This is a weird story to write given that New Zealand (of all places!) is slipping into authoritarian rule.https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/1251970727374467073 …
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I get that everybody loves this milquetoast country, but if you had Singapore or Belarus imposing nationwide house arrest with extremely broad police discretionary powers and heavy restrictions on the press, there would be no waffling about what to call ithttps://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/22-03-2020/the-government-is-giving-new-orders-do-we-have-to-obey-them/ …
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Australia, New Zealand and even Canada have far weaker protections for civil liberties than American audiences think (to the extent that American audiences think at all). So much is just a matter of custom and tradition; when you look at the law, there is enormous latent power.
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Replying to @Pinboard
the US has just as much latitude w/r/t emergency powers. Some of them are limited nationally by federalism, but most aren’t. We censored the mail during WWI and still have (and use) a century-old sedition law to limit free press
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and, as other “enraged kiwis” or whatever have pointed out, many US jurisdictions are functional police states in which uniformed officers murder indiscriminately, and detain without cause. not to mention the immense violations of human rights abroad. (this all predates Trump)
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This is a "tu quoque" argument
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