.”
Apparently not in the fascist state of Australia.
***
Avi Yemini has an excellent breakdown of the context surrounding his unjust deportation:
Related: Novak Djokovic: Global Standard Bearer for Body Autonomy
Nov 22, 2021 | World
Writes Stephen Wade on the disappearance of former Wimbledon and French Open Single’s champion, Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai, after publicly stating she was raped by a senior Communist Party official, “IOC call with Chinese tennis star Peng raises more questions“:
Peng is just one of a number of Chinese businesspeople, activists and ordinary people who have disappeared in recent years after criticizing party figures or in crackdowns on corruption or pro-democracy and labor rights campaigns.
While the ruling Communist Party is quick to blot out any criticism, that this time it came from an athlete made it especially sensitive. State media celebrate athletes’ victories as proof the party is making China strong — and the party is vigilant about making sure they cannot use their prominence and public appeal to erode its image.
The tennis star accused a former member of the Communist Party’s ruling Standing Committee, Zhang Gaoli, of sexual assault in a social media post that was removed quickly.
She wrote in part: “I know that to you, vice minister Zhang Gaoli, a person of high status and power, you’ve said you’re not afraid. With your intelligence, you certainly will deny it or you can even use it against me, you can dismiss it without a care. Even if I’m destroying myself, like throwing an egg against a rock, or a moth flying into a flame, I will still speak out the truth about us.”
Concerns about the censoring of her post and her subsequent disappearance from public view grew into a furor, drawing comments from tennis greats like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Naomi Osaka, Serena Williams, and Martina Navratilova.
[…]
The WTA is the first sports body to defiantly stand up to China’s financial clout — in what many see as a sharp contrast to the IOC, which says its policy is “quiet diplomacy.”
“The statements make the IOC complicit in the Chinese authority’s malicious propaganda and lack of care for basic human rights and justice,” Global Athlete, a lobby group for athletes, said in a statement.
“The IOC showed a complete disregard for allegations of sexual violence and abuse against athletes,” the statement said. “By taking a nonchalant approach to Peng Shuai’s disappearance and by refusing to mention her serious allegations of sexual assault, IOC President Thomas Bach and the IOC Athletes’ Commission demonstrate an abhorrent indifference to sexual violence and the well-being of female athletes.”
Writes the NY Times in an opinion column:
Like so many victims of China’s repressive system, Ms. Peng has done nothing other than to seek redress for a wrong. Yet the very straightforwardness of her plight inevitably leads to fundamental questions about China’s fitness to host a global sporting event that purports to follow an Olympic ideal of building a better world through sport.
Oct 17, 2021 | World
Writes Jordan McGillis over at IER:
Oil, Gas, and the South China Sea assesses China’s skyrocketing oil and gas demand and the actions the People’s Republic is now taking to firm up its supply of these essential resources. In pursuit of oil and gas, China now routinely encroaches upon the waters of other South China Sea littoral states, such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Despite international rulings against its behavior in the region, China’s expansionary pursuits have only intensified in recent years, jeopardizing the shared global interest of a free and open Indo-Pacific.
As this report explains, China’s additional use of oil and gas in 2020 exceeded its additional renewables use by 30 percent on an exajoule basis and China now consumes 50 percent more crude oil than it did just ten years ago. China’s oil consumption growth has accounted for two-thirds of new global oil consumption in recent years. China’s use of natural gas has accelerated even faster than its use of oil, multiplying tenfold since 2001.
Today, imports meet about three-quarters of China’s total oil demand and China is the world’s biggest crude importer. By 2030 four-fifths of China’s oil demand and half of its natural gas demand will be met by imports.
To mitigate this perceived problem, Xi Jinping has set China on a path towards greater resource production, both onshore and offshore. In seeking new offshore resources, China is now thrusting itself into conflict with the other countries that ring the South China Sea.
Aug 22, 2021 | World
Robert Tracinski, author of So Who Is John Galt Anyway? A Reader’s Guide to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, makes a compelling case for staying in Afghanistan.
He correctly notes that leaving Afghanistan was not a good idea badly executed, but that withdrawing from Afghanistan was a bad idea, to begin with, and will only embolden America’s adversaries.
Writes Tracinski:
Advocates of staying in Afghanistan are usually accused of acting on the “sunk cost fallacy,” of throwing good money after bad on a failing venture. But in fact maintaining the status quo, with pre-withdrawal troop levels or even elevated troop levels, would have required a commitment of a few thousand troops, mostly acting in support of our Afghan allies, and a few tens of billions of dollars a year—a rounding error in our recent multi-trillion-dollar appropriations bills. In exchange, we would have gotten what we came to Afghanistan for in the first place: assurance that it never again becomes a safe haven for terrorists.
By contrast, what happens when we leave? Afghanistan is certain to become a base for terror again, and it will now be a hundred times harder to go back in again when we need to. After all, we can no longer make any credible assurances about our ability to protect people or our willingness to follow up on our commitments. They are entitled to conclude that if they help us again, we will sell them out again and then add insult to injury by implying, as President Biden did in his Monday speech, that they are cowards who aren’t willing to fight—even after they’ve been doing the bulk of the fighting and dying for years.
[…]
As one Afghan negotiator put it, “The slogan now of every single terrorist group with the jihadist mind is ‘now that we have defeated the United States and its 42 allies in Afghanistan, we can go after them anywhere.’”
[…]
No jihadist success story can compare with the triumph of the Taliban, which faced the full might of the U.S. military only to have us slink away ignominiously. Remember that the Taliban now control more of Afghanistan than they did on September 10, 2001. How many fanatics worldwide will be inspired by this proof of the success of their cause?
Moreover, the repercussions of our abandonment of Afghanistan will be felt far beyond the Middle East. Already, Chinese propagandists are crowing that they expect an equally swift victory, with an equally ineffectual American response, when they invade Taiwan. Notice that they say “when,” not “if.” And what must the Russians be thinking right now about NATO security guarantees for the Baltic states?
This is an emboldening of our adversaries on a scale we haven’t seen since the 1970s. It is comparable to the period from 1975 to 1980—from the fall of Saigon through the Iran Hostage Crisis. It is a period of weakness that is provocative to all of our enemies. [“Real Afghanistan Withdrawal Has Never Been Tried,“August 18, 2021.]
Read the entire essay at The Bulwark.
Aug 19, 2021 | World
Writes Donna Laframboise on the moral status of the United Nations:
“Pardon me, but the UN has no right to tell any of us what we must do. UN officials aren’t elected by the public. They’re bureaucrats. Careerists who hop from one UN post to another. Even more to the point: they are a special, protected class. Their diplomatic immunity renders them untouchable – wholly unaccountable for their actions.
“UN personnel have no skin in the game. They pay no price when they mess up. The UN was supposed to help rebuild Haiti after the devastating 2010 earthquake. It failed miserably. Then it made matters worse. UN peacekeepers introduced cholera to that already-traumatized nation. As 10,000 cholera deaths followed, the UN spent years denying responsibility.
“We the people have no mechanism by which to unseat UN officials – even when their incompetence kills. We have no way of turfing them from office – even when they promote harmful public policy. One day humans may achieve fulfilling lives without the aid of fossil fuels. But that day is not yet here. Much of the world is still struggling to feed itself, to access clean drinking water and medical services. Those basics depend on affordable, reliable energy – the kind that fossil fuels provide.
[…]”It’s time we ended our absurd naivety about the UN. This is a hotbed of undemocratic, unaccountable far-left activism. Its reports are best ignored.” [“Code Red Climate Hype“]
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