Sorry, I don’t want to put words in your mouth. You contrasted no rules with a literal authoritarian lockdown. The US was never enforcing anything like China has. Sure, some of the rules were ridiculous, but my whole point is there is gray area between the two extremes. I think mask mandates made complete sense earlier when there was little immunity, vaccine or natural, for the public. I haven’t seen any proposals yet for businesses, only BPS, and studies showed the effectiveness of the mandates in the schools. That’s the government setting the rules for a government-run system. I just reflexively have to respond when it seems people try to equate any restrictions at all with police barricading you in like China.