Is confiscating privately owned safety equipment the more democratic and libertarian approach than trying to convince people they shouldn't buy that equipment in the first place? That seems way more dystopian to me.

"Trying to convince people" implies a good faith approach - i.e. being open about what you want and why. Lying to people that masks are no good is not "convincing" them to not buy masks - it's misleading them to do so.

And yes, I think that between lying to literally everybody, and confiscating the property of some companies, the latter is much preferable from a democratic perspective. Indeed, it's just eminent domain, for which there's explicit provisions in constitution and/or laws of most (all?) democratic countries. And since it's done openly, if citizens are unhappy about it, they can always punish the politicians who did so in the next elections; but you can't do that to unelected bureaucrats and private actors, and especially not if they conceal what they're doing.

Indeed. How many people saw the CDC lied about masks and then poisoned themselves because they thought the CDC was lying about ivermectin or hydrochloroquine? After she caught covid it took me days to convince my grandmother to stop taking ivermectin.

That might’ve worked if she had a worm infection. People who take ivermectin to treat worm infections have better health outcomes for covid, the cause being that worms are bad for you.

Ivermectin is used on billions of people and proven quite safe.

Taking a drug that gave her intense and persistent diarrhea is not safe for an eighty year old who already had trouble staying hydrated.

It's not pleasant but it is generally considered to be safe in normal doses. To give you an idea of how ubiquitous its use is, it is used on 3 day old kittens and they're always fine. Then again, each patient is different and know one knows her better than her family, and if they feel it poses a risk, then that's fair enough.

Quality of life is also important, and her experience sounds unpleasant, so your concern is justified regardless.

I don't know, I think eminent domain is in the Constitution because the founders knew that was an extremely dangerous power of the government to just take things by force from the populous. There is no Constitutional requirement that our leaders, elected or not, have to be truthful with us 100% of the time.

It is the difference between action and speech. Action is generally more dangerous. It is a little weird to me that in this discussion of the dangers of the government limiting speech, some people are more fearful of the government's speech than the government's action. It is a lot easier to simply ignore what the government says than try to hold on to my property when the men with guns come knocking at my door.

Yes, it is an extremely dangerous power. It is also, unfortunately, sometimes necessary, especially in emergencies. I'm generally strongly opposed to eminent domain when it's used for "economic development" and other such goals, but COVID was a textbook example where it was warranted.

And as for the difference between "speech" and "action", what the released emails show is that the government didn't stop at speech - it used Twitter as a proxy for censorship, and censorship is an action.

Yes, confiscating privately owned equipment and telling people you need them in hospitals is better than lying to people and telling them their equipment doesn't work because secretly they need them for hospitals.

I don't know why you think that's more dystopian.

The government coming to my home and demanding I hand over my private property that the government tells me is vital for protecting my health during a pandemic is pretty dystopian. If you believe that the government lying to us is dystopian, then we have always lived in a dystopia.

I live in Canada where they do this already based on how scary a gun looks (rather than their functionality) so maybe that's why I find it more palatable than being lied to.

Nobody suggested that the government come to your home. If somebody already has a stash of masks, let them have it. I was talking about the masks that were in the warehouses (or en route to them).