EXHIBIT A:
New Zealand is a quote “free country”.
A great place where the Prime Minister is begging foreigners to please come visit.
… And we’ve got a legal system still punishing our own people for the horrific crime of driving to another city.
This man has done nothing wrong. I applaud and fully support his decision.
Same for that couple that flew to Wanaka.
All dissenters and rule-breakers to this illegitimate virus regime have my total support.
I only wish more people had the guts to flaunt these useless rules.
Bonus: I can’t skip this gem:
I’m not a fancy judge with fancy lawyer degrees or anything.
But when a judge is scolding you for driving 90 minutes to a different city, and the best rejoinder is “well actually this guy had to miss Dad’s funeral, so suck it up”, I feel safe in saying we’ve royally screwed up as a nation.
Thankfully, the vast majority abided by the rules.
Thankfully. Not the adverb I’d have chosen. Here’s some better choices Your Judgeness could have used:
Depressingly. Unfortunately. Sickeningly. Perversely.
Abiding by the rules is why this country is rapidly turning into a third-world hell-hole. If it keeps up, the only things left here will be the walking personality flaws who care more about following the rules than eating.
“But it’s the law.”
Yeah, that’s the problem.
While the legal system is barring no holds for ordinary citizens taking day-trips across town:
EXHIBIT B
Geeze dude, you think it’s the cops’ job to stop violent assaults?
What are they supposed to do when all these people are disobeying The Rules, getting in the car and driving across town?
Get your priorities straight man. What’s a violent assault when somebody in Countdown might not have their mask worn properly?
Not that it matters. Even if the coppers did make more appearances and more arrests, the good judges like Judge McDonald would have them back in the street in hours. Judge McDonald knows that driving across town is a far worse crime than violent assault.
I’m waiting for the inevitable press conference after a foreign tourist is bashed and robbed blind in Auckland CBD.
Alright, I’ve made myself mad enough at the garbage incompetents passing for leadership of this country for this morning.
How’s your day going?
Crazy stuff. Such different experiences we are having. You couldn’t get Americans to lock down for love nor money any more. When people were dying in such large numbers that they used refrigerated trucks to store corpses, when hospitals had no more beds for non-Covid patients, people pretty much accepted the need to try to stop the spread, though in the rural areas there was pushback. Monkey Pox is going to be a problem.
Day's good. Korean children thrilled at their thriving snail farm. Disinterested in breaking down the up-down happiness-over-time graph of a 4-minute Pixar film called Piper.
Imagine my surprise.
Mood: adaptable, vaguely optimistic.