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Today, the 23rd of March, marks six years since Boris Johnson implemented the first Covid Lockdown in the United Kingdom. This time of year will always remind me of those eerie first couple of weeks of lockdown. The cherry blossom trees, in all their Spring glory, standing lonely in the usually heaving central park at lunch time. Driving down the main motorway in and out of my city and not seeing a single other car at 5pm rush-hour on a weekday. The ease which unfounded terror was spread through the population during those weeks was eye-opening. The unquestioning acquiescence of all my fellow citizens made me realise for the first time just how subject to the whims of authority this society was and just how fragile and precious was my own freedom.
For the first couple of weeks, as the virus’s spread through Europe was meticulously tracked and broadcast, as carefully curated images of overwhelmed hospitals and rows of coffins were plastered across our screens, although I was already vehemently arguing against any imposed restrictions, I still retained some sympathy for the scared and frightened masses. But as the early data coming out of Italy and other places started to emerge and was so evidently at odds with the fearmongering propaganda all around me, my sympathy quickly gave way first to bewilderment and then slowly to anger.
As The Science™ took deeper hold and lockdown for two weeks to flatten the curve turned into lockdown for the summer turned into second lockdown turned into third lockdown and still the people clamoured for more restrictions and railed angrily against even the mildest suggestion that maybe we should ease up on the tyranny. Any moment now, I thought, surely any moment now the people will break and rise up against this imprisonment. All their lives they’ve been told that they live in a free democracy and now they’re happy to be essentially locked inside their homes, told they can’t visit friends and family, told they can’t touch or hug their family members, even if they’re dying, while with their own eyes they should be able to see that the virus for which all this suffering is supposed to be in honour of is so much less potent than they were told, while with their own eyes they should be able to see the hypocrisy of being ordered that grandparents are not to hold or even visit their new-born grandchildren while thousands marched shoulder to shoulder in the streets in celebration protest of the death of a criminal in a land 4,000 miles away. But no, the people never rose up. As Orwell, who understood the crowd better than any, once observed “Nowadays there is no mob, only a flock” and so it proved as my cowed peers meekly submitted to every curtailment of their freedom.
I will always remember lying in an empty field, reading a book in the warm sunshine and being buzzed by a police helicopter for being outdoors while not undertaking my mandated single-allotted daily exercise. I will always remember being told by the police to move on while sat in the deserted central park. I will always remember the multiple other times I was interrogated by the police for not cowering at home like a good citizen. I will always remember the fear in the eyes of my brother’s girlfriend as she shied away from anybody who got within two metres of her. I will always remember the depths of persuasion I had to employ to convince two of my friends to come and spend a night in the countryside with me during summer 2020, and the lies they had to tell their mothers to even be allowed out (and back in) their homes. I will always remember my work colleague who got suspended for hugging another colleague. I will always remember being kept apart from my partner in a foreign country due to closed borders. I will always remember being told by my own parents that I was not welcome in their house.
Today, the 23rd of March, marks six years since Boris Johnson implemented the first Covid Lockdown in the United Kingdom and life has returned to normal. The traffic is heavy and the parks are busy again. The Black Mirror-esque dystopian future that we got a horrifying glimpse of has faded away. Even the predictable economic and public-health consequences of lockdown have somewhat smoothed out. Covid came up in conversation the other day and my dad glibly remarked, “Covid? That’s ancient history now!” The world has moved on but, for me, the memory of Covid lockdowns still dominates my outlook. There is still a deep rage within me at the brutal illustration of the state’s power to strip away my freedom, cheered on wholeheartedly by the electorate. There is still a disbelieving resentment at how readily the populace succumbed to government control and willingly followed directives that just six months previous they would have loudly decried as inhumane. The hypocrisy of lockdown policies was responsible for a violent swing in my own politics, from casual left-wing socialist to hard libertarian, but most of all the lockdowns destroyed my faith in my fellow humans. The stark demonstration of just how easily manufactured-fear convinced the country to follow ridiculous commands replaced my underlying faith & trust in humanity with a smouldering disdain. The betrayal of even my own family, as they chose to follow the orders of tyrants and closed the door on their own child, drove a dagger into my heart.
I remember the lockdowns and I’m still angry.
General comment on this thread, not a warning for any individual in particular:
Rarely do I see so many reports on posts that are almost entirely "This guy's opinion makes me mad."
The thread is interesting and obviously evokes lots of feelings. What depresses me about it is not any of the discourse about Covid and vaccinations and lockdowns. It's the constant reminder that on a forum where people supposedly value free speech, the average poster still just wants everyone they disagree with to be shut up.
Contemplate that while whining about vaccinations and lockdowns.
I’m surprised that tensions are running so high in this thread (myself included). Meanwhile this forum has unusually civil discussions on many topics that would devolve into nasty flame wars pretty much anywhere else.
I’m not at all surprised. To watch government officials pass draconian restrictions that they refused to abide by themselves; to watch public health officials knowingly and intentionally lie, to see them brag about it on TV, and then to see the world still continue to treat their word as gospel; to be mistreated and maligned for years over an issue on which you were right; to become a victim of the mother of all moral panics; and then to see the perpetrators call for a period of national forgiveness and completely avoid taking responsibility for their actions—all that is enough to radicalize and permanently embitter almost anyone.
But of course the board also has some members who broadly agreed with their government’s approach, making the perfect setup for an acrimonious fight.
No I think what's surpring to some is seeing OP get any criticism on here at all. This board was my primary info(tainment) source on Covid way back then, and throughout the years I had just assumed everybody here would harshly criticise the lockdowns, or at least not get mad when someone does it. I'm really at a loss as to who here would report OP or get mad at it.
I got the impression that anti-lockdowners have been reporting the lockdown defenders’ posts, not that a lot of people have been reporting the OP. Perhaps @Amadan can clarify.
ETA: I see he did clarify below.
I imagine much of the frustration comes come from the middle/common sense feeling eroded- as someone who was mostly anti-lockdown (well pro common sense lockdown, which was swiftly abandoned) it certainly feels like a lot of anti-lockdown people deny COVID ever happened.
Having lived it through it...that's infuriating. I haven't reported but I can see a lot of people with personal experiences (like deaths in the family) freaking out.
"Common sense" doesn't work. "Common sense" gets you to Darwin's argument -- that the disease can't spread if people aren't near each other, so lockdowns are good.
How so? Initial flattening the curve was a real thing that actually helped, public health institutions, cowardly politicians, and Karen energy betrayed the parts that worked and kept things going indefinitely. Banning people from parks and from fucking being outside was nonsense and only made sense (if ever) in dense urban environments). Don't punish people who live in places where shit made sense!
Anger at broken institutions, excess of conservatism and so on? Sure!
Acting like COVID didn't happen? ...tis nonsense.
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