[WaylonKenning]

As someone who lived in Canada, lives next to Australia, and lives in New Zealand, I wouldn't suggest any of these places are 'devolving into police states'.

Having people do stuff to protect the safety of themselves and others is part of the social contract of these countries. We wear seatbelts. We wear helmets on Motorbikes. All things that restrict our freedom to damage ourselves.

Because who incurs the cost of when you hurt yourself or others? The government! Like a lot of advanced countries we have a single payer government operated healthcare system that needs to ration care since nothing in life is infinite. So governments are motivated to protect systems that protect everyone like healthcare.

[Mikeb85]

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.BEDS.ZS?location...

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?location...

Yes, I'm ecstatic we pay a ton of taxes to have one of the worst healthcare systems in the developed world. Well behind the EU and OECD averages. We've got 1/3 the doctors per capita of France FFS...

Now we get to continue to pay a ton of taxes to have a shitty healthcare system AND have business and travel restrictions. Good deal.

Know what else was part of the social contract? Things like freedom of travel, the ability to run a business without government interference... Now Canada's whole economy is a housing ponzi scheme and everyone I know is selling their businesses and/or leaving the country.

[colpabar]

What bugs me about the "we can't overwhelm the health care system" argument is that when/if this is all over, NOTHING will be done to improve the health care system to help prevent that from happening in the future. We'll all just continue to be told to be mad at each other, and no one in charge will be held accountable.

[bryanlarsen]

AFAICT, Quebec was probably the only province to do the most effective thing to improve the health care system: increasing the wages of nurses. Only half-heartedly because it was a bonus not a raise, but it's a lot better than Ontario which is effectively reducing the wages of their nurses after inflation by legislatively capping raises to 1%.

Here's hoping it's a major election issue in Ontario this summer.

[sekh60]

I hope it is, but sadly people have short memories. I worry Ford will announce an end to all restrictions come election time so people focus on that instead of all the cuts.

[Baloo]

Meanwhile..

"There is not a single example of a country with less than 40% of the population overweight that has high death rates (over 10 per 100 000). Similarly, no country with a death rate over 100 per 100 000 had less than 50% of their population overweight.

When are we going to start banning overweight from consuming alcohol and eating fast food? They're putting tremendous pressure on our universal healthcare system!

Yes we have a social contract. Yes people take measures such as seatbelts and helmets. No, neither of those are the same as mandating individuals to take a vaccine that has limited benefit for the majority of people. Following a year long media campaign of fear, after accepting lockdowns, the only supposed solution is taking a vaccine that has been sped through clinical trials and at best serves to reduce the severity for those most at risk from Covid.

I see pure coercion. How long before access to the majority of vital services will be dependant on 'up to date' vaccination status, checked and logged in via your app whenever you travel, shop, work. How long before this turns into a social credit system?

[sumosudo]

https://denisrancourt.ca/entries.php?id=107&name=2021_10_25_...

[ajkdhcb2]

As an Australian who was concerned enough to emigrate, i'd suggest learning about the security laws passed over the last 10 years and considering how it matches the opportunistic actions taken during the pandemic. Maybe you like the police state and it is somewhat democratic so far but that doesnt mean isn't quite literally a police state.

[rastignack]

> Having people do stuff to protect the safety of themselves and others is part of the social contract of these countries.

Are smokers and alcohol consumers also targeted by these social credit type measures in those states ?

[aaplok]

https://participate.melbourne.vic.gov.au/smoke-free-melbourn...

https://www.smokefree.org.nz/smokefree-in-action/smokefree-a...

Less drastically, a lot of places are putting heavy restrictions on smoking, and there are heavy taxes on tobacco and alcohol (arguably those taxes contribute to paying for tobacco and alcohol related health problems.)

[muizelaar]

Yes, cigarettes and alcohol are taxed specifically by the state.

[rastignack]

We are talking about much more alienating restrictions here.

[daenz]

Seat belts and helmets do not require chemicals to be injected into your bloodstream in order to freely associate with other humans. These measures change free association by making it illegal to exist naturally around others. There is a huge difference.

[EForEndeavour]

Yeah, but cars don't hitch rides in your lungs and jump into nearby people's mouths, occasionally injuring them.

[daenz]

Based on that reasoning we should ban free association because people randomly assault others occasionally too.

[EForEndeavour]

Well, no, which is why we don't mandate vaccines against viruses which don't cause once-in-a-century pandemics. But that's separate from what I wanted to respond to, which was the false equivalence between seatbelts/helmets and vaccines.

[daenz]

The new authoritarian infrastructure that we put in place in order to "combat the pandemic" will live long after the pandemic, and negatively affect the lives of everyone going forward. Governments do not have a track record of giving up power.

Telling people to stay indoors if they're scared is much more preferable to injecting government into every aspect of our lives.

Also I'm not sure why you're mentioning false equivalence to me, since I am also highlighting the false equivalence between vaccines and seat belts.

[EForEndeavour]

Sorry, you're right, and in that sense we're on the same side: I shouldn't have written "false equivalence." I meant to point out that your objection of "well, seatbelts don't require you to inject chemicals into your body, so there's a huge difference" is irrelevant precisely because there is a huge difference between the bad outcome that seatbelts prevent the bad outcome that vaccines prevent.

[ggm]

Australia is not a police state. Its a state with a complex federal structure which has concerns about broad-brush legislative change, but thats about boil-the-frog-slowly changes, which are being resisted in the senate.

We are not under martial law, or required to register with the police, or subject to wide-ranging arbitrary constraints.

We have temporary, government moderated, revokable restrictions under public health orders which have existed for decades. It is true that some lazy states sought to increase minister-directed powers but this didn't just slip through parliament.

[playcache]

Would you accept people being able to shop if they can demonstrate they have anti-bodies / natural immunity?

[gruez]

>I wouldn't suggest any of these places are 'devolving into police states'. [...]

>Because who incurs the cost of when you hurt yourself or others? The government!

Are you saying that a given regulation/policy doesn't contribute to a police state as long it's justified by "harm"?