Comment Re:"Most" free my bunghole. NZ authoritarians R re (Score 2, Insightful) 142
You seem to get your "information" from Fox or OAN. These countries weren't putting people in camps. They put new international arrivals in hotels for 14 days - pretty standard for a quarantine. Citizens weren't stuck out of the country if they didn't "go along with the regime's demands to get vaxxed and wear a mask". Airlines were not permitted to bring convey international arrivals unvaxxed except with exemption, but if you have your own transport, there was no vaccination requirement for arrival - plenty of unvaxxed wealthy flew their own jets in. As for masks, US airlines likewise required masks. Free to get kicked out of their job? Yes - likewise, in the US, workplaces which mandate vaccines kick people out who don't have them. The US military kicked out hundreds for refusing to get vaccinated. It's not like just anywhere can mandate vaccines without reason - some businesses that mandated them in Australia were then successfully sued by their employees. There was never a national requirement by either nation to get vaccinated, but rather private businesses deciding to. And mask mandates? You mean, like those employed by a multitude of US states affecting far more US citizens than NZ and Aus combined?
In truth, NZ/Aus did absolutely nothing different to what much of the US did during Covid, with the exception of having border quarantines. Something that States can't very well independently impose (except, perhaps, Hawaii which - btw - did have a Safe Arrivals policy during the height of covid which required domestic arrivals to show proof of vaccination and a negative test, and quarantine if it couldn't be provided - you literally have no clue what you're talking about when you're making these statements about authoritarianism in NZ/Aus, do you?), and Covid was already well into community spread before the Federal government even thought about whether international border quarantines should be utilized (as decided, ultimately useless, since - as mentioned - covid was already well into community spread in the US).
TLDR: NZ/Aus did nothing that many US states didn't do. Generally, vaccine mandates were at the business, not government level. Even border controls, the one exception you could possibly argue, were likewise implemented for Hawaii with vaccination requirements, negative PCR test results, and 14 day quarantine periods. Nobody in either country was forced to be vaccinated against their will. You literally have no idea what you're talking about and are repeating conservative talking points that you have no conceptually relevant comparative insight to.
In truth, NZ/Aus did absolutely nothing different to what much of the US did during Covid, with the exception of having border quarantines. Something that States can't very well independently impose (except, perhaps, Hawaii which - btw - did have a Safe Arrivals policy during the height of covid which required domestic arrivals to show proof of vaccination and a negative test, and quarantine if it couldn't be provided - you literally have no clue what you're talking about when you're making these statements about authoritarianism in NZ/Aus, do you?), and Covid was already well into community spread before the Federal government even thought about whether international border quarantines should be utilized (as decided, ultimately useless, since - as mentioned - covid was already well into community spread in the US).
TLDR: NZ/Aus did nothing that many US states didn't do. Generally, vaccine mandates were at the business, not government level. Even border controls, the one exception you could possibly argue, were likewise implemented for Hawaii with vaccination requirements, negative PCR test results, and 14 day quarantine periods. Nobody in either country was forced to be vaccinated against their will. You literally have no idea what you're talking about and are repeating conservative talking points that you have no conceptually relevant comparative insight to.