This conspiracy theory doesn't pass the laugh test.
I'd love for some governments to start wielding emergency powers in an effective way, even if it were just for graft, to show that they're not clueless.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/03/amazon-re...
I found the thread (<https://www.reddit.com/r/ontario/comments/riqusg/ontario_ann...>) after reading your comment. Wow, you're right about it being a total 180 from the usual Reddit opinion. (Sort by Best or Top, not New.) This comment getting 100 upvotes is one example of the change in sentiment:
>Why don’t they just permanently shut down all small businesses and call it a day. That’s clearly their goal here.
That's not to say that the mods have changed their views; thus the thread being locked, to prevent more wrongthought from appearing.
Things like the Patriot Act, which is about as unpatriotic as could be, were rolled out in response to 9-11. We also have the ludicrous Bank Secrecy Act; not to mention the Wagner Act following the Great Depression.
I've found many people don't understand the truly limited scope of the Federal government, as most Ameicans don't understand it either. But our Federal government has only a very narrow set of responsibilities and those responsibilities are the only things they can do (10th ammendment). They are quite clearly enunerated in Section 1 Article 8 of the Constitution, which in itself is not without controversy over the wording, specifically regarding "general welfare of the US". But thankfully we have a letter from Madison to Pendleton in, I think, 1712 which specifies why that specific language was adopted, and it was done so to remain consistent with the Articles of Confederation, and that specific wording was thought to be the least controversial (how wrong they were!).
Thus, programs like Social Security, ACA, and all other social welfare programs that I can think of are unconstitutional, and day-by-day our federal representatives push for more.
Of course, we amended the Constitution out of relevancy with the 16th Ammendment, giving the government the perfect gunpowder for the spark which was "reinterpreting" S1A8.