Karen & Ken: Power Couple Harry & Claire Lehmann

In our series on Quillette editor Claire Lehmann, the Boss Karen of the Australian section of the internet, the iron woman of ‘classical liberalism’ and ‘centrism’, a topic of gripping, morbid fascination for us all, it’s been noted several times that her husband has appeared to be missing in action, failing to take his husbanding duties with their due requisite gravity, with him likely having a modern understanding of what being a husband is, that is, to support your wife in whatever dumb things she is doing, saying, or trying to do or say, when it is of course to guide, and correct and ameliorate the effects of her womanly misunderstandings and errors, to the point where Harry Can Cook Lehmann, – to use his full name, a surely unusual one for a Jewish person, but there you go, – will shamelessly and very rudely come to the defence of his wife’s Covidian shrieking and berserking to random people online:

The argument these two Instagrammers are having is over the NT Howard Springs Quarantine Camp, and the video referenced, of a woman’s experience in the facility:

Claire is of course a full, deep throated defender of the Virus Regime in Australia, and supports dragging healthy people out of their homes, even if they’re vaxed, and imprisoning them, and she’s also a mo’ money I’m Alright Jack troll:

If this didn’t break her nothing will:

She’s even turning on friends, but this is happening all over the place, on both sides sometimes:

It’s all a lot of fun to talk about this fake-vax addict (pic related, top) but here’s the part where we’re going to be fair, not to defend this ghastly woman (whose non covid ideology addled ‘hot takes’ can sometimes be decent enough) or the dystopianness she supports, but to put things in some context:

It’s 1984 in Australia. Many Americans understandably always assumed places like Australia were also freedom protecting republics. But it’s not true, we are unique, and need to keep it that way. https://t.co/7z3UWwwjXD

— Dan Crenshaw (@DanCrenshawTX) December 4, 2021

If you’ve got cretinous US politicians who probably normally just say whatever their big donors tell them to say on your side there’s a moment to pause, and to recognise that if you have never, at a bare minimum, even been to a country that you’re suddenly very interested in and pontificating on, or, far, far better lived there, and gone native to at least some extent, meaning you didn’t just live in an expat bubble, then, well, that’s something to take into account. Frankly, when most Americans talk about Australia, in general, non Covid specific terms, they don’t make a lot of sense. Looking at the odd video on Twitter isn’t enough. Reading this site is though.

Four states, SA, WA, QLD, Tasmania, plus the Northern Territory, have been more or less #zerocovid for the whole two years, and been living the life, with few restrictions except travel ones, because they walled themselves off from each other to some extent, but above all from the two plague ravaged biggest states, VIC and NSW, but now they’re supposed to be opening up, because a majority of people are vaxed up, but they’re still in elimination mode, and frantically, sometimes comically, and sometimes frighteningly, as above, trying to stop the spread of whatever covid is supposed to be. The reason for the freaking out is not sinister, it’s likely for mostly mundane political reasons, in that a lot of people are morons and they’re scared witless of the Sniffles (and the restrictions) and they vote.

By contrast in Victoria the infection numbers have been running at over 1000 per day for a long time and few seem to care much, except in a sort of abstract posting-on-Twitter-way, even the government and media to a large extent, presumably because there’s some sheepishness involved in that most of the infected are fully vaxed and they don’t want to talk about that too much. Life is semi back to normal (almost totally if you’re vaxed, except for all the testing and isolating nonsense, and border restrictions), it’s summer after all, they are giving us a respite, and to take one issue, dropping the mask requirements from almost all places except hospitals and aged homes. Once the infection numbers are big enough the whole system, like of tracking and tracing, breaks down somewhat and if you do actually check in to places and get a message that you have to test and isolate you can safely ignore it apparently (obviously if you’re coughing and spluttering you stay home like people used to).

If you’re unvaxed you can’t do this and that, but lots of places don’t bother asking about vax status, and frankly, technologically their system is not good or integrated and it’s not hard to beat it (google ‘mylilanon’ if interested, not recommending anything mind). We’re not at the German stage of police going around to venues checking people’s vax certificates, our understanding is that police are told that is not their job, it’s all on the venue. In NSW they’re dropping the mandated discrimination and check in rules tomorrow, though venues can choose to keep enforcing it.

That’s something like how things are now and no idea where it’s going next winter, you can go to Anglin for that and hope that he’s wrong.