Note to Readers: Live Rumble Show Today At 1 pm EST on COVID Mandates and Djokovic's Deportation
Australia's deportation of the unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic creates serious dangers. Also: we produced shows this week on 1/6 and the new sedition charges.
I wanted to share with subscribers here several items of potential interest:
1) Today at 1:00 pm EST, I will host a live episode of our System Update video program on my Rumble channel to discuss Australia’s deportation of the unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic. Whether Djokovic is permitted to play in a major tennis event may itself not be of great significance to many, but the principles and values upheld in order to deport him, as well as the overwhelmingly positive reaction to his deportation both in Australia and the West generally, provide a vivid and disturbing window into the politics of COVID, vaccine mandates, and state authority almost two full years into this pandemic.
On Wednesday, I interviewed the American tennis player Tennys Sandgren who — like Djokovic — has chosen to be unvaccinated but, in contrast to Djokovic, decided he would not attempt to travel to or play in Australia. Sandgren was very articulate and insightful in explaining why he was willing to endure the career-threatening loss of not playing in Australia in order to stand on his principled opposition to vaccine mandates. That interview can be seen here, and — as we do for all of our System Update videos on Rumble — the transcript has been posted here for subscribers only.
Note that the Australian government, in deporting Djokovic, did not contend that he posed a threat to the public health due to a risk of transmitting COVID. The opposite is true: the government acknowledged that he qualified for a legal exemption from the vaccine requirement to enter the country given that he just contracted COVID as reflected by a December 16 positive test, followed by a negative test on December 22, and therefore has high levels of natural immunity. That is why he received a legal visa to enter Australia despite being unvaccinated. The proffered justification from Immigration Minister Alex Hawke, who cancelled his visa and ordered him deported, was that Djokovic’s statements in April, 2020 implied that he was skeptical of vaccines, and the presence of someone in Australia who is viewed as an “icon” of personal choice would foster social disruption and “excite” anti-vaccine sentiments.
In other words, the principle just embraced by the Australian government and upheld by its judicial system (whose hands were largely tied due to the virtually absolute power vested in the government) is that anyone who has ever expressed any skepticism over vaccines in general, or the COVID vaccine in particular, can and should be denied entrance to the country and be prevented from pursuing their livelihood — even though the government admits they pose no threat to the public health by transmitting the virus to others. Immigration lawyers and civil liberties activists in the country are warning of the grave dangers posed to everyone from this precedent, and I will examine all of the implications of this decision today at 1:00 pm EST on Rumble.
2) On our Callin podcast show last week, I examined the ongoing craving among many people for greater state power and mandates even after a full year of universal vaccine availability for all people over the age of 4. That discussion was in the context of the Djokovic controversy as well. As is true of all Callin episodes, it can be heard freely online here. The separate podcast I host with Canadian journalist Q Anthony (formerly Andray Domise) this week examined the ongoing festivities surrounding 1/6, and can be heard here. My understanding is that the Callin app, which is available now for iPhone users to participate live in these shows, will be very shortly available for Android users as well.
3) On Fox News Sunday at noon EST, I’ll bet on with Howard Kurtz discussing the ongoing exploitation of 1/6 for civil liberties assaults, and the new sedition charges brought this week against the founder of Oath Keepers.
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The Aussies reputation of being tough minded people is obviously very wrong. First they give up their guns, next they give up their freedom.
I will tune in for sure. Australia is terrible. A lot of bad stuff going on these days, and I think a lot of people are eager to know how they can fight back. Subscribing to substacks like this is one way, but somehow we have to figure out other ways too. Authorities seem emboldened these days to trample on civil liberties. They need to be reminded that they cannot.