[mindslight]

You most certainly have the right to defend yourself with lethal force, but good luck practically asserting that right. About the only hope for that would be citizen militias organizing to defend society against these lawless criminals.

This here should be a call for the libertarian-oriented red tribe to fight back against government tyranny. Either much of the red tribe needs to break free of their propaganda bubble misleading them into thinking this totalitarian behavior is in any way American, or things are going to continue to get uglier and uglier.

[cinquemb]

One can be against the lockdowns in response to a public health emergency and against incidences like these…

Reminds me of my response to my wife in reaction to the State Dept "pleading" for americans to come back "home"… I'm strongly in the camp of things getting worse and worse because none of the underlying issues in modern american society have been adequately addressed for a long time.

[mindslight]

I edited that bit out because it was invoking a generalized "other" that didn't need to be. Just by sheer numbers, surely some who were protesting at state capitols are also protesting unaccountable police and institutionalized racism.

More succinctly though, there are many people refusing to wear masks, claiming it is government control rather than reasonable common sense in their own best interest. Meanwhile this is actual tyranny that must be resisted if we are to retain our remaining freedoms.

For the general trend, I want to hope that we're seeing the darkness before the light, but my cynical side tells me that's just a coping mechanism.

[cinquemb]

> More succinctly though, there are many people refusing to wear masks, claiming it is government control rather than reasonable common sense in their own best interest.

Yeah, I don't get that, but I'm not surprised many americans are against stupidly cheap ways to slow spread to any degree. However in response to that, lockdowns (stupidly expensive) seem to just bring on more unintended negative effects while still no guarantee at all against future death from covid.

Luckily for me, I moved to place where the government isn't strong enough to enforce such a lockdown (or a bunch of other things USG and individual state govs routinely get away with the relative apathy of the public) and people already have a culture of wearing masks in public.

> For the general trend, I want to hope that we're seeing the darkness before the light, but my cynical side tells me that's just a coping mechanism.

This is nothing yet, if history is any lesson. I've long abandoned any sense of hope.

[mindslight]

While being generally libertarian, I did support the shutdowns because 1. there are many people who have very little choice whether to keep going to work, due to the rent treadmill the government has created 2. some kind of actual change was/is required to snap most people out of just going about their business as usual.

That expensive course of action should have been used to regroup and implement a sensible containment plan. Instead that time was basically wasted, which is need the real tragedy.

> I'm not surprised many americans are against stupidly cheap ways to slow spread to any degree

I've got to ask specifically why would you expect this? I mean I see the general ignorance and deference to expensive centralized solutions. But I would have thought that a pan-partisan shared threat like a pandemic would have put more people on the same page.

[cinquemb]

> 2. some kind of actual change was/is required to snap most people out of just going about their business as usual.

If the basis for such change comes from state diktats rather than understanding and willingness of the population to adopt such from their own initiatives… it's not surprising things are turning out the way they are.

> That expensive course of action should have been used to regroup and implement a sensible containment plan. Instead that time was basically wasted, which is need the real tragedy.

Short from martial law, my confidence in any government to succeed in such from the get go is nil. Bull in a china shop.

> But I would have thought that a pan-partisan shared threat like a pandemic would have put more people on the same page.

I would think the same thing to if the incentives for most people to be on the same page were there pre pandemic… they were not. Now there's a free for all of conflicting ideologies, while still being crushed under the weight of decades of malfeasance that has only been exacerbated even more.