[SturgeonsLaw]

To get to the truth of the matter, we will need to agree on what's actually happening. The phrase "concentration camp" provokes imagery of Nazi Germany, with overtones of the most egregious human rights violations.

What happened, in actuality, is that the Howard Springs mining camp was repurposed for quarantine. People have opted to go there instead of hotel quarantine. They are there for a total of 14 days, at which point they enter society at large. The army was providing transport to the location. People could have opted to stay at a hotel instead.

That's it.

At my core, I'm a civil libertarian. I am skeptical of government, and an anti-authoritarian. I am very, very much not a government apologist. But I am a strong believer in the importance of using facts as the basis of an honest, good faith discussion. My comments might just be a futile attempt to reduce the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect of this particular story.

[Eelongate]

> To get to the truth of the matter, we will need to agree on what's actually happening. The phrase "concentration camp" provokes imagery of Nazi Germany, with overtones of the most egregious human rights violations.

Using the term "concentration camp" used to refer to nazi death camps is euphemistic. It really misses the core horror of the holocaust by drawing attention away from the death/extermination aspect of the camps and instead naming the camps for concentration (e.g. internment.)

"Not to be confused with concentration camp." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camp

The camps for Japanese-Americans during WW2 could be appropriately called concentration camps. Wikipedia redirects "concentration camp" to their page on internment, with this note: "Not to be confused with [...] extermination camp." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp

[etherael]

I understand the imagery is extremely disturbing, and the worst nightmares of the idea of a concentration camp, which are actually extermination camps, is not what is being executed at the moment by the Australian government, but the fact is, it's a concentration camp all the same. The idea existed long before Nazi Germany and has been executed many places outside it since. Even if it were absolutely true that every mitigating factor was at play here, the fact would still be that a precedent has now been set that the military can be used to round people up and put them in concentration camps.

As a civil libertarian myself, I think given the nature of governments, and in particular the Australian government, that precedent is something that should be horrifying enough to all observers, without extending it to the hyperbolic gesticulation of direct comparisons with the historical Nazi extermination camps, Soviet Gulags, Khmer Rouge killing fields, etc. And I believe that strongly enough that I'm planning to renounce my citizenship over it ASAP and would rather die than return. I cannot emphasize enough how disgusted I am by these events.

Further, the cover stories and reasons given just don't matter. Look at the reasons the Nazis gave for their concentration camps, it's not a long bow to draw; chief amongst them was disease control. Really think about the idiocy of offering alternative of even more expensive hotels to some of the poorest people in Australia as alternatives to said concentration camps, and then the cherry on top with the unique AU execution of the idea is that they actually have the nerve to bill the interns of said concentration camps anyway! 2.5k AUD per week for singles or 5k AUD for families.

I just can't believe this has actually happened, but when this entire covid event started, and the initial lockdowns dragged on and the AU government in general seemed intent on escalating degrees of authoritarianism, I drew a mental line in the sand and that line was military roundups and concentration camps, and no matter which way you slice it, the facts on the ground are that that's exactly where we are now. Even worse is that people I've known and respected my entire life, intelligent people in forums like this one, people like you in fact, and I do not intend at all to denigrate you by putting you in this group, but to draw attention to just how corrosive this kind of thing actually is to any kind of trust in a civil society, are defending, and even calling for the escalation of these tactics.

Meanwhile, no other country on the entire planet is doing this. Even the most egregious examples of Austria aren't going to these lengths. I really can't understand why anybody is trying to defend it, and even less so why they're calling for it to be escalated. I feel like I've stepped through the looking glass into crazy world.

[Radim]

> Even worse is that people I've known and respected my entire life, intelligent people … are defending, and even calling for the escalation of these tactics.

It's a spectrum. More a question of temperament than intelligence:

Some people desperately wish to told there's someone out there, looking out for them. A wise enlightened leader, preferably in a tie or a white lab coat.

"Just follow orders and everything will be alright."

Others prefer to assume responsibility and evaluate risk on a case-by-case basis. This end of the spectrum is more sparsely populated, because it requires personal struggle and sacrifice. So such people are always a minority, with obvious implications for democracy (AKA the rule of the majority).

Most people oscillate somewhere in between, swayed by pragmatic incentives and currents of social zeitgeist.

[etherael]

Well said. Living through this has been a real eye opener on the nature of humanity and civil society. The veil certainly has been lifted.

[burntbridge]

>I'm planning to renounce my citizenship over it ASAP and would rather die than return

This is just kind of hilarious. I have no other words.

OP please just stay off facebook

[etherael]

Facebook is where people were defending the behaviour, not where I heard about it. That was circling in more obscure smaller libertarian circles as an example of the escalating insanity of Australia.

The defense of the behaviour has indeed also caused me to stay off facebook, though.