1. I perceive a trend in the legal basis for promoting ideological goals is shifting from 'prohibitions' to 'proscriptions', i.e. instead of focusing on unwanted/inacceptable behaviour and making it illegal, the focus is on the desired ideological behaviour and making it mandatory.
2. Meanwhile, in my increasingly wokeified homeland, lawmakers and thought police are currently seeking to criminalise "hatred", not necessarily hate speech, or incitement to violence, but the perceived intent to make public expressions which might incite 'hatred' in others against persons with "protected characteristics" will suffice. You can read about this absurdist Kafkaesque nonsense here: "Ireland's Hate Offences Bill Represents an Unprecedented Assault on Free Speech and Rule of Law"
3. For me, the inappropriateness of enquiring and recording of such personal information of employees' lives was cemented in Germany during the pandemic. Under the 3G rules, employees and students who did not have an accepted vaccinated status were forced to test under supervision at their workplaces or schools. There was no way to hide or pretend this information was private or recorded discretely, everybody knew. In many workplaces there was a designated room for employees to be tested before being allowed to even attend to their desks/posts - this was an openly discriminatory, segregational (and, I would argue, humiliating) measure, especially in light of the "vaccinated" colleagues who were regularly testing positive. Regarding students, testing was regularly conducted in the classroom at their desks and so it was obvious to everyone who had (or had not) been vaccinated and who was subject to the testing rules.
I think the notion of 'Covid' as a 'catalyst' (Covid) is correct, esp. if one considers the enormous amounts of (psycho)pathological pressure exerted by 'the vaccinated' on 'the unvaccinated' to also 'get vaccinated'.
Once in place, the segregationist impulses could be (ab)used by everyone who elected to place him- or herself into the 'in-group'. No need to brown-shirts, red ribbons/sleeves, or the like, the willingness to render accessible in public one's medical records in combination with a photo ID was enough, even though the Criminal Code (Strafrecht) empowered 'normal' citizens to actually do so only under 'exceptional circumstances', i.e., 'Gefahr im Verzug' (clear and present danger).
Given the comparatively low IFR of Covid right from the start--and the powers-that-were' s enormous ignorance and evidence-less actions (which cannot, technically speaking, be used as defence in court), this is a no-brainer for anyone in court. That we don't see massive waves of criminal proceedings is telling in and of itself.
What 'Covid' has done is, as you rightly point out, is that it has 'normalised', and in some circumstances even glorified, psychopathological behaviour. That the judiciary and the legal system are so vehemently opposed to any kind of introspective reckoning is both telling--and, in effect, as close to a natural experiment in pondering the question, 'what if no reckoning is going to take place'.
Couple of comments:
1. I perceive a trend in the legal basis for promoting ideological goals is shifting from 'prohibitions' to 'proscriptions', i.e. instead of focusing on unwanted/inacceptable behaviour and making it illegal, the focus is on the desired ideological behaviour and making it mandatory.
2. Meanwhile, in my increasingly wokeified homeland, lawmakers and thought police are currently seeking to criminalise "hatred", not necessarily hate speech, or incitement to violence, but the perceived intent to make public expressions which might incite 'hatred' in others against persons with "protected characteristics" will suffice. You can read about this absurdist Kafkaesque nonsense here: "Ireland's Hate Offences Bill Represents an Unprecedented Assault on Free Speech and Rule of Law"
https://davidthunder.substack.com/p/irelands-hate-offences-bill-represents
3. For me, the inappropriateness of enquiring and recording of such personal information of employees' lives was cemented in Germany during the pandemic. Under the 3G rules, employees and students who did not have an accepted vaccinated status were forced to test under supervision at their workplaces or schools. There was no way to hide or pretend this information was private or recorded discretely, everybody knew. In many workplaces there was a designated room for employees to be tested before being allowed to even attend to their desks/posts - this was an openly discriminatory, segregational (and, I would argue, humiliating) measure, especially in light of the "vaccinated" colleagues who were regularly testing positive. Regarding students, testing was regularly conducted in the classroom at their desks and so it was obvious to everyone who had (or had not) been vaccinated and who was subject to the testing rules.
I think the notion of 'Covid' as a 'catalyst' (Covid) is correct, esp. if one considers the enormous amounts of (psycho)pathological pressure exerted by 'the vaccinated' on 'the unvaccinated' to also 'get vaccinated'.
Once in place, the segregationist impulses could be (ab)used by everyone who elected to place him- or herself into the 'in-group'. No need to brown-shirts, red ribbons/sleeves, or the like, the willingness to render accessible in public one's medical records in combination with a photo ID was enough, even though the Criminal Code (Strafrecht) empowered 'normal' citizens to actually do so only under 'exceptional circumstances', i.e., 'Gefahr im Verzug' (clear and present danger).
Given the comparatively low IFR of Covid right from the start--and the powers-that-were' s enormous ignorance and evidence-less actions (which cannot, technically speaking, be used as defence in court), this is a no-brainer for anyone in court. That we don't see massive waves of criminal proceedings is telling in and of itself.
What 'Covid' has done is, as you rightly point out, is that it has 'normalised', and in some circumstances even glorified, psychopathological behaviour. That the judiciary and the legal system are so vehemently opposed to any kind of introspective reckoning is both telling--and, in effect, as close to a natural experiment in pondering the question, 'what if no reckoning is going to take place'.
'Appalling' this is, to say the least.
Can't they just re-use the colour-coded triangles-system from the camps?
It seems to cover all the bases, just replace POW with wrongthinker.
Bad optics, mainly, I'd argue. Also, it's too 'old-fashioned'.
QR codes, digital ID, and the like are more 'modernistic'.