Anyone else notice this?
Fairly unsubstantiated post, based on personal experience, and on what I am seeing elsewhere.
As a "not fully vaccinated" person, society is closing in, increasingly. I am barely allowed to participate in goings-on, anymore. My family shuns and shames me. My "friends" have essentially abandoned me. Shit is getting very, very real, now...
Mask mandates are ubiquitous, across 6 or 7 out of the Australian jurisdictions, including the one I am stuck in. Vaccine mandates, too. I'm not allowed to work. I essentially can't "go out". In another state, they want to make mandates apply in supermarkets, too, so you essentially won't be able to buy food...
"Social distancing" is also ubiquitously still in place. Businesses are closing EVERYWHERE, because they can't make money. Governments are constantly threatening "new lockdowns" and curfews, because, duhh, Omicron, means rising case numbers. It's genuinely scary to see where things are going...
Aside from not currently being in lockdown, we are currently the most restricted we have ever been. Ever. Especially if you are "unvaccinated", or, increasingly, unboosted...
Very soon, people like me won't even be able to enter a university campus, or even study online. Can't work, can't study. Logic...
And people ABSOLUTELY lap this up. Media coverage is UNIVERSALLY for more restrictions. Almost everyone I know, and encounter "IRL" is all for it. As is the entirety of local Reddit, aside from, obviously, the "critical" or "skeptical" subs. Worse than that, if you question ANY element of it, you are shamed, ostracised, demonized, treated worse than dirt. Why?
I know this isn't the case everywhere. Not in Red states. Not in Mexico, per se. Not in Japan. Not in parts of Eastern Europe, or Africa, or elsewhere. But it is, here. It IS, in NZ. It IS in Blue states. It IS in the UK, and in France, and in Germany, and in Austria, and in the Netherlands. Some of those places are even more extreme than where I am, despite less compliant populations, and lower vaxx rates...
When, and how does this end?? Next year will almost certainly be worse. In fact, for me personally, I 100% guarantee it will be.
When will people wake up? Will they ever?? What the fuck are we going to do?? How do we actually push back? I'm genuinely beginning to think that this WON'T end, because people simply do not want it to, so... Where do we go from here??
Here's what I'm getting at, and I'm taking what you say about being in the extreme minority at face value.
If your goal is to oppose the insanity, you're probably going to get arrested or killed in the process. At the very least you need to be prepared for that. Sad but true.
If your goal is to buy food without the vaxx, then your solution is to get the pass without getting the vaxx. Or find some sympathetic shopkeepers and/or employers.
If your goal is to live a normal life, then your solution is to find a way to leave the country and find a more hospitable one. Sad but true.
I guess, depressing and honestly mortifying as this is to write...
"It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees". - Midnight Oil, The Power and the Passion. Yes, yes, I know they didn't come up with that, but it's what comes to mind.
Ironic, given that the singer of that is almost certainly a vehement supporter of all this, and literally became a government minister, going against all that he espoused. Just like fucking Al Franken. But actually worse... :-/
Honestly, fuck Australia, at this point. What is there even left of it, that's worth saving?
The entire fucking country has gone completely insane. Just like Canada. Just like Germany. But at least the Germans fought back, for a while.
Australians? "Yeah nah, fuck you, just do what the government says, ey! She'll be right! I'm sure they know what's best!"
crying...