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A Reintroduction
Hi everyone, it’s been quite a while since I last posted on Ricochet (2018) so I thought it would be a good time to reintroduce myself.
I am a West Australian who originally joined Ricochet back in 2016. For those of you who were here at that time, you will remember there was a lot of very spirited debate during the primary and then the presidential election of that year with some well-reasoned arguments on both sides.
In 2017, I was made redundant from my accounting job after almost seven years and what followed was the three toughest years of my life. I was able to gain some occasional temporary work mostly in politics due to my involvement with the National Party here in Western Australia. But for much of this time, I was unemployed and I began to develop a growing sense of victimhood about my situation thinking that nothing about my situation was my fault and expecting things to miraculously turn around and get better without doing anything about it.
In 2020 with the Covid pandemic in full swing, I began to finally realise that the situation I was in could only be improved by my own actions. After three years, I finally sought out government benefits and government assistance. I then considered the possibility of further study after a discussion with an employment agency. After doing this I called my local National Party branch president who also happens to work at our local university center. I committed for the first time in years to doing something in my life to make my life better.
I am currently in my third term of a Masters of Teaching (Secondary) and in less than a month I am going on my third Prac with only one more term to go after this one. In addition to study, I am also working three days a week in an accounting firm earning money and I am no longer on any form of government benefits.
While things have improved for me in recent times I cannot say the same for my country. The Covid pandemic has shown that the Australian people are not the strong, independent people they once were. My own state is ruled by a dictator that has complete control over the government, the parliament, and much of the media. Those who fawn over the premier of Western Australia call him the state daddy as if he is some sort of general secretary of a communist party. And it is common to hear even those who normally speak sense say that he has kept us safe.
This idea that the people of Australia seem to have become infected with that it is the role of government to keep the people safe is far more dangerous and infectious than any Covid pandemic. As you all know, any people that would prefer safety over liberty will receive in return neither safety or liberty.
I am glad to be back on Ricochet and I look forward to once again taking part in reasoned and rational debate away from the cesspool that comprises much of this world wide web.
I am also looking forward to contributing my own posts as well as reading the high-quality posts of others and contributing to our conversation. I have spent much of today while at work listening to some of the great podcasts on here and I realised listening to them why I liked this website so much before. It’s great to be back.
Published in General
Welcome back, JT! Good to have you back–we’re the same old place. As you regain your R> bearings, I’m sure many of us will be bouncing ideas off of you again. I look forward to the conversations.
Thanks Gary. Glad to be back.
Welcome back! Congratulations on getting your feet back under you. Like Gary, I look forward to your contributions from a land that seems far away.
Thanks Blondie. Australia is a far away nation and my state even more so given the border closures which mean that even if I was to leave my state I probably would not be able to return. A nation which closes its internal borders to its own citizens is no longer in my opinion a nation and certainly not a nation that values freedom and liberty.
Welcome back Jason! I have family in Perth, but I’ve never been. If I ever make it to your neighborhood, we’ll have to go get a beer or something.
I was hoping Perth wasn’t as bad as Queensland. Is it?
Thanks Dr Bastiat. Would love to have a beer with you. I’m not sure if you would want to come to WA anytime soon firstly you would have to get a special exemption to get into the state and then you would have to have your vaccine paperwork just to get a drink.
Its worse at least you can move between states in Queensland. I don’t think the vaccine mandates are as bad over there also although I’m not 100% sure on that.
“While things have improved for me in recent times I cannot say the same for my country the Covid pandemic has shown that the Australian people are not the strong independent people they once were.”
Sadly, this is what I have been concluding about America. I keep waiting, thinking “the American citizen” will rise up and shake off these poltroons, because we are a proud, fierce, independent people. But apparently 50 years of Lefty BS has had its corrosive effect, and now I don’t know if we, as a body, still are.
It is so easy to lose hope right now I certainly no longer recognise my own country. I can only speak as someone looking from far away but to me it looks like there is at least some hope for America. If only for the fact that there is at least some states that seem to an extent to value freedom, liberty and the constitution.
Welcome back!
I feel for you, man . . .
Welcome back Jason – I’ve only recently re-upped myself.
I have to say that reading your bio information caused me some PTSD. I spent much of 2020 doing a transportation management system implementation with a client in AUS/NZL. All performed remotely. And the client’s admin offices were in Orlando (US Eastern time zone). Their integration offices were in Bangalore (India Standard Time). I live in the US Pacific time zone. Weeks would start Sunday afternoon at 2 pm my time. So I’d be on con calls starting at 0500 my time and would wrap my days up around 10 pm. Oh, and the main business lead I had to work with out of Sydney was a total (redacted to comply with Ricochet Code of Conduct).
But I won’t hold any of that against you! ;-)
Great to have you back, Jason !
Welcome back!
In June of 2020, some dear friends of ours moved back to their native Australia …. and I was jealous! Not anymore.
Chin up and welcome back!
Hey Jason, nice to see you back.
It’s funny: to us Yanks, it seems like you and Jason T are practically neighbors. You’re both in Australia! But I looked it up; you’re farther away from each other than I am (in Los Angeles) to someone in Chicago.
My freshman year at U of Oregon. I’m talking to someone and mention that I grew up in a small town in British Columbia. Some other chucklehead overhears this, and says “You’re from Canada? I have a cousin in Montreal! Do you know him?” Just looked it up – Montreal is 2350 miles from my hometown.
Living in Houston I picked up an older couple hitchhiking in the hill country: “Oh, I have a brother in Houston, do you know him? (Population was some 5 million)
That of course would never happen here!
Because, you know, you would not need to seek it – it would find you!
Welcome back, from someone also living in a dictatorship (state of Washington). Our third-term Dictator just issued a new diktat today, mandating that hospitals stop doing any “non-essential” procedures to allow for treating all the new Covid cases. The State has a vaccine mandate for all medical-care personnel, causing many resignations of nurses and others who quit rather than get vaccinated. Self-inflicted staffing shortages have necessitated calling in the National Guard to help out. 100 of them. Sigh… The residents of our largest city, Seattle, welcome tyranny, and gladly turn in their neighbors for not checking vaccine papers, or wearing masks in businesses.
At least our situation does not involve closed borders-people can still freely leave the state, and they have been. Normally a place where people move to (dozens of old and new tech companies are hiring), we now have more leaving than arriving.
Both states have the initials WA both states have tyrannical socialist governments. Vaccine mandates are a massive issue here as well something like 75% of the workforce is effected. More and more businesses are being impacted as well and soon the restrictions will become so extreme that the unvaccinated will be virtually stuck at home unable to access both their wants and their needs. The ridiculous thing is that we have avoided a major outbreak here because we are the most isolated state in an isolated island nation.
Welcome back! Glad to hear that things are turning around for you. I have made two business trips to Perth and loved the food from so many cultures, the down-to-earth people, the climate, the views of the sun setting on the Indian Ocean, the wine, and the unusual flora and fauna. In particular I remember touring the creepy abandoned stone prison south of Perth. And I remember being confusing it was while walking around town and the sun being in the north. I enjoyed a lot about your home country.
For a big city Perth is good although I don’t get down there all that often particularly with Covid. I would assume the prison you toured was Fremantle prison, there are still lots of rumours of ghosts there probably due to it being the final home of some of the state’s most notorious criminals including the last person to be executed in the state of Western Australia our worst serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke.
Jason, in your former run on Ricochet, didn’t you and I exchange fond memories of Australian automobiles? If so, I will bore you with yet another word of praise to Holden’s Monaro, in thin disguise as a Pontiac GTO. Adelaide’s finest, as far as I’m concerned.
Best car I ever owned. Built under the Southern Cross.
Yes, it was Fremantle prison! I remember the name now that you mention it. They showed us the rows of old stone cells for the general population, the solitary confinement in total darkness, the chamber where the condemned were hanged, and the warden’s house. The tour guide had been a guard at the prison, and she gave a fascinating tour. I’m usually pretty unaffected by these things, but this tour creeped me out. Definitely recommend it to any tourists.
My colleagues took me to one of the many small wineries east of Perth, and we had a wonderful lunch, and great wine was so cheap. I insisted on seeing kangeroos, which they thought was ridiculous (“they are just vermin”). My trips to Perth will be a highlight of my life.
Yes I do recall a discussion about Australian cars something we won’t see anymore thanks to the trade unions and cheap overseas vehicles. The Monaro was a real Aussie classic particularly the originals from the 60’s and 70’s with their classic design.
https://youtu.be/VGW-WX77zjY A classic advertisement from the 70’s the original was from Chevrolet I believe.
Some really good wine I’m the Swan Valley which is probably where you visited. Also some excellent wines down in the south of the state in Margaret River. Glad you had a great time in WA it is a great place but unfortunately Covid has completely destroyed the freedoms we once had.
Welcome back, Jason! Since I’m in Yokohama, I’m not too far away as time zones go. My Navy career brought me to Australia a few times and I enjoyed them all. Would love to go back, once all these troubles have departed.
The effort to keep the country or state isolated by itself cannot succeed in the long run. There’s no way to keep the virus out forever. Australia will have to eventually open up again, at which time the virus cannot but make its way in. The native Americans of North and South America were isolated from the viruses that had long raged through Europe, Africa and Asia. Once ships from the Old World started bringing more people to settle and the diseases of the East arrived in the New Territories, they took a terrible toll. The only advantage to delaying the eventual opening is that there will be several new therapeutics available to combat the virus that weren’t around in 2020 or even 2021. Hopefully the prices for those drugs won’t be too high by then. I hope your government has planned it all out well, and good luck!