The covid-19 pandemic has been with us for over two years now. Governments responded aggressively to it, and when the pandemic didn’t go away according to schedule, they doubled down. A great backlash has been going on in many countries by people weary of following orders. Australia’s response to the pandemic has been extraordinarily heavy-handed on the part of the government, which surprised me. If you had placed the various English-speaking democracies on a spectrum with valuing individual freedom at one end and obedience to government/public order at the other, I would have placed Australia more toward the individual freedom end: not as far as the US, which more or less defines that end of things, but certainly more toward that end than Canada, or the UK, or New Zealand. New Zealand is, in some ways, the most conformist of the Anglosphere societies. But even they are faced with protestors these days, who are surrounding the Parliament building and demanding that restrictions imposed over the virus be lifted by their foot-dragging government. The NZ authorities are attempting to disperse them by playing Barry Manilow songs at them very loudly. Go, New Zealand: you be you! The UK, realizing that their bread and butter (tourism) was being seriously impacted, has lifted a lot of their travel restrictions. Within the UK, Scotland remains furthest towards the nanny end of the spectrum. Tensions between Scotland and the rest of the UK vibrate to this new string, but then tension between Scotland and everybody else across the pond is pretty normal; covid is just a new way to play an old game. In this country, responses to mask mandates have been sucked into the partisan divide that governs everything else in our society these days. Anti-vax and anti-mask attitudes started out among progressives as a response to Trump; once Biden took over, progs became great believers and the Trumpkins became skeptics. The people yelling “Science!” the loudest seem not to read much actual science, I notice. And in Canada, a country not used to rowdy protests, they are experiencing an uprising led by long-haul truckers against vaccination mandates. This is distorting their usual approach to public issues, I think, sort of like someone used to a glass of wine on New Year’s Eve suddenly discovering tequila. Morning-after regrets may soon follow, at least on the part of some. The issues presented by the pandemic and governments’ responses are the same everywhere, but each of these countries’ sense of social order and politics are very different. You can’t look at one and assume that they do things the way one of the others does them. In the end, I think the US is better equipped to manage conflict, since loud confrontations over public issues are more common here, but the bitterness in this country right now may prove me wrong. When it’s all said and done, the Canadians may choose to forget their unpleasantness once it’s past and get on with life; we may be shouting virus-related slogans and leveling accusations for years. Then again, if the Super Bowl is any indication, it looks like America is pretty much ready to drop all restrictions and party hearty. The midterms are also coming up. America’s system of regular and frequent elections helps keep things moving. The foot-draggers are suddenly showing a willingness to loosen up because voters have a habit of wreaking vengeance on pols who stretch their patience too far.