The snuffing out of freedom in Afghanistan is sad, but most Afghans didn’t want it anyway. Some Australians do want it — which makes this even sadder:

Meanwhile, New Zealand has gone into lockdown again — because a single case of Covid was discovered, the first to be locally transmitted in 6 months. There have been only 26 virus deaths in the entire country since it was first exported from China.

Once a certain percentage of the population no longer cares enough about freedom to insist on it, not much time will pass before authoritarians find a pretext to take it away.

On tips from Wiggins, Troy H, and Varla.