Talking of the Bolter, fake scandals, Freedom Boy and off to Syria for the by-election, as you do on a meditative Sunday ...

And so to the Bolter this meditative Sunday:

Isn't he wonderful?

So many fake scandals to explode - the Border Force one ...

And that's how forelock tugging, servile fellow travellers serve their masters ...

No, the pond won't be watching/didn't watch, not with that sort of pitch, but look, Freedom Boy himself was on the march, and saw it as a scandal in Border Force: Freedom doesn't sit with governments:

The increasing paramilitarisation of wandering bureaucrats was always going to lead to overreach that united everyone in favour of defending civil liberties. 
On Friday, the government's rebranded immigration enforcement agency, Border Force, was supposed to have its first outing working with Victoria Police. In the clear light of day, Operation Fortitude was relatively routine. Victoria Police was going to do its job and provide a visible police presence to enforce the law. Officers were also to work with other agencies to promote inter-agency co-operation. It has been done before. 
But that wasn't how Border Force presented it. In a chilling statement the force said "ABF officers will be positioned at various locations around the CBD speaking with any individual we cross paths with". I read this in news reports and thought ABF had been selectively quoted. Instead the original press release was accurate. Such statements are antithetical in a liberal democracy. 
Logic said Border Force could only match its actions with its words by stopping people when they had no reasonable grounds of suspicion, or engage in racial profiling. Neither are acceptable. It is also absurd that any of us walk around with our passport, or that we should be expected to do so. 
Horrified in response I called the minister's office seeking an explanation. 
Later, the agency issued a clarifying statement that "the ABF does not and will not stop people at random in the streets and does not target on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity". 
By that stage the damage was done. 
Regardless of Border Force's intentions, it raises serious questions about the culture of an agency where anyone thought such statements could be publicly released. It also raises questions about the increasing paramilitarisation of bureaucrats. 
No one has an issue with the law being enforced. We expect it. It's necessary. But it's the job of the police to enforce the law. Increasingly governments are giving more powers to bureaucrats to actively seek out compliance with laws and regulations, rather than simply processing paperwork. That only leads to those unskilled and untrained to overstep the mark and risk infringing our civil liberties... 

And so on. Freedom Boy vs. the Bolter.

Well now we know that at least one can pick the difference between a fake scandal and a genuine one ... and see past the humbug of "it was a mistake", "it was just a press release", "it doesn't have any more implications than a typo or a grammatical error" ...

He mentions agency culture, the increasing paramilitarisation of bureaucrats ... and we all know how that started, and who oversaw the uniforms and the funding ... as Lenore Taylor noted on The Insiders (yes, the pond did watch that one), without any coherent definition of their responsibilities, duties and powers in a domestic context.

Anyone with half an eye would have long ago noticed the militarisation of American policing, with left over military gear and a gung ho shoot first attitude.

But apparently not the Bolter.

Which helps explain why Freedom Boy gets one thing badly wrong, as he worries about where freedom dwells and whether it solely lives in the law:

It sits in the hearts and minds of the body politic. On Friday, it didn't matter where you were on the political spectrum. Every Melburnian understood in a free and pluralist society it was their responsibility to defend freedoms and basic decency for all.

A responsibility?

Wrong Freedom Boy. Not every Melburnian understood. It did matter where you were on the political spectrum.

It particularly mattered if you were of the extremist hard right, who possibly fancy themselves in decent black leather.

Most notably the dark hearted Melburnian Bolter, ready to try out for the role of Scarpia yet again, didn't understand and preferred to blather about fake scandals ...

As for Abbott taking any sort of responsibility for what he set in motion, remember this?

Sorry, lickspittle lackey who compiled the press release, the buck stops with you, as senior management and the pollies run a mile.

We should be a little ashamed of ourselves?

Yep:

There's a rogue with absolutely no sense of responsibility, shame or adult government.

It's not the press release, you doofus, it's the paramilitary pomp proposing to go on parade in the streets...

What next? Well here's what sent the Bolter into a foaming frenzy:

Shame, Mr Windsor, it's certain to be the fault of a clumsily worded press release.

And while on the subject of national security, why not drop in on Syria strikes: Top expert questions Tony Abbott's motivations for air strikes in Syria (with forced video):

The Lowy Institute's Rodger Shanahan, a former army officer turned Middle East expert, has questioned the wisdom of the expansion. 
"It's not going to have any real operational impact given the weight of sorties that we will be able to bring to bear," Dr Shanahan said. "So if it's not operationally significant the question is why do it? "Therefore there must be a political reason for doing it, best known only to the government." 
Still trailing in the polls, the government has in recent weeks sought to shift the agenda to national security. 
There have also been claims that the National Security Committee of Cabinet asked for a list of weekly security-related announcements it can make between now and the next election. 
Mr Abbott has denied that claim but it has cast a cloud over the government's motivations for suddenly focusing on Syria.


And so on and on, but at least there was a cartoon to relieve the gloom. Or provoke more gloom, depending how you feel about the way the country's heading:

And there's just time for a Kudelka cartoon, and more Kudelka here: