The police in the UK are most definitely suppressing dissent: arresting people for online comments, trying to resist  left-wing woke, or even expressing their patriotism. Although why anyone would feel patriotic in any Western, Left wing ruled country is a mystery.

In Australia, the police stand back and allow immigrants to disrespect our country and its laws, and put on weekly shows of antisemitism. 

Military assistance to police during covid was a fizzer. One unarmed soldier in scruffy fatigues trotting around with the cops, but doing nothing. A childish idea from the political class trying to look like a South American dictatorship to put the frighteners on us. Didn't work. Bloody joke.

Now, we are finding that the same army can't do its proper job and defend the country. If you didn't watch 7's Spotlight on Sunday, watch it on 7 Plus if you don't believe the uselessness of our ‘lying down’, not ‘standing’, army. 

But, as the author suggests, these goons and galahs could be used against us, not our enemies. Politicians, police and the military are not our friends. 

There’s a vast difference between healthy suspicion of government power and historical cosplay masquerading as analysis.

Leyonhjelm might win applause from armchair revolutionaries, but his article collapses under scrutiny from both a logical and historical perspective.

The sleight-of-hand at the heart of the article argument:

"A very important line was crossed - the ADF was helping enforce laws."

No, they were supporting logistical efforts during unprecedented crises.

Providing traffic control or assisting with hotel quarantine is crisis management, not martial law. Suggesting otherwise is the kind of fever-dream logic that treats every high-vis vest as a jackboot.

He invokes the Founding Fathers, Sir Robert Peel, and Blackstone as if we’re one dispatch away from 1776. But this isn't colonial America, and the ADF isn’t King George’s redcoats. And quoting Madison warning of armies "enslaving the people" - then conveniently ignoring that Australia’s defence force is under democratic civilian control, constitutionally restrained, and vastly smaller than in any militarised autocracy - is pure nonsense.

"Much of this was done with a degree of thuggish enthusiasm that would be familiar to any of the last century's dictators."

Hyperbole like this weakens Leyonhjelm's case and trivialises actual dictatorships. Australia remains a liberal democracy with rule of law, regular elections, a free press, and courts that upheld civil liberties even during emergency periods.

And the emotive talk of "militarised police" would carry more weight if you he didn’t conflate every uniform change and equipment upgrade with authoritarian intent. Policing evolves with threats - terrorism, mass shootings, organised crime. Rhetoric like "the police call us civilians!" is tabloid-level paranoia. What matters is accountability and transparency, not how scary their vest looks to us.

The claim that "standing armies continue to be a threat to freedom" ignores the elephant in the room: without standing armies, freedom wouldn’t exist in most of the world. We don’t get to enjoy the protections of modern liberal democracy while pretending we can go back to part-time militias and truncheon-carrying constables.

Leyonhjelm isn't defending liberty, he's mythologising it by misrepresenting history and context.

There, I'm glad we sorted that out.

ttbn suggests people are arrested for anti woke in the UK but gives no examples, The father ted guy was arrested for inciting people to assualt other citizens, not.for his views on women, gay or trans people.

but grand mothers, clergy, pensioners etc are being arrested for supporting Gaza and for resiting climate change, similarly in Australia.