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Comment by barnacled | Hacker News Reader

Yes it is astonishing - I think the fact the context ends criticism of measures that would be considered laughable at ordinary times goes a long way to explaining similarly extreme measures we find difficult to understand from the past.

History tells us govts that gain powers during emergencies are extremely reticent to give them up once the ostensible emergency is over.

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Gaining the power to shut down businesses that are a public health threat? They already had that power and use it. Most people are glad restaurants are held to cleanliness standards and concert venues have capacity limits per fire code.

Requiring people to wear something in public? They already do that too with shirts and pants. And again, I think most people prefer it that way.

Again you are trivialising things that are far wider-reaching as do many on the 'forever lockdown' side. They are not just shutting down public health risks and asking people to wear masks, they are instituting, at least in the UK, law by decree (as per provisions by the Public Health Act 1984) clearly exceeding the intentions of it, for example. I recommend the lord Sumption video I linked in another comment if you want more details, but authoritarian measures are being used and govts historically do NOT like to let go of powers granted during emergencies.

E.g. the Patriot act...

The thing with stuff like that is people like me who point this out will get sneered at at the time, but later when these powers are abused you'll forget that we warned you. This is NOT trivial. This is NOT small.

> History tells us govts that gain powers during emergencies are extremely reticent to give them up once the ostensible emergency is over.

New Zealand had a 8-week lockdown from late March to early May, and then they had perfectly normal general elections in October. The government that ordered the lockdown 7 months earlier, did nothing draconian to prevent the free elections taking place.

I'm very proud to see this go to negative votes, as it entirely proves my point. Every time democracies abandon that for authoritarian measures there is always a seemingly highly justified reason at the time and those who speak out would be similarly pilloried...

Injustices are always justified but never just.

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