Daniel Andrews stunned Australia ? and half the world ? this week. But his Commonwealth Games bombshell doesn?t add up.
COMMENT
For decades in the 20th century, the Stalinist USSR was considered a roaring success by many western academics and economists.
The brutal state-imposed collectivisation of farms, forced mass industrialisation and an orchestrated Ukrainian famine that killed millions was considered an economic miracle by the leftist intelligentsia.
Soviet growth ? fuelled by coal, oil and gas ? seemed unstoppable. And then it stopped.
The command economy ceased to do what it was told to.
With many more millions already dead or enslaved in the gulags and countless thousands killed by political purges, even the artifice of competence collapsed in the 1970s and the Soviet Union itself collapsed two decades later.
This is the greatest and most tragic example of the extreme left?s Quixotic belief that it can bend the world to its will. That ideology can somehow conquer reality.
A more minor and mild but no less telling example has this week been provided by the Australian state of Victoria, where once again it appears the presiding government believes natural laws do not apply.
I speak of course of the abrupt cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games, which has stunned half the world, all the Home Counties and a good chunk of the Labor Party ? not to mention a certain sports-crazed nation called Australia.
So swift, unexpected and absolute was Premier Dan Andrews? announcement that front page headlines speculated that he may have actually killed off the Commonwealth Games altogether.
But even if they do stagger on in 2026 or beyond, there are far more important issues at play.
There is an old joke about socialists or academics ? or indeed the many who successfully combine both roles ? that when presented with a successful outcome they will say: ?That?s all very well in practice but how does it work in theory??
Once again, reality is the enemy. The world is a foreign country.
We saw this during Covid when the Victorian government imposed the most extreme lockdowns in the country and the lengthiest in the world because of an ideological obsession with stamping out the virus at all human cost, while at the same time implementing a hotel quarantine regime so unimaginably piss-weak and slapstick that it emerged no one was actually in charge of it at all.
It was at the same time both ridiculous and cruel ? banning couples from seeing each other and Sam Newman from playing golf and shutting down children?s playgrounds for good measure.
Today it all seems insane, but it should never be forgotten that it was declared insane by many at the time as well, and all of those concerns were shot down by Twitter?s Red Army.
And even now, as then, the official narrative is that Andrews was a Covid hero who defeated the disease through iron will ? a narrative that has literally zero correlation with reality.
More: https://www.news.com.au/sport/commonwealth-games/numbers-just-dont-add-up-mystery-surrounds-daniel-andrews-commonwealth-games-bombshell/news-story/bfbb887f13e59cbcb6e2d4a6747be600
COMMENT
For decades in the 20th century, the Stalinist USSR was considered a roaring success by many western academics and economists.
The brutal state-imposed collectivisation of farms, forced mass industrialisation and an orchestrated Ukrainian famine that killed millions was considered an economic miracle by the leftist intelligentsia.
Soviet growth ? fuelled by coal, oil and gas ? seemed unstoppable. And then it stopped.
The command economy ceased to do what it was told to.
With many more millions already dead or enslaved in the gulags and countless thousands killed by political purges, even the artifice of competence collapsed in the 1970s and the Soviet Union itself collapsed two decades later.
This is the greatest and most tragic example of the extreme left?s Quixotic belief that it can bend the world to its will. That ideology can somehow conquer reality.
A more minor and mild but no less telling example has this week been provided by the Australian state of Victoria, where once again it appears the presiding government believes natural laws do not apply.
I speak of course of the abrupt cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games, which has stunned half the world, all the Home Counties and a good chunk of the Labor Party ? not to mention a certain sports-crazed nation called Australia.
So swift, unexpected and absolute was Premier Dan Andrews? announcement that front page headlines speculated that he may have actually killed off the Commonwealth Games altogether.
But even if they do stagger on in 2026 or beyond, there are far more important issues at play.
There is an old joke about socialists or academics ? or indeed the many who successfully combine both roles ? that when presented with a successful outcome they will say: ?That?s all very well in practice but how does it work in theory??
Once again, reality is the enemy. The world is a foreign country.
We saw this during Covid when the Victorian government imposed the most extreme lockdowns in the country and the lengthiest in the world because of an ideological obsession with stamping out the virus at all human cost, while at the same time implementing a hotel quarantine regime so unimaginably piss-weak and slapstick that it emerged no one was actually in charge of it at all.
It was at the same time both ridiculous and cruel ? banning couples from seeing each other and Sam Newman from playing golf and shutting down children?s playgrounds for good measure.
Today it all seems insane, but it should never be forgotten that it was declared insane by many at the time as well, and all of those concerns were shot down by Twitter?s Red Army.
And even now, as then, the official narrative is that Andrews was a Covid hero who defeated the disease through iron will ? a narrative that has literally zero correlation with reality.
More: https://www.news.com.au/sport/commonwealth-games/numbers-just-dont-add-up-mystery-surrounds-daniel-andrews-commonwealth-games-bombshell/news-story/bfbb887f13e59cbcb6e2d4a6747be600