Curfew restrictions: Is it legal to leave your house?

lonehawk5 said:Look, walking by yourself isn't banned or anything. It's just... they're recommending you stay inside as much as possible.
But all those other rules, like gathering in groups and stuff? Those are still very much in play.

For now.

I was reading today about how in some country they’re actually checking people's shopping bags to see exactly what you bought at the grocery store or the pharmacy.

Do they actually have high-tech sensors to spot "unwanted" groceries, or are security guards just getting uncomfortably close to customers to check their bags?

Also, is the police department planning to roll out some kind of software to enforce this, or are we looking at random stops just to force people to socialize?

electricorca112 said:So, you mentioned the US Census Bureau and how many interventions they had because of... what, exactly?

Let me ask you again: Are you saying you have actual info that the US Census Bureau was out there pulling a massive number of people out of trouble in the mountains that day?

Why does that specific day matter? It matters because every single person who gets themselves into trouble out in the wild burns through emergency services' resources. I didn't just pull that out of thin air; even the US Census Bureau has been making public pleas about this for a while now: https://www.facebook.com/American...44481702328746

If you check their page, you'll find plenty of other appeals too. Maybe you should just give them a call and ask them—with all due respect—exactly how many damn interventions they had to deal with that day! 🤦

jadesurfer552 said:Do they actually have high-tech sensors to spot "unwanted" groceries, or are security guards just getting uncomfortably close to customers to check their bags?

Also, is the police department planning to roll out some kind of software to enforce this, or are we looking at random stops just to force people to socialize?

Honestly, I think it’s all about that close contact... the whole goal seems to be stopping people from just wandering around aimlessly. Besides, even in China, they used to limit shopping to maybe twice a week. People were handed these specific cards that they had to show at the store entrance to get in. Given how things have been going lately with our own leadership, nothing would really surprise me at this point.

Jacob Patel2 said:Can someone clarify what’s happening with transit and individual travel across the border? It mentions cross-border workers and passengers in transit—what does that actually imply? If I have to head to Canada for a single day on business, will they let me through?

Nah, the only ones getting across the border are drivers hauling freight.

Even if you somehow manage to pull it off, you'll end up stuck in a 14-day quarantine in Canada, and then you've got another 14 days of quarantine waiting for you back here in America.

Greetings, does anyone happen to know if it's permissible to travel between one's registered residence (where I am currently staying in my own property) and my official permanent address without a pass?

We're talking about two neighboring towns here.

I mean, I can certainly head back to my hometown under "justified reasons," but the real question is: will they actually let me move back into my primary residence afterward?

Jason Morgan said:Greetings, does anyone happen to know if it's permissible to travel between one's registered residence (where I am currently staying in my own property) and my official permanent address without a pass?

We're talking about two neighboring towns here.

I mean, I can certainly head back to my hometown under "justified reasons," but the real question is: will they actually let me move back into my primary residence afterward?

Nope.

Jose Scott3 said:Let me expand that to six sentences:

I work at a state research institute doing stuff that’s actually useful. I’m not a cop, I’m not an EMT, and I’m definitely not some clerk behind a desk, counting stamps, making coffee, or showing up to a local town hall once a month. I didn't land this gig through the Party or because some cousin pulled strings.

So why should I be stuck with minimum wage or lose my job just because "Jack Cook7" thinks so? This guy is generalizing, and honestly, labeling everyone in public service as a corrupt crony is straight-up psychopathic...

Like I said, if we actually wanted to trim the budget without slashing salaries or firing people—and we're talking about salaries around the average in America—we’d start with the politicians and the big shots. They're the real crooks. That would save a fortune on its own...

Look, the whole thing regarding those of you working in government service is actually pretty straightforward...
The thing is, most of you don't actually get it—and the people working in the private sector, where I'm stuck myself, understand it even less.

It’s honestly hilarious watching you guys grovel toward the private sector. Most of them are stuck in the exact same mess as you—if not a hell of a lot deeper in it—even without all this extra nonsense.
Look, most of us over in the private sector don't get it. We don't see you individuals as the actual problem. Instead, we just sit here whining about how insanely expensive you are, how everyone's just a bureaucrat, how nobody actually does anything, blah, blah, blah...
Actually, in most cases, it’s the exact opposite. It’s a damn shame, really, but the truth is you guys are mostly underpaid and working way too hard—mostly because you’re constantly fighting fires in total chaos instead of actually following an organized system.

The real problem is your completely irresponsible employer—or honestly, just the entire organization they belong to.

Look, let’s be real—number one is pretty obvious: you guys are working with tiny paychecks. That part is absolutely indisputable.
What are we even talking about? It’s ridiculous. We've got an American Secretary of Commerce making less than some guy driving a skid steer on a construction site in Germany, yet the cost of living here is basically the same.
Honestly, you're just screwing over the entire country when you underpay the judiciary, the schools, healthcare, and all those essential services. It’s ridiculous. You've got people in critical roles wondering if they can actually afford lunch today or if they'll even be able to cover the utility bills. How is that supposed to work?
That’s exactly where the corruption creeps in. When you've got someone drowning in problems like this who also has their hands on public funds—or someone's offering them a kickback—it isn't a matter of "if" they'll take it. It's just a matter of when.
On the other hand, you’ve got this guy running a private gig—he's sitting on a massive payroll with zero actual work coming in. He’s broke, everything is a total mess, and he'll be begging for scraps sooner or later.
Look, let’s be real—the government is the biggest buyer on the block. That's where all the work is, and honestly, that's where the money is. So of course this guy is going to come out there peddling the exact same stuff...
The only real question left is who’s going to blink first—is he going to start making offers, or is he just going to sit there demanding?
Most people are decent enough, but let’s be real—when a golden opportunity for some bullshit presents itself, they jump on it. Then, once they realize they actually got away with it, they play the victim. It's pathetic.
I’m honestly worried we’re about to see an absolute explosion of this nonsense. Once things go totally sideways and everyone starts picking sides, even the people who never would've dreamed of doing this might actually cave in.

Problem number two: there’s this massive paradox where, in most sectors, your salaries are simultaneously way too high and yet somehow still nowhere near high enough!
How is that even possible? How can both things be happening at the exact same time?
Look, the reason those salaries are so bloated is simple: there are just way too many people in the system. We’ve got a massive crowd of employees clogging up everything, most of them working positions that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. It's pure nonsense.
It's not like they're all just sitting around being useless bureaucrats. A huge chunk of them actually work their asses off, pulling 12-hour shifts and getting stuff done.
The real issue here is that none of this makes any damn sense. There’s zero logic behind what they're doing, and the way they've organized the whole mess is enough to make your head explode.

Just think about how insane it is that we’re dealing with situations like this. Take my town, for example—it's so ridiculously tiny it barely makes sense,
let alone the fact that we went from being one single municipality to becoming a city plus three whole new ones, all while having way fewer residents and businesses than before.
In this town, we used to have one basic public works department responsible for building and maintaining the gas, water, and sewer lines, handling trash, and keeping the streets clean.
Now, suddenly, we’ve been split into six different companies, which means six directors, six secretaries, six accounting departments, six billing offices, six meter readers, and blah blah blah...
It's not like these people aren't working—that's not true—but the damn truth is that their jobs make zero sense. Everyone is essentially doing the exact same thing. Honestly, any one of them could handle the workload for all six of them if they just had a little more time.
For every actual worker, you’ve got five others sitting in cloned positions, and that is a massive problem because someone has to foot the bill.
And then there's the issue of everyone having tiny salaries, mostly because that single pool of money is being sliced six ways.
Imagine how much better this would function if they all had triple the salary and just a slightly heavier workload; the city budget would actually save 50% on payroll...
Because realistically, whether you're processing payroll for ten people or sixty, the job is the same. It’s pure stupidity that now one guy comes to read the gas meter, another reads the water... one carries the gas bill, another carries the water bill, another handles the trash...

That's the core of the problem. It’s the same deal with the local municipalities, which at best have three or four times more staff than before, facing the same or even worse issues at every level.
It’s the same absolute nonsense with the schools. In this former municipality alone, we now have seven schools, which means seven different accounting departments and seven different payroll offices.
And then, of course, they can't even order damn toilet paper or hand soap, because they'll use every cent they have just to cover the payroll, and there's simply no money left for TP.
So we end up with this crazy paradox where teachers have low wages, yet education is insanely expensive because we have a massive surplus of administrative staff and a shortage of actual teachers.
It’s the same, if not way worse, modus operandi in healthcare and so on.

And I haven't even touched on all the other garbage, like agencies designed to oversee other useless agencies...

Look at this total idiocy with the movement restrictions right now...
We’re all going to be losing our minds at the government employees who have to issue these stupid permits for blah blah...
And those poor people are going to lose it under the sheer volume of requests, having no clue if they're allowed to issue them, how to do it, who gets them, or why. On top of that, they'll be stuck facing the pressure, the swearing, and getting yelled at, not to mention the risk of infection.
Police officers will probably catch the virus just checking every car on the road, and the officials issuing the certificates will too...

And all of this for what?
What kind of twisted logic makes it a problem when someone sits in their car driving from point A to point B, but it's perfectly fine to cram a huge crowd of people into a line just to get a permit? 🤦

Honestly, it would be easier, faster, and cheaper right now to just hastily open some shitty LLC for $3.25, issue yourself a permit, and not give a damn.
Then later, just don't pay your taxes and file for bankruptcy—hey, it was the pandemic, right?
But instead, we have to go out and beg for a permit just so we can visit elderly folks and bring them something to eat...

Picture this: a technician from Indianapolis starts heading to Gary, then gets an emergency call from someone in Petrinja about a burst pipe—but he can't get into Petrinja because he doesn't have the right permit, so he has to loop all the way back to Indianapolis, only to be told someone in New York City needs him immediately...

Look at Miami or the Cleveland area—on paper, it’s a bunch of distinct cities and counties, yet everything has to be cleared through Cleveland...

And what happens if you have livestock living outside your primary residence?

There are plenty of examples like this.

Even if they had used counties, it might have made sense, but now we're seeing just how pointless these individual cities and municipalities are. It really highlights how much we need to divide the United States into larger regions.

They need to scrap this measure immediately, or at least group things by county—like grouping Istrian and Primorje-Gorski Kotar together, or Miami, Sibenska, and Zadar-based areas, or New York City with Chicago-based and Sisak-based counties, etc.—you see where I'm going...

Why aren't people mass-emailing the government to demand they repeal or fix this nonsense? Most people are just staying home, so this mostly just creates headaches for small business owners and folks who actually have to travel for medical appointments. For instance, people from Senj have to trek through multiple counties and towns just to make it to a check-up in Cleveland. I could go on forever with daily life scenarios that the police simply won't grasp.

In New York City, there are students who haven't moved anywhere because they work for a telecom company on their phones; if the police pull them over within the city, they could end up being chased all the way to Indianapolis.

When someone asks the police about updating their residency status, they just get an email response saying those tasks aren't being handled by the department right now—so how are you supposed to regulate your own legal status?

Just so much pure illogic...

Jose Scott3 said:All that massive wealth private companies rake in? It’s built on public sector innovation. Modern civilization is basically held together by people working in government-funded labs. So yeah, go ahead and keep arguing for cutting their paychecks...

That’s just one slice of the pie, but you and your buddy are treating the whole public sector like one big monolith.

You really think my old man is a thief? He’s spent the last 20 years building everything from scratch. The guy feeds ten people (including himself), pays every single tax and fee, and still drives a car from 2006. He’s a thief? Look, there are good business owners and there are scumbags...but I’m not the one generalizing here, you are... because you're out here calling for sanctions against almost the entire public sector.

Case in point: there are good and bad business owners. Why didn't my old man do that?

Go play the market and do whatever you want, but don't mess with anyone else or demand that other people get pay cuts and layoffs.

Do you honestly think this is going to happen without your own salaries taking a hit?
Seriously?
I'm assuming you're highly educated; I just can't wrap my head around how someone with all those degrees could have such zero grasp of how practical economics actually works.
No worries though, when the money runs out, you wonderful public servants will just flock to the Botanical Garden and pick enough cash off the trees to cover the deficit.
Because obviously, money grows on trees.

Or maybe not. Even better.
You'll probably just invent some new "emergency crisis tax."
Because who cares about 200,000 people losing their livelihoods? As long as you guys stay taken care of, right?

So, I was chatting with a police officer yesterday, and he dropped this hint that the whole passport thing is just a temporary fix—basically a stopgap measure—and that they’ll be rolling out some other methods in a few days. Now, what on earth is that supposed to mean? Is he implying they're going to put us under a total lockdown?

Charles Carter4 said:So, I was chatting with a police officer yesterday, and he dropped this hint that the whole passport thing is just a temporary fix—basically a stopgap measure—and that they’ll be rolling out some other methods in a few days. Now, what on earth is that supposed to mean? Is he implying they're going to put us under a total lockdown?

They'll pull the trigger the second infection numbers spike, because honestly, the whole thing is already scripted—you can practically read it between the lines of those press conferences. It's all just psychological conditioning at this point. Even my wife's company was getting calls about prepping permit paperwork, despite everyone living right there in the same city where they work, and apparently, the local police were telling them to get ahead of it immediately. There might not be a practical need for it today, but tomorrow, or whenever they decide it's time, it’s going to happen.

Yeah, I guess they’re moving slowly on this—probably just trying to make sure we're actually better prepared this time around. 🤔

It’s easier to adapt when you take things in small steps rather than being hit with the most draconian measures right out of the gate. From what I can see, my neighbors here are actually being quite disciplined; I think everyone just wants this whole ordeal to be over as soon as possible.
However, I have to say, it seems like the banks have handled their part of this pretty clumsily. Everything—literally any request similar to what we've seen before—that used to be handled easily in a branch should have been moved online by now. Just imagine those smaller towns that don't even have a single local bank branch, especially now that under the new National lockdown and border closure decree, people aren't allowed to leave their homes.

Charles Carter4 said:Yeah, I guess they’re moving slowly on this—probably just trying to make sure we're actually better prepared this time around. 🤔

They aren't "taking it slow," they just have absolutely no clue what they're doing.

If they actually knew the drill, they would've dropped a full list of step-by-step measures and clear conditions months ago.

This whole latest mess with the farmers' markets and especially the ban on traveling between cities—with all this confusion over who's even in charge—just shows they're totally lost. They're basically making it up as they go, just trying to scramble out of the last mistake they made.

When you're handling something this massive, you cannot have different agencies tripping over each other. You can't have a huge crowd of people wondering, "Wait, do I ask this guy or that guy?" Anyone who has ever managed a major project or large-scale support knows that. This kind of confusion alone creates about 90% of the total system overload and all the errors that follow. Instructions need to be crystal clear, simple, and unambiguous, and they need to be released way ahead of time so everyone can sort out their questions before the hammer actually drops.

But hey, that's our favorite Brussels bureaucrat for you. As if he's ever done anything serious in his life where he actually had to take responsibility for a screw-up.

And then there's the earthquake, which really highlights how broken this country is. Even the Italians, despite all the chaos they were dealing with in Lombardy, ended up donating tents to us because this country didn't even have its own! Seriously? That is just pathetic. Man, if a 6.5 hit us right now, hundreds of thousands of people would be left out in the freezing cold, literally facing sub-zero temps, wind, and snow. Not to mention the casualties, the injured, the sick, and little kids.

The government is completely incompetent across the board. But hey, at least we joined NATO and the EU, right?

Look at what happened when things went south in Italy—NATO USA snatched their tests, Germany blocked shipments of equipment that was already paid for, and the Czechs swiped humanitarian gear being sent by Russia. Meanwhile, we're sitting here so lost that even Italy has to send us aid. Yeah, that's our "greatest achievement" right there.

stormybadger8 said:Look, the whole thing regarding those of you working in government service is actually pretty straightforward...
The thing is, most of you don't actually get it—and the people working in the private sector, where I'm stuck myself, understand it even less.

It’s honestly hilarious watching you guys grovel toward the private sector. Most of them are stuck in the exact same mess as you—if not a hell of a lot deeper in it—even without all this extra nonsense.
Look, most of us over in the private sector don't get it. We don't see you individuals as the actual problem. Instead, we just sit here whining about how insanely expensive you are, how everyone's just a bureaucrat, how nobody actually does anything, blah, blah, blah...
Actually, in most cases, it’s the exact opposite. It’s a damn shame, really, but the truth is you guys are mostly underpaid and working way too hard—mostly because you’re constantly fighting fires in total chaos instead of actually following an organized system.

The real problem is your completely irresponsible employer—or honestly, just the entire organization they belong to.

Look, let’s be real—number one is pretty obvious: you guys are working with tiny paychecks. That part is absolutely indisputable.
What are we even talking about? It’s ridiculous. We've got an American Secretary of Commerce making less than some guy driving a skid steer on a construction site in Germany, yet the cost of living here is basically the same.
Honestly, you're just screwing over the entire country when you underpay the judiciary, the schools, healthcare, and all those essential services. It’s ridiculous. You've got people in critical roles wondering if they can actually afford lunch today or if they'll even be able to cover the utility bills. How is that supposed to work?
That’s exactly where the corruption creeps in. When you've got someone drowning in problems like this who also has their hands on public funds—or someone's offering them a kickback—it isn't a matter of "if" they'll take it. It's just a matter of when.
On the other hand, you’ve got this guy running a private gig—he's sitting on a massive payroll with zero actual work coming in. He’s broke, everything is a total mess, and he'll be begging for scraps sooner or later.
Look, let’s be real—the government is the biggest buyer on the block. That's where all the work is, and honestly, that's where the money is. So of course this guy is going to come out there peddling the exact same stuff...
The only real question left is who’s going to blink first—is he going to start making offers, or is he just going to sit there demanding?
Most people are decent enough, but let’s be real—when a golden opportunity for some bullshit presents itself, they jump on it. Then, once they realize they actually got away with it, they play the victim. It's pathetic.
I’m honestly worried we’re about to see an absolute explosion of this nonsense. Once things go totally sideways and everyone starts picking sides, even the people who never would've dreamed of doing this might actually cave in.

Problem number two: there’s this massive paradox where, in most sectors, your salaries are simultaneously way too high and yet somehow still nowhere near high enough!
How is that even possible? How can both things be happening at the exact same time?
Look, the reason those salaries are so bloated is simple: there are just way too many people in the system. We’ve got a massive crowd of employees clogging up everything, most of them working positions that serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever. It's pure nonsense.
It's not like they're all just sitting around being useless bureaucrats. A huge chunk of them actually work their asses off, pulling 12-hour shifts and getting stuff done.
The real issue here is that none of this makes any damn sense. There’s zero logic behind what they're doing, and the way they've organized the whole mess is enough to make your head explode.

Just think about how insane it is that we’re dealing with situations like this. Take my town, for example—it's so ridiculously tiny it barely makes sense,
let alone the fact that we went from being one single municipality to becoming a city plus three whole new ones, all while having way fewer residents and businesses than before.
In this town, we used to have one basic public works department responsible for building and maintaining the gas, water, and sewer lines, handling trash, and keeping the streets clean.
Now, suddenly, we’ve been split into six different companies, which means six directors, six secretaries, six accounting departments, six billing offices, six meter readers, and blah blah blah...
It's not like these people aren't working—that's not true—but the damn truth is that their jobs make zero sense. Everyone is essentially doing the exact same thing. Honestly, any one of them could handle the workload for all six of them if they just had a little more time.
For every actual worker, you’ve got five others sitting in cloned positions, and that is a massive problem because someone has to foot the bill.
And then there's the issue of everyone having tiny salaries, mostly because that single pool of money is being sliced six ways.
Imagine how much better this would function if they all had triple the salary and just a slightly heavier workload; the city budget would actually save 50% on payroll...
Because realistically, whether you're processing payroll for ten people or sixty, the job is the same. It’s pure stupidity that now one guy comes to read the gas meter, another reads the water... one carries the gas bill, another carries the water bill, another handles the trash...

That's the core of the problem. It’s the same deal with the local municipalities, which at best have three or four times more staff than before, facing the same or even worse issues at every level.
It’s the same absolute nonsense with the schools. In this former municipality alone, we now have seven schools, which means seven different accounting departments and seven different payroll offices.
And then, of course, they can't even order damn toilet paper or hand soap, because they'll use every cent they have just to cover the payroll, and there's simply no money left for TP.
So we end up with this crazy paradox where teachers have low wages, yet education is insanely expensive because we have a massive surplus of administrative staff and a shortage of actual teachers.
It’s the same, if not way worse, modus operandi in healthcare and so on.

And I haven't even touched on all the other garbage, like agencies designed to oversee other useless agencies...

Look at this total idiocy with the movement restrictions right now...
We’re all going to be losing our minds at the government employees who have to issue these stupid permits for blah blah...
And those poor people are going to lose it under the sheer volume of requests, having no clue if they're allowed to issue them, how to do it, who gets them, or why. On top of that, they'll be stuck facing the pressure, the swearing, and getting yelled at, not to mention the risk of infection.
Police officers will probably catch the virus just checking every car on the road, and the officials issuing the certificates will too...

And all of this for what?
What kind of twisted logic makes it a problem when someone sits in their car driving from point A to point B, but it's perfectly fine to cram a huge crowd of people into a line just to get a permit? 🤦

Honestly, it would be easier, faster, and cheaper right now to just hastily open some shitty LLC for $3.25, issue yourself a permit, and not give a damn.
Then later, just don't pay your taxes and file for bankruptcy—hey, it was the pandemic, right?
But instead, we have to go out and beg for a permit just so we can visit elderly folks and bring them something to eat...

👍 Great catch on that bolded part, and honestly, the whole post. If only someone in charge actually read this stuff and gave it a second thought...

silentskipper3 said:It’s easier to adapt when you take things in small steps rather than being hit with the most draconian measures right out of the gate. From what I can see, my neighbors here are actually being quite disciplined; I think everyone just wants this whole ordeal to be over as soon as possible.
However, I have to say, it seems like the banks have handled their part of this pretty clumsily. Everything—literally any request similar to what we've seen before—that used to be handled easily in a branch should have been moved online by now. Just imagine those smaller towns that don't even have a single local bank branch, especially now that under the new National lockdown and border closure decree, people aren't allowed to leave their homes.

It’s like cutting a tail off an elephant one little bit at a time so it hurts less.
We're basically boiling the frog.

Something like that, right?

"We’re being lenient for today, but starting Wednesday, we’re enforcing this strictly. If you don't have a permit, expect a citation from the inspectors, and the initial fines for violators will be around $10," Ladislav Bece, head of the Osijek Police Department, told us yesterday.

So, the idea that there won't be any penalties is just wrong; they were only letting "ignorance" slide through yesterday.

From the news:

We’re being pretty chill about it for now, but starting Wednesday, they’re going full force. If you don't have your pass, expect an inspector to come knocking—and according to Ladislav Bece, the chief over at the Osijek Police Department, the first fine for violators is gonna be around $10 yesterday.

... man, seriously, what happens if you get caught a second time? Is it just straight-up execution at that point?

Jack Cook7 said:They aren't "taking it slow," they just have absolutely no clue what they're doing.

If they actually knew the drill, they would've dropped a full list of step-by-step measures and clear conditions months ago.

This whole latest mess with the farmers' markets and especially the ban on traveling between cities—with all this confusion over who's even in charge—just shows they're totally lost. They're basically making it up as they go, just trying to scramble out of the last mistake they made.

When you're handling something this massive, you cannot have different agencies tripping over each other. You can't have a huge crowd of people wondering, "Wait, do I ask this guy or that guy?" Anyone who has ever managed a major project or large-scale support knows that. This kind of confusion alone creates about 90% of the total system overload and all the errors that follow. Instructions need to be crystal clear, simple, and unambiguous, and they need to be released way ahead of time so everyone can sort out their questions before the hammer actually drops.

But hey, that's our favorite Brussels bureaucrat for you. As if he's ever done anything serious in his life where he actually had to take responsibility for a screw-up.

And then there's the earthquake, which really highlights how broken this country is. Even the Italians, despite all the chaos they were dealing with in Lombardy, ended up donating tents to us because this country didn't even have its own! Seriously? That is just pathetic. Man, if a 6.5 hit us right now, hundreds of thousands of people would be left out in the freezing cold, literally facing sub-zero temps, wind, and snow. Not to mention the casualties, the injured, the sick, and little kids.

The government is completely incompetent across the board. But hey, at least we joined NATO and the EU, right?

Look at what happened when things went south in Italy—NATO USA snatched their tests, Germany blocked shipments of equipment that was already paid for, and the Czechs swiped humanitarian gear being sent by Russia. Meanwhile, we're sitting here so lost that even Italy has to send us aid. Yeah, that's our "greatest achievement" right there.

Quite a lot going on.

Not every single rule they roll out makes sense—I mean, just look at this latest ban on leaving your home—but let's be real: they definitely know exactly what their next move is, and the one after that, and the one after that... it's all part of the plan.

Anyone with an IQ north of 80 knows exactly who they are—you know them too, obviously—but I guess you just preferred spending your time bickering aimlessly on this forum instead.

Jack Cook7 said:They aren't "taking it slow," they just have absolutely no clue what they're doing.

If they actually knew the drill, they would've dropped a full list of step-by-step measures and clear conditions months ago.

This whole latest mess with the farmers' markets and especially the ban on traveling between cities—with all this confusion over who's even in charge—just shows they're totally lost. They're basically making it up as they go, just trying to scramble out of the last mistake they made.

When you're handling something this massive, you cannot have different agencies tripping over each other. You can't have a huge crowd of people wondering, "Wait, do I ask this guy or that guy?" Anyone who has ever managed a major project or large-scale support knows that. This kind of confusion alone creates about 90% of the total system overload and all the errors that follow. Instructions need to be crystal clear, simple, and unambiguous, and they need to be released way ahead of time so everyone can sort out their questions before the hammer actually drops.

But hey, that's our favorite Brussels bureaucrat for you. As if he's ever done anything serious in his life where he actually had to take responsibility for a screw-up.

And then there's the earthquake, which really highlights how broken this country is. Even the Italians, despite all the chaos they were dealing with in Lombardy, ended up donating tents to us because this country didn't even have its own! Seriously? That is just pathetic. Man, if a 6.5 hit us right now, hundreds of thousands of people would be left out in the freezing cold, literally facing sub-zero temps, wind, and snow. Not to mention the casualties, the injured, the sick, and little kids.

The government is completely incompetent across the board. But hey, at least we joined NATO and the EU, right?

Look at what happened when things went south in Italy—NATO USA snatched their tests, Germany blocked shipments of equipment that was already paid for, and the Czechs swiped humanitarian gear being sent by Russia. Meanwhile, we're sitting here so lost that even Italy has to send us aid. Yeah, that's our "greatest achievement" right there.

Of course they weren't smart enough to go public with that. If they had, they would have just triggered mass panic and total psychological chaos. Honestly, if you look at your own post, it's pretty clear that's exactly what would have happened.