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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 19, 2022

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I understand the anger, I feel a lot of it myself. But this is too boo-outgroupy and inflammatory for what is supposed to be a discussion group. This isn't a place to vent, it is a place to discuss, and you should speak as if everyone is reading/listening.

You are assuming “everyone” is just the Americans here. Many places around the world (ranging from most of Asia and Latin America to Germanic/Francophone Europe to former white British colonies) had experiences with covid which very much justify that depiction. Indefinite house(or proper) arrest, and mass firings of people not going along with the hysteria was a reality less than a year ago. There was a very credible possibility that even worse would come, as anyone who saw the news coverage in places like Austria could easily deduct.

Not sure how inflammatory it is compared to just describing reality... Australia had quarantine camps and Canada as well had guarded mandatory "hotels"... wasn't even for confirmed cases, you could test negative but if you met requirements (daring to leave the country while unvaxxed, filling out a form wrong) you actually were physically detained without trial.

Contracts were awarded to build vastly more expansive versions of these COVID prisons, the conspiracists weren't making up the contracts and the preparations... they were just always pork contracts for the politically connected or the governments were forced to back off by the political push-back.

Its incredibly difficult to state just how much true totalitarianism was implemented in the name of COVID restrictions and how many people were demanding that they be expanded to truly horrific extents.

Canada mandated a phone app to leave and reenter the country and for a while pursued regulatory reprisals against those who deleted the app. People were calling for the fines and prison terms to be applied to everyone who tried to reenter the country without downloading the app.

I'm merely describing my lived experience.