Red Wine Express

It’s a truism that if you want something organized efficiently, don’t get a bureaucracy to do it.

I was recently asked to travel from the city I live in in Australia to another city in Australia, in another state, have a meeting then fly back the same day. Pretty straight forward you would have to agree and not an unusual occurrence. In my full-time working days I did it regularly. But do you think I could decipher the reams of instructions and descriptions polluting numerous government websites in order to understand what freedoms I would have to forego to do this. Because this whole episode, world-wide has been an exercise in restrictions of “freedoms”

I use the inverted commas round the word freedom because freedoms, by definition, are free and not to be tampered with by busy body politicians and their cadaverous health bureaucrats. Unfortunately, that’s not what the word means anymore. Once inalienable freedoms are glibly given and taken and rationed. They are rewards for good behaviour given to inmates who have behaved themselves.

Our premier is a whiny socialist, typical of many politicians around the democratic world (there’s a major contradiction in terms in that last sentence). Listening to these people try to explain what we can and can’t do on a daily basis is something I have given up doing – life’s too short. They live for it, I know. I don’t. Notwithstanding, it makes the libertarian portion of my blood boil.

So back to my dilemma. After spending too many hours trying to understand whether I could take my day-trip without having to put my granddaughter up as collateral or leaving a few pints of my own blood (the non-libertarian part) for the inevitable transfusion I would need after returning from the home of the walking dead in the south of our country, I gave up. That is, I gave up trying to work it out for myself. The solution – ring your local member of parliament and get them to earn some of that salary they didn’t forego when most of the country was locked down and destitute. So I did. It’s been a couple of hours so even the people who wrote the manual don’t seem to be able to make any sense out of it. I found it easier to work-out the instructions regarding construction of an Ikea bookcase. And I haven’t got a degree in architecture.

Update

I have been advised by my local MP’s office that if I want to go to this particular state for a few hours then return, I have to be double vaccinated (I am) and while I am there, get Covid tested and return a negative then on my return, do two weeks in quarantine. This is for my protection because I am incapable of protecting myself. I need a whiny socialist to look after me apparently. And this brings us full-circle back to why you don’t want bureaucrats organising anything.