If you think the Labour Party and their paramilitary arm, the NZ Police Force, have been pettifogging and tough here in New Zealand, take a look at the USA and Britain.

It took a few weeks but it seems that US police are rapidly catching up with their British cousins.

A mother arrested in Meridian, Idaho for letting her kid play in a park.

That follows a father being arrested and handcuffed for playing with his little girl on a deserted playground in Colorado, although at least in that case the Police, the Mayor of the city and the Governor of the State all issued apologies – and they really seemed to mean them.

Meanwhile in Oxnard, a suburb near Ventura Beach in California, it seems that there are 93 year olds who think they can manage the risks in their lives better than the authorities. Don’t they read the California data?

On the other hand, maybe they do.

In the following clip you should note that they’re not being shooed off the beach but being told not to use their beach chairs.

Yes. Really!

Maybe they could walk home and hope they don’t run into the sex offenders that a California court granted early release to the other day because of the risk of them catching coronavirus in jail

At least in that case the local sheriff showed which side he’s on by protesting the release

Meanwhile in Wisconsin A pair of police officers on a bit of a power trip show up at a woman’s home because she “violated a state order” by allowing her daughter to play at a neighbor’s house.

I chose that version in particular because the uploader put up the 1st Amendment to the US Bill Of Rights for viewers to read as well. But let’s face it…

There are several lessons we should take away from this experience.

First, governments have found the magic potion to screw civil liberties. They no longer need any threat of war, riots, insurrection or general meyhem to confine you to your home and decide what goods and services you may buy and what activities you may engage it. All they need is a virus and a ‘public health crisis.’ You can do anything you want under that cover, and if you think this is not going to be used again in the near future, you really need to wake up. Heard the term “Climate Emergency“?

Second, things like a Bill of Rights mean nothing in practice when government decides to roll.

Third, your neighbors will go along with this. If you get arrested for going to the beach they’ll shake their heads and opine that all you had to do to avoid trouble was simply do what the nice men in the uniforms told you to do.

Fourth, your neighbors will not leave you alone. You will be made to care about whatever is the panic du jour. In short, we are about to experience rule by curtain-twitching Informeller Mitarbeiters. And anyway, you’re just selfish and you need to be controlled.

Fifth, the Police will do exactly what they are told to do by the government. This really should not come as a surprise. No Police force anywhere has ever cared about civil liberties or refusing to obey higher orders. Luckily in NZ we have a far more obedient and compliant population than in the USA, so arrests and challenges to the Police have been few. And of course there will be no protests here.

So the next time you see read a history of Police states and the things they did and got away with, don’t shake your head and wonder “how on earth could that happen?” and “what were the people thinking?”, and how “that can’t happen here“.

Just think back to March and April of 2020 and you will know how it happened.