Thanks for your thoughtful reply, though I don't quite agree.

All governments, bar none, want to exercise control over people. Perhaps overtly, more often surreptitiously. Whether they are tyrannical or not is a matter of perception. Gato has sometimes described Puerto Rico, where many absurd covid rules were aggressively enforced by police. But most people went along. Didn’t see it as tyranny.

If Australia’s government has been tyrannical (I think it has) the fact is that most Australians happily went along. And in the US, lockdowns, masks, vax coercion, happened in all but a handful of states. The people went along. There was some dissent, of course. But not massive dissent. Some folks saw it as incipient tyranny, but most didn’t. Just as most didn’t see the Homeland Security Act as incipient tyranny, although it sure looked like it.

Historically, truly tyrannical governments, with true despots leading them, aren’t intimidated by widespread dissent or even by widespread armed opposition. They’ll fight out a civil war, sometimes for decades. Mostly happens in third world countries.

In Western countries, governments come and go with elections. They have varying levels of corruption and authoritarianism. But their populaces don’t think of them as tyrants. In these countries, including the US, governmental behavior is not oriented by a fear of a well-armed militia. But by a deep seated fear of losing the next election.