Mark Steyn: The Aussie Police Have Learned German

By An Old Friend

Tue, Sep 29, 2020 7:27 p.m.

Mark Steyn on the Police in Australia's Province of Victoria

AOF: I think this text -- the transcript of an audio show -- is only available to Steyn Club members, so I won't supply the link.

And now from the land where everything's policed except crime, and no I don't mean the United Kingdom, I renew my request that the state of Victoria cease dishonoring the name of a great queen and find a more appropriate moniker such as the state of Woketoria, or the state of Joketoria, or the state of Wanktoria. In the meantime,

[Clip begins]

"G'Day, mate." Woman's voice: "It's your VicWit wanker copper of the day."

Mark singing:

"Let me pregnant wife loose, Bruce,

Let me pregnant wife loose.

The docs are set to induce, Bruce,

Let me pregnant wife loose.

All together now:

Tie me wanker cop down, sport

Tie me wanker cop down.

He's wankered up the old town, sport,

So tie me wanker cop down.

[Clip ends]

Mark: Yeah I know we're not even trying with that are we? None of the wit and sophistication of Kung Flu Fighting or I am Transwoman, Hear me roar, because wit and sophistication are wasted on Chairman Dan Andrews and his control freak plonkers. The police are the public and the public are the police, so said Sir Robert Peel, the pioneer of policing in the modern world. That axiom has certainly frayed in many places but it has never been so comprehensively repudiated in a free Anglophone society not at war as by the Victoria police in recent weeks. As I've said I don't believe their rotten, stinking, dissembling commissioners when they concede that the optics aren't terrible good. The optics are the point that's why no matter how viral goes the 38 week pregnant woman or the guy with the stomped head, the Victoria coppers wake up the following morning and do exactly the same thing all over again.

So here they are on Ellwood Beach between Saint Kilda and Brighton [Mark is speaking over a recording of a confrontation between police and a citizen] confronted by a man on the sands not wearing a mask, although as he pleads in vain he is within the requisite 5k of his home, that's about 3 miles and is the lawful distance from one's abode that a Victorian citizen is permitted to travel. Faced with a maskless man in the open air, 10 police officers by my count, a dozen according to the Daily Mail, are dispatched to wrestle him to the ground.

You know I'm largely indifferent on the subject of masks. I dislike them for reasons I went into months ago, but if a storekeeper prefers me to wear one, I respect her wishes as I did in various jurisdictions over the summer but I also noticed in shops in Ireland, and France, and elsewhere, that if a customer tries to enter the premises without a mask, the store clerk would simply proffer one from a pile by the register. Presumably Chairman Dan's constables could also perambulate the streets and beaches with a dozen spare masks in a side pocket for forgetful citizens. So the practice of taking them down with overwhelming force is a policy choice.

As I mentioned last week, the bozo commissioners of Victoria could have trained their constables to wield these awesome new powers sensitively, humanely, non-insanely to emphasize that these are extraordinary times and temporary measures. Instead we just have legions of (in mock German voice) 'we are only obeying orders' automatons.

For example, Katie Barnard, a law professor at Melbourne University in middle age, without wishing to be ungallant, Professor Barnard has cerebral palsy which is not a small thing. She is treated by regular injections in her feet to lessen the muscle cramping. On her doctor's orders she is supposed to go for walks after the injections, so she was walking with her mother who has had two hip replacements and has also been advised to exercise. After perambulating for half a mile they felt a bit tired and sat down on a bench. That's when yet another wanker copper came up and said, 'you have to move on, you're not allowed to stop walking.'

As noted last week, the state of Victoria has criminalized public sitting and is determined to eradicate it with a commitment they certainly don't apply to any other offenses. So Professor Barnard replied, 'you're kidding right?' But the wanker copper said no you need to keep walking and head back to your house, up the hill. So the VicWit constable ordered a disabled lady and an elderly lady to walk up a hill.

I can hear you say, but what about that second wave, the big COVID spike, the new curve that will take another 6, 9 months, years to flatten? Well yes it's true that 2^nd wave is overwhelming the state. Yesterday Victoria media reported, stand well back for this if you faint in horror remember that public sprawling is illegal, Victoria media reported that there were in the state, yesterday, 11 new cases. Not deaths, cases and because of that public health crisis at least 10 coppers are required to beat up any errant citizens and if you spot a disabled lady you don't need to beat her up, not yet, but it is obligatory to aggravate her disability and move her on in pain. If these cerebral palsy scofflaws don't get the message, Chairman Dan will issue orders to dispatch a 10-strong taskforce to rip up the wheelchair ramp and beat her over the head with it. Oh one more, a man is smoking a cigarette when two Victoria wanker coppers arrive to insist he has to wear a mask while he smokes.

[Audio clip of cops telling man to put a mask on, he responds that he will move away while smoking. Cop says smoking a cigarette is not one of the exemptions for wearing a mask.]

The wanker copper is wrong there. Even in Victoria, smoking a cigarette is a mask exempt activity. But don't let anything as footling as the law get in the way of being a world class wanker. He's doing this as an exercise in muscle, in raw, naked muscle, which is why you should be very wary of the powers you give to mere police constables.

I will never again take seriously that enduring Oz stereotype of the free spirited larrikin and ocker and other grand words that a crushed populace takes refuge in. What larrikin spirit in a people who stand by as their constabulary torment pregnant women, the handicapped and the elderly? While you're ordered to wear a mask to puff a fag? Your wanker coppers of the month, of the year, of the decade, the Victoria Police.