We’ve often discussed the insatiable desire that governments have for more control over your life.
Whenever they manage to infringe on your liberty, they rarely, if ever relinquish it. In fact, it’s much more likely that they’ll use that gain, however minor, as a springboard to take further control.
We saw it through the COVID pandemic.
Being generous, let’s assume that most of the decisions taken by government were motivated by public health. But that didn’t justify them ignoring proven science or claiming things were one way when they were obviously another.
And just on 'the science', it’s becoming increasingly obvious that ‘the science’ referred to here was based on the decisions taken in America by the CDC and Dr Fauci.
Both have serious questions to answer and I suspect our authorities have some questions to answer too.
That said, the fear campaign was so effective that most Australians went along with it. Alarmingly, not only did they put up with it, many became the equivalent of the Eastern Bloc reporters of prohibited behaviour.
The Keiths and Karens screeching about social distancing or ineffective masks being worn are still etched in my memory. You might know a few of them too.
Anyway, most of the populace want to put all those actions behind them and I suspect that the authorities and those who discriminated on the basis of vaccine status want y0u to forget too.
But this period showed just how compliant most of us are.
By us, I don’t mean me…or likely you either, I am referring to the Australian populace.
That will only embolden our government to seize more power and based on the experience overseas it will embolden other governments too.
Some of those plans are already evident.
One of them is Central Bank Digital Currencies or CBDCs.
In essence these are programmable currencies that allow government to track everything you purchase. By programmable I mean they also allow government to prohibit you spending them on non sanctioned items.
This could mean limits on alcohol or fast food purchases. It could also be used to limit the amount of meat you eat, how much fuel you can buy or the number of flights you may take.
It all sounds far fetched but those moves are already well underway.
Nigeria launched a CBDC last year and this week capped cash withdrawals from ATMs at just $45 per day in order to force people to go cashless.
The Nigerians are wisely rejecting the CBDC and the government are determined to force it upon them.
Here in Australia we already have a CBDC pilot program and the Reserve Bank has warned that:
“it could displace the Australian dollar and result in people avoiding commercial banks entirely”
“the central bank has no incentive to use personal data which can be exploited by private organisations — and could help safeguard monetary sovereignty that may be lost if a stablecoin or foreign CBDC fills a domestic vacuum.”
The team working on the 'eAUD' program is expecting to publish a report on the project around the middle of 2023 and you can bet it will be a resounding recommendation to introduce and transition us all on to the ultimate government control mechanism.
Spain’s central bank is also on the CBDC bandwagon.
They are often at the forefront of job, privacy and economy destroying Leftist programs so that might give you an indication of how bad it is.
Compare and contrast the attitude of these three governments with that of economic minnow El Salvador.
Rather than create a CBDC of their own, they chose to embrace the future of global money - Bitcoin, and made it legal tender.
Well that’s how I regard it anyway.
I consider Bitcoin as the greatest tool of financial freedom ever developed.
It's decentralised, meaning its not controlled by government and it cannot be debased like regular government issued currencies can.
I suspect that's why so many governments hate it. Bitcoin is beyond their control.
And control is what almost every government wants.
Cory Bernardi is the author of seven books and has been a member of the Australian rowing team, a publican, an investment portfolio manager and spent nearly 14 years as an Australian Senator.
