I'm not just talking about where I am (Australia, as most of you already know, by now), either... Some of the stuff I hear coming out of the US is actually worse (mandates to even attend University, for example... That isn't legal here, yet...), and you guys are all about your "freedom", or so you claim, at least...
But it seems to be pretty much everywhere. Chile - mandates for everything, and masks everywhere. Peru - gender-based curfews. The UK - PCR tests to even fucking travel. Canada - increasingly awful mandates and restrictions. France, Italy, Germany - vaccine passports and masks. Japan - separating children and mothers, and forcibly quarantining them separately...
And you already know about China, and South Africa, and New Zealand, Australia, and of course the US, so I don't feel the need to go over all those shitholes again.
What scares me, though, is the COMPLETE LACK OF ACTUAL RESISTANCE to all of this, except for France, Germany and the UK, and even then it has achieved fuck all...
Seriously, I'm not advocating violence, I'm honestly not, but if people don't, and won't, stand up now... How the fuck are we going to avoid full global fascism, a la 1984..?!
I never thought people would be this fucking weak, or utterly, utterly... Worse than cowardly. I'm not sure "coward" accurately describes someone who snitches on their neighbours, or their family, or "reports" people to the authorities for posting old travel snaps (yeah, that happened here, last year). I'm not sure it applies to someone who LITERALLY WANTS PEOPLE LIKE ME DEAD, because I'm not willing to get the fucking AstraZeneca jab. Nah, I don't think "coward" cuts it. I'm not quite sure what does. Fascist? Bastard? Literal scum of the earth? How the FUCK did society fall like this, so quick, nevermind all the other insane bullshit going on right now, all over the place..?
Fuck.
That's the crux of the issue, the only thing that will always make a sufficiently determined authoritarian elite second guess their power tripping is the potential threat of bodily harm. They're not terrified of being fined or fired, they have money and connections to spare and can still live comfortably in their safety net waiting for another chance to grab power, but a lynch mob is final. Those in authority threaten violence all the time, like sending the army to make sure no-one's being too social. Unilateral threats of violence are always a sure sign of oppression.
The old saying is that death is the great equalizer, and so, by extension is violence. Reason without violence will always lose to violence without reason. A man can choose to ignore reason or empathy (at least temporarily), but you can't choose to ignore being killed no matter how unreasonable their justification. But that wouldn't happen if you just knock out whoever intends you physical harm. Only reason backed, either directly or by third party, by a capacity for violence can hope to survive in a world where physically smashing someone's skull is a far quicker way to change someone's mind than a rational discussion. If you intend to truly hold onto any convictions in life, you have to be ready protect them from violence. And against some violence the only possible solution is more effective oppositional violence, at least demonstrated if not enacted.
Violence in a stable society is like a mutual nuclear deterrent, using it is a terrible circumstance for all concerned, but openly saying you won't use it even if provoked is inevitably inviting something far worse. That's not to say you have to make specific statements that in a burgeoning but not-quite-finished police state might cause you unnecessary trouble. Just now is not the time to further normalize pacifism when society at large has already forgotten the personal cost and necessities behind protecting what you value as good in the world and people's freedom from tyranny. Even ambiguity serves a better purpose rather than willingly toeing their line.