AUTHORITARIANS AND AUTHORITY: A Reflection On the Dynamics of Our Victorian Police State

PANDEMIC WRITINGS, Melbourne, Australia (2020-2022): piece originally published August 17, 2020

Alas, Melbourne! 

Once celebrated as ‘The World's Most Liveable City,' now, under disastrous leadership, has become, 'The World's Must Governable.' No other Western populace has been locked-down so ruthlessly, over so little, for so long. 

When a fish begins to rot, it rots first at the head. 

Our leadership is rotting. 

Dan Andrews’ is either a monster, or he has chosen to govern monstrously. His cruel ‘pandemic strategy’ has revealed an inept leader, prone to hubris, and well practiced in deflecting blame and fomenting social divide. With each dramatic “pandemic” escalation, the disdainful message is consistent and clear: “Victorians are at fault!” Many in their ignorance are persuaded to point at one another, yet, truthfully, all fingers need only point at the contemptuous Andrews’ Government. 

Victorians ‘not doing the right thing,’ is a feeble excuse for the coronavirus nemesis that eventually clobbered his self-congratulatory, yet bungled attempts at containment. This attitude has seen his successive failures projected upon all Victorians. A narcissist will never concede to his own culpability, after all, ‘We’re all in this together.’ Adopting the pathological reasoning that: 'we all failed for his failures,' he collapsed Victoria into a Police State — sadistically commanding the arms of tyrannical overreach to grip the neck of all Victorians. 

We are all being strangled for his mistakes. 

Many are paying attention. Many others are troubled, but unable to truly comprehend the magnitude of the Grand Lie. None of this sits right. Having had all aspects of their former reality upheaved, flipped and skewed into parody, they are starting to sense the deception and our immediate peril. The various lockdown strategies have all been utterly disproportionate to the viral threat: 99.98% survival rate. What has followed has been a manufactured tragedy of government duplicity and media-induced hysteria. One thing is clear, the real ‘deadly virus’ is upon us: historically, it is known as Authoritarianism. Humankind is susceptible to it, especially when vulnerable, and it is extremely contagious to some, while ultimately infecting the lives of all. 

Bizarrely, many are still content to defend the current course. They regard Andrews as nothing short of a godsend in these apocalyptic times. They rejoice, believing they are in competent hands. These devotees of ‘The COVID Cult’ all share a distorted perception of our unfolding COVID experience. Their view is neither factual, nor even evident, but a superb fiction that has been realised as a “real reality.” They are the true 'Conspiracy Theorists,' paranoid and prone to delusion. They are right, because the government is right. Others are wrong, because the Government is right.

Most likely they support The Labor Party and its progressive Left-Wing ideology, but political affiliation aside, what they have actually elevated as hero, is truly villain. A monster acts monstrously and appeals to monsters. Andrews is a megalomaniac. This cannot be admitted to self, or others. They deny objective reality, remaining cognitively dissonant as they submit themselves wholeheartedly to ‘The COVID Cult.’ 

To ‘The COVID Cultists’, black is white, and if demanded by Authority, the inverse is suddenly true — all nuance of grey is anathema. These people are the Authoritarians, theorised to be 30-50% of the population, each incapable of independent thought, and all utterly enamoured of Authority. And abusive Authority, such as is currently experienced under Andrews, is the toxic gas-lit-love they are incapable of unloving. To Authoritarians, the Authority and its apparatuses of oppression are indistinguishable from their own binary worldview: ‘Victim versus Oppressor.’ In an ironic twist, the ‘victim’ is now the Authority, and the ‘oppressor’ is any challenge to this Authority. Such a warped mindset is underscored by irrationality — it is extraordinary to behold, and incomprehensible to rational and empathic people. 

All this is observed amongst the ‘The COVID Cult.’ When confronted with unnerving footage of police brutality, thuggery and once fashionable Brown Shirt bullying — they react in raucous delight. These are the same personality types that were previously triggered to virtue-signal condemnation for ‘police brutality,’ to spittle-spray against ‘male violence against women,’ and the ‘oppression of the Patriarchy’ — and now they celebrate and applaud such acts, and salivate for more. The police legally do, what they legally cannot — and by proxy, it satisfies their need to control, and to see control asserted. 

They have a taste for retribution. 

This is apparent in the recent instance of the 21-year-old girl and her encounter with the towering Gestapo-esque senior policeman. Despite having legal exemption for not wearing a ‘face covering,’ and perhaps showing contempt and defiance for being harassed over 'a mask,’ knowing her exemption, and lauding it over her interrogator — she could never have anticipated his response. The Authoritarians supported his actions, justifying it in the context of some imagined threat, as if the sadism witnessed represented an outward expression of the Authority they identified with (as Authoritarians) exacting revenge upon a challenge to their own Authoritarianism. This girl attacked THEM and by extension — the proverbial arm of the law did what they wanted it to do! It went straight for the throat with a rubber-gloved grip.

Likewise, they support Andrew's firm hand around Victoria’s neck: It is what Victoria deserves, what Victoria needs at this time — to be held up firmly, and rigidly supported. 

In a Police State, during a declaration of a ‘State of Disaster,’ police are granted supreme power to maintain the supreme power of the Authority. The Authoritarians, while being a step down, are synonymous with this synergised monstrosity and represent the third and most effective prong in this three-pronged assault on the oppressed citizenry (Authority + Police + Authoritarians). Thrust into the side of normal humans, this is a formidable weapon by pathological governments against the resistance of conscientious ‘normal’ people. 

The astounding thing is that many are still incapable of discerning that a climate of Authoritarianism has descended upon Victoria. That is not hyperbolic rhetoric — the world is watching and the world is horrified at what we have permitted. An ingenious policy of fracturing and fragmenting the public-mind has resulted in absolute disunity and confusion. Needless to say, we desperately require all people of conscience to be awake, and active, if we are to be successful in dismantling this tyranny. 

We are all being strangled. Some will always applaud this, some will struggle, and others might very well be suffocated in their sleep. 

When a fish begins to rot, it rots first from the head. What we are witnessing is the effect this has had on the tail.