`Falling back on "we just can't do stuff like that BECAUSE DEMOCRACY" is intellectually lazy and self-sabotaging' I didn't say that, but okay. In the widespre

`Falling back on "we just can't do stuff like that BECAUSE DEMOCRACY" is intellectually lazy and self-sabotaging' I didn't say that, but okay. In the widespread expectation of personal freedoms, however, it's harder to implement draconian controls without evidence it's clearly needed and of obvious benefits. Autocratic societies will always have the advantage in such situations because you can stomp the boot down at a moment's notice with little resistance. It's also easier when your country is a homogeny with extremely few immigrants, extremely few travelers, etc. For a country like Canada or the United States to do what Taiwan could do, with literally millions to tens of millions of citizens returning from overseas, is logistically in a different universe. And let's be clear that those situations are rare. "But it's just like Compaq because..." -- whatever that stupid noise was. Yeah, I'd rather be "Compaq" in that stupid analogy 99.9% of the time.