[theodric]

Look at what's happening in the UK right now to see how illiberal Western democracies can be when up against the wall. Don't forget that it was only about 2-3 years ago that there were temporary going-outside-without-a-good-reason bans in the USA, while Irish police were inspecting people's shopping to make sure they weren't buying anything non-essential[1]. Most recently, the UK has now jailed several people for significant periods for being racist on Twitter. Ireland won't be far behind, because we're not clever enough to write our own laws, preferring to crib from the UK and then ratchet up the severity and hand-wringing during implementation.

Broad liberty is not a thing because people don't know anything different, prefer safety to opportunity, and don't want it badly enough to be willing to clog the courts and jails until the economy suffers. And the power that has become entrenched is more interested in maintaining maximum control/the appearance of harmony, and punishing severely any who dissent, than in doing anything that might see their control diminished. The EU is pushing for 'chat control' (invasive surveillance of all encrypted instant messaging) again, despite it having been defeated previously. Why would encrypted RF comms be treated any differently, especially when it's as simple as passing a law saying 'not permitted without a license as of 1 Jan' and then refusing to issue any licenses?

God's sake, they're lowering all our non-motorway speed limits to 37MPH in October. That's not something esoteric or technical, and in a country with as poor public transport as Ireland, affects pretty much everyone for the worse-- and yet I can't find a single person who has even complained to their representative! Worse, they all seem to be OK with it. Nobody actually asked for this, and everyone is both powerless and uninterested in doing anything about it.

[1] https://extra.ie/2020/04/16/news/irish-news/gardai-inspectin...