Is Australia heading towards a fascist state?

We were all no doubt shocked by the riots at certain beach side suburbs in Sydney late last year.

How many of us have been following the aftermath with a view to the future?

One example was a story in the Sydney Morning Herald which had within it the following:

Jane, from Coogee, was surprised to find three police on her bus asking to inspect mobile phones. Each took a phone at random and scrolled through messages for five or ten minutes. Everyone obeyed. "The people were perfectly friendly about it," she said. "I thought it was a bit weird and a breach of privacy. But I didn't say anything. Nobody did."
[Australians are an obedient people - but for how long?, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 December 2005]

Is this, along with the increase in Police powers that have been passed in NSW the beginning of something new and ugly in our community?

There are now stories emerging from Dubbo of police "locking down" a community to ensure that there is peace and quiet.

What will come next?

I have no problem with reasonable laws being promulgated and applied and people being asked to be law abiding citizens, but if we in Australia are to avoid the race riots that have plagued other countries, if we are to avoid outcomes that finally erupted into full blown fascism in Europe during the Nazi era or the horrors of 'ethnic cleansing' more recently, then we have to understand that the loss of even the simplest of liberties, once accepted, can start the downhill slide to the acceptance of yet another loss and then another until no liberties are left and we get to a state of chaos where every person is in fear of every other person.

If this is NOT what we want then we need to fight to preserve civil rights and liberties and find a new way to control behaviour that find offensive and inappropriate.