In my mind totalitarianism is a means to an end. The end with these "tools" now is to limit death, but the means aren't working well (in the west, anyways). In a traditional auth. situation, the end is usually perpetual power and/or some ideological bend (genocide or something).
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I don't think we're in a traditional auth. situation now. It's a classic "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" in my mind.
Sure we're seeing some signs of government overreach, but the impetus is to save lives, not some consipriacy to control the masses. Doing so misses the mark and distracts from the real issue at hand.
One problem is, it’s very hard to get a government to give up so-called “emergency powers” even after the emergency is long over. How many times has the Patriot Act been renewed now?
What part of the pandemic response do you think will be difficult for government to give up? Certainly the large measures (lockdowns) will be lifted once we are vaccinated. Is this more of a general fear, or do you have something relevant to the current situation?
What makes you think that the lockdowns will be lifted after we are all vaccinated for this particular strain of COVID? That’s like saying “surely the government will stop monitoring private communications and correlating metadata, and disband unconstitutional FISA courts after Al-quaida has been defeated”
> What makes you think that the lockdowns will be lifted after we are all vaccinated for this particular strain of COVID
Because I think most reps are acting in good faith, and nobody wants these lockdowns - they are just necessary. Why would someone want to continue them after Covid?
Maybe as a show of good faith, those same reps should stop extending the patriot act, to convince the more suspicious among us that advances in tyranny are not permanent. Until that happens, I am not convinced, and I will continue to tell people like you that you shouldn’t fall for it either.
Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I don't think we're in a traditional auth. situation now. It's a classic "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity" in my mind.
Sure we're seeing some signs of government overreach, but the impetus is to save lives, not some consipriacy to control the masses. Doing so misses the mark and distracts from the real issue at hand.