bilby
Fair dinkum thinkum
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In the run up to the G20 summit, and in the wake of the commencement of airstrikes in Syria, and of a knife attack on police in Victoria that led to the perpetrator being shot dead, the Queensland police force have officially raised the paranoia level to 'batshit insane', with the Police Commissioner warning the public that his officers "will be obviously nervous", and that "they are going to be requesting people to be very compliant in their dealings with them" - despite his admission that he has "no information about any specific threat against Queenslanders or assets in the state at the current time" (source).
So in a country where the total death toll from terrorists is zero, we now need to accept that armed police who are "obviously nervous" will be walking amongst us, in an attempt to make us feel safe. Is it just me, or is that less then entirely reassuring?
In a further attempt to persuade the Queensland public that they are competent to assess and deal with threats to our safety, police this afternoon closed three streets in the heart of Brisbane during the middle of the working day, to defend us against the clear and present threat posed by a Korean tourist's socks and undies.
None of the costs of this paranoia appear on any police targets or government balance sheet, so apparently it is just fine to disrupt a huge number of people's lives; and to increase the risk that one or more innocent citizens might be shot by police, in order to mitigate a threat so severe that the Police Commissioner himself is at pains to point out that he has no evidence it exists outside his fevered imagination.
This is literally insane. Our lives would be dramatically improved by the dismantling of almost all of the paranoid 'security theatre' that has been put in place since 2001; If the police or the government want to continue to impose this shit on us, it is about time they came up with some credible and specific threats to justify it. Right now, I reckon I am at greater risk of being struck by lightning than I am of being a victim of terrorism. Indeed, if what Commissioner Stewart said today is true, I reckon that in Brisbane, I am at more danger from the Queensland state police, than from all the world's terrorists combined.
How do we, the people, get the vested interests of security theatre to back off and let us live in peace?
So in a country where the total death toll from terrorists is zero, we now need to accept that armed police who are "obviously nervous" will be walking amongst us, in an attempt to make us feel safe. Is it just me, or is that less then entirely reassuring?
In a further attempt to persuade the Queensland public that they are competent to assess and deal with threats to our safety, police this afternoon closed three streets in the heart of Brisbane during the middle of the working day, to defend us against the clear and present threat posed by a Korean tourist's socks and undies.
None of the costs of this paranoia appear on any police targets or government balance sheet, so apparently it is just fine to disrupt a huge number of people's lives; and to increase the risk that one or more innocent citizens might be shot by police, in order to mitigate a threat so severe that the Police Commissioner himself is at pains to point out that he has no evidence it exists outside his fevered imagination.
This is literally insane. Our lives would be dramatically improved by the dismantling of almost all of the paranoid 'security theatre' that has been put in place since 2001; If the police or the government want to continue to impose this shit on us, it is about time they came up with some credible and specific threats to justify it. Right now, I reckon I am at greater risk of being struck by lightning than I am of being a victim of terrorism. Indeed, if what Commissioner Stewart said today is true, I reckon that in Brisbane, I am at more danger from the Queensland state police, than from all the world's terrorists combined.
How do we, the people, get the vested interests of security theatre to back off and let us live in peace?