Maybe Michael C's comment is representative of the majority; perhaps even a huge majority?
There were situations like this years ago when smoking laws were being enacted. And these laws were enacted because approximately 3,000 people per year were dying of cancer stemming from second hand smoke (in the U.S.).* I'm sure there were folks warning us all of government overreach and tyranny then too.
I obviously don't know one way or the other whether this is motivated by public health concerns (perhaps wisely or foolishly) or if there is a deeper cabal of power brokers focused on tyranny. I just don't see how anyone can conclude with certainty that it IS a conspiracy. But we've discussed this point before. ;)
* - The Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders (EPA, 1992)
I see current events as more a sign of the times than the execution of any specific plan or power-grab.
Basically, from my current gloomy perspective, a number of historical factors came together to produce the relatively free and prosperous lifestyles which many modern societies now enjoy. These historical factors are no longer in play. Thus, over time, we are seeing the collapse of said freedoms and lifestyles.
One example would be mass, relatively decent, education: A byproduct of empire building and industrialization, the need for a relatively skilled, capable of basic logic, workforce to man the factories and fire the canons. To an extent, these roles are now redundant - on a large scale, anyway - and are becoming increasingly more so.
Democratic values, public debate, national identities, class equality, et cetera, are similarly on their way out, having served their purpose.
They're going and they're going fast.
Add resource bottlenecks, localized environmental collapse, and an incredibly complex society and we have an absolute maelstrom of shits brewing.
Now, as this breakdown and lurch toward repression continues, the one stabilizing influence we have, the one anchor, is culture - both high and low.
Uh-oh.
The last few centuries, again tied to the empire building program and its subsequent breakdown, have had an absolutely eviscerating effect on culture. The first cultural bedrock to go was the local, idiosyncratic variety (after all, it wasn't just aborigines that had developed highly functional, place specific ways of living). These local adaptations fell first to the nationalist project and then were finished off by industrialization and mass broadcasting technology. Over the last century or so, the larger, wider cultural edifice has also been in decline and under attack - often going mad from within.
So, now we have a civilization whose overlords no longer have an incentive to keep the benefits of education and a humane society going. We have a decline in education going hand in hand with an incredibly complex civilization. We have a hollowed out culture whose values no longer exist or no longer have any utility. And we have a mass broadcast technology, perfect for propagandizing, at once isolating and homogenizing.
It's a strange and troubling milieu.
Now look at the present state of society: Critical capacities in decline, the easy curtailment of freedoms, the collapse of education, politicians increasingly either carnivalesque or cliched, a confusion of authenticity with a lack of self control, an inability to hear others views, extremity of emotion, the violence once reserved for the state filtering out into wider groupings, the capacity for unparalleled surveillance, a retreat into fantasy and infantilism, the acceptance of blatant untruths, the politicization of facts..... I could go on.
So yeah, I'm not optimistic and see current events and the reaction to them as par for the course. Things are sliding. You can't measure them anymore. The blizzard of the world has overturned the order of the soul. Brother, it's murder.
Just to reassure everyone, I AM NOT singling out any one particular point of view or politician or internet clique for criticism. They all, to me, show signs of the times. I am no exception.
Have a good day.