Australia’s early colonization was driven by shiploads of wretched English prisoners, whose descendants at least gained their liberty and built one of the freest countries on Earth. In The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf chronicles the slash-and-burn destruction of liberty by the island-continent’s pandemic-panicked political class. Almost like they want to resuscitate the 18th century prison-island – using sinister 21st century tech and bureaucratic ruthlessness.
The Frigid Isle
Íris Erlingsdóttir shines a light on the world’s first wholly feminized state. Women, she writes in The European Conservative, run everything in Iceland: “the presidency, the prime minister’s office…[the] national state church…schools, municipalities, police…newsrooms and [the] ever-expanding public bureaucracy.” As for the men, Erlingsdóttir observes, they describe themselves ruefully as (bad-taste alert) “pussy-whipped.”
