U.S. to close..

[NPCampbell]

Originally Posted by Wotname

Presumably you are referring to the USA. I am surprised to hear you say the USA can't control it's borders. What are the reasons it can't?

Yes, the US has had poor control of it's borders for over 40 years. The US has 7500 miles of border, 2000 of it with economically challenged Mexico. There is political opposition to physical barriers and the natural barriers are minimal depending on the time of year. There are around 400,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants/smugglers every year and it's estimated that (take this with a grain of salt) 500,000 succeed on entering the country every year.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

You need to cross the pond and come over to this side for 2021. ... The strikingly different attitude towards cruising can be seen in this provision of the Finnish border regulations: ... In other words, whatever border restrictions are in force, they do NOT apply to cruisers.

The attitude is just completely different here. So come on over, Mike. First dinner is on me.

I would love to take you up on that DH ... except I still can't even get to my boat due to internal Canadian travel restrictions.

The so-called 'Atlantic Bubble' here in Canada remains once of the safest places in the world from a Covid-19 perspective. But that means keeping all us "come-from-aways" away. I really doubt they'll choose to open up until pandemic rates come down. So this means my boat remains an innocent hostage.



But hopefully things will change before the snows leave our land and a young man's mind once again turns to dreams of racing winds and icy cold Newfoundland waters. Ah... heaven

[NPCampbell]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

Rubbish
Look at Vietnam for one
100,000 people
Borders China and a few other countries.


Vietnam
Total cases
1,213

Recovered
1,070

Deaths
35

I'll believe the numbers coming out of Vietnam when they stop arresting their reporters for breathing. They are ranked 175th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index. What do you have to do to be ranked below Iran, Syria and Cuba?

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

I'll believe the numbers coming out of Vietnam when they stop arresting their reporters for breathing.

America arrests reporters as well, a lot more than Vietnam

https://pressfreedomtracker.us/

And Vietnam does not arrest reporters for breathing
Make stuff up much?

[PDA1]

Whoops, need to delete but can't figure out how.

[PDA1]

Get ready for The Great Reset. That's what this is all about.

[NPCampbell]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

America arrests reporters as well, a lot more than Vietnam

https://pressfreedomtracker.us/

And Vietnam does not arrest reporters for breathing
Make stuff up much?

It's called sarcasm. Conversely, comparing the freedom of the press in the US to an old school, communist, oppressive, authoritative regime is called delusional.

[kmacdonald]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I would love to take you up on that DH ... except I still can't even get to my boat due to internal Canadian travel restrictions.

The so-called 'Atlantic Bubble' here in Canada remains once of the safest places in the world from a Covid-19 perspective. But that means keeping all us "come-from-aways" away. I really doubt they'll choose to open up until pandemic rates come down. So this means my boat remains an innocent hostage.



But hopefully things will change before the snows leave our land and a young man's mind once again turns to dreams of racing winds and icy cold Newfoundland waters. Ah... heaven

Hang in there Mike. The dust will settle in 5 or 6 years.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

It's called sarcasm. Conversely, comparing the freedom of the press in the US to an old school, communist, oppressive, authoritative regime is called delusional.

I'm guessing you have never even been to Vietnam

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by kmacdonald

Hang in there Mike. The dust will settle in 5 or 6 years.

Yeah... That's what I'm afraid of [emoji31].

If this keeps going beyond 2021 I may have get into land cruising -- get an RV.

[JAFO]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

That's of course what politicians would like for you to believe. That "leadership" is "key". But what is "leadership"? Can you recognize that reliably, or even define it?

It's profitable for politicians to APPEAR to be "strong" "leaders", and this appearance can be created with "bold" action and -- this is very important -- refusal to admit any doubts, or admit to any mistakes. But if that "bold" action is good from the point of view of appearance, but is not actually what the people need -- is that "leadership"?

There's a lot of that going on.

Sure.. I can (in this particular context) define leadership.

In the context of this pandemic, it's the quality of putting the health of ALL citizens ahead of all other considerations. In other words, "people before profits".

This is why, despite some major screwups, the people of Victoria, Australia (of whom I'm one), almost universally got behind our Premier, Dan Andrews, and cooperated with what have been some of the most extreme lockdown conditions outside of China. We forgave him his mistakes, and got solidly behind him, because, whether you agreed with him or not, liked his politics or not, it was plain as day that HE CARED ABOUT EVERY ONE OF US, and was doing his utmost to protect us.

This man did not take a day off in over 4 months. He worked long and hard, every single day. Seldom, if ever, did he get more that 4 or 5 hours sleep a night. He held a press conference every single day of that time. He answered all questions directly, without dodging, prevarication or any of the weasel language we're used to hearing from politicians. He never called time on a presser.. he stayed there every day answering questions until the journalists ran out of questions to put to him.

Plenty of what he did was controversial. And his political enemies, up to and including the Prime Minister, (and despite their claims of united bi-partisan cooperation) opposed his actions and gave him hell for it every single day. But he never buckled, because he had only one goal. Saving Victorians from this virus.

And under that kind of leadership, we succeeded in getting this thing under control. His words, not mine. Not, "I did this..." or even "We did this...", but "all of you did this."

And that is why plenty of us, despite the screwups, want him for our next Prime Minister. This baffles his political opponents. They insist we must be suffering from some form of Stockholm Syndrome.

But we're not. Because we can see he posesses a quality that is utterly alien to his opponents. First and foremost, he cares about people. All people. And that's an absurd, foreign concept to the political right of this country. And come election time, we are not going to forget, or forgive them.

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

Yes, the US has had poor control of it's borders for over 40 years. The US has 7500 miles of border, 2000 of it with economically challenged Mexico. There is political opposition to physical barriers and the natural barriers are minimal depending on the time of year. There are around 400,000 apprehensions of illegal immigrants/smugglers every year and it's estimated that (take this with a grain of salt) 500,000 succeed on entering the country every year.

Thanks for the reply, they are big numbers! I suppose the real test of the border control is the estimated number of successful breaches. If it say only 100,000, then the border control is 80% tight but if the number is say 800,000, the 'tightness' drops rapidly to 33%.

[NevilleCat]

Originally Posted by UFO

Yes its all very good, but how will they (NZ) or Australia ever open their international borders without getting smashed as they are now like tinder boxes.

This brings up a very good point in that, as it stands, the countries that have done the hard work and managed to wrest some control of the situation, are likely seriously compromised by other international communities who are taking a "different" approach.
This is one of the arguments against actually trying to gain control of it.
That makes me wonder about international responsibilities during a pandemic. After all, if every country in the world had been as successful as the few previously mentioned then potentially we could all be having a normal Xmas this year.
Just as the individuals in each country are asked to take responsibility and to make sacrifices for the good of the greater population, it could by extension be a moral responsibility that countries also have a duty of care to all humanity?
Certainly there could be seen some obligation on the part of wealthy, medically resourced societies to do what they can?
We are very lucky that this virus is not way worse... just thoughts for the next time ...

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by NPCampbell

I'll believe the numbers coming out of Vietnam when they stop arresting their reporters for breathing. They are ranked 175th out of 180 countries on the World Press Freedom Index. What do you have to do to be ranked below Iran, Syria and Cuba?

Arrest reporters for breathing?
➥ https://rsf.org/en/ranking

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by JAFO

Sure.. I can (in this particular context) define leadership.

In the context of this pandemic, it's the quality of putting the health of ALL citizens ahead of all other considerations. In other words, "people before profits".

So "leadership" is making a particular policy choice -- sacrificing every other policy goal to the single purpose of preventing every single COVID infection, paying whatever cost. OK . . . .



Do any adults actually believe this kind of fairy tale? That's not what he did. There were many even more extreme measures which could have been taken. All border traffic whatsoever could have been stopped (which would have prevented the outbreak in Melbourne), people could have been confined to their homes totally, etc. etc. etc. 900 people have died, so what about those 900 people? Because borders weren't closed totally, people were allowed to move around somewhat, some business stayed open -- were those 900 people sacrificed for "profit"?


In fact no one anywhere makes policy like this. There is ALWAYS balancing of one set of considerations (costs, risks, restrictions of freedom, unemployment, deaths from other causes, etc.) against others (reducing infections and deaths from the virus).



So what you had in Australia was what the government considered to be the right balance -- measures were imposed which were judged (rightly or wrongly) to be tolerable economically and tolerable in terms of human cost, against certain number of infections and deaths from the virus which were judged to be acceptable.

Originally Posted by JAFO

This is why, despite some major screwups, the people of Victoria, Australia (of whom I'm one), almost universally got behind our Premier, Dan Andrews, and cooperated with what have been some of the most extreme lockdown conditions outside of China. We forgave him his mistakes, and got solidly behind him, because, whether you agreed with him or not, liked his politics or not, it was plain as day that HE CARED ABOUT EVERY ONE OF US, and was doing his utmost to protect us.

In Soviet Russia, they used to put children to sleep telling them that Comrade Stalin cared about each and every one of them. I don't know about other people, but I find statements like "it was plain as day that HE CARED ABOUT EVERY ONE OF US, and was doing his utmost to protect us" to be rather chilling.


Of course politicians like this child-like dependency on the state, and particularly, the child-like reverance of the Leader. I thought Australia was the land of rugged individualism, of free thinking people? This sounds more like the way North Koreans talk about their "Leader".



Also -- "almost universally got behind"? I thought there was some vigorous discussion, including protests (which is a good thing). News about that got all the way around the world to newspapers over here. And a number of people on here who were quite vigorously opposed to the Premier's handling of the situation.