[jacobgkau]

Something small like in-person gatherings for several years in response to a pandemic? Like someone else in the thread claimed was a made-up problem that's only in peoples' heads?

It's really interesting seeing how widely varied peoples' definitions of these things are.

[mastersummoner]

The pandemic was a national emergency. Covid was an extremely contagious disease without a lot of existing immunity. The right call was made for the safety of several hundred million Americans. Most other countries made the exact same one.

[jacobgkau]

I wouldn't say most other countries made the exact same call, only because there are plenty of people who think we didn't go far enough. When the comment I was referring to said "Covid response in the US wasn't that bad," I actually wasn't sure whether they were saying the lockdowns weren't that bad or their effectiveness wasn't that bad. (I can kind of assume the former based on the rest of their messaging, but still, there's a range of opinions people had/have about it.)

[aqueueaqueue]

I'm glad to have lived in a country where they had strict lock downs pre-vaccine. I imagine there are funerals I didn't have to go to as a result. But flip side people could claim I was under martial law etc. stripped of my freedoms.

I thank NZ for leading the way.

[jacobgkau]

I'd love the fact that NZ went ahead and banned tobacco cigarettes if I lived there (sad they wimped out on it before it went into effect), but there are plenty of people who'd be very upset about that here in the US. And I'd love it if we banned cannabis again here, but again, there are a lot of people who that'd piss off. I can understand where they're coming from even if I think they're idiots for using recreational (sometimes toxic) drugs.

[galangalalgol]

People only care about the freedoms to do things they themselves enjoy. Nothing new about that. Much like people only care about authoritarian overreach when the opposition is in power. We should always care, because the power taken by one will remain for the next. Eventually if too much power accrues to any branch it will end the separation of powers. It may have already happened, and once it does, there are no parties, only that boot. Authoritarians are all the same party, they exist at the integer wrap of left vs right. It is why you see extremists from both ends swapping parties far more often than those towards the middle.