Twitter rundown. The flowers of double standards and class rage are blooming ever brighter

On Sunday, a video spread on social networks showing how a large number of police officers brutally knock down and handcuff a man. People around them, mostly women, try to shame the police for doing this.

Later, news appeared in various information channels that those who oppose mandatory vaccines and wearing cloth strips on their faces had gathered on a vacant plot of land in Mārupe, giving speeches, cooking shashlik and collecting signatures. When the police arrived at the scene, it was found that more than 20 people had gathered, thus violating the epidemiological rules. Therefore, the event was forcefully dispersed, even using tasers.

One might ask - what is everyone so angry about? Didn't Mārupe's "shashlik cookers" violate the epidemiological rules set by the state? Most likely they did, but are they the only ones in Latvia who do not follow these rules? Let's not talk about whether these bans are practical, because even the epidemiologists themselves have repeatedly pointed out that the chances of infection outdoors and in the fresh air are minimal. Midsummer's Eve is approaching, when similar restrictions are likely to be violated en masse, and it is no longer the only big face-to-face event that our rulers are unable to ban this summer - Baltic Pride is also approaching.

It just seems that the Mārupe event was dispersed precisely because it was organized by forces that are antagonistic to the authorities. Twitter users immediately noted that in the outdoor party in the Tallinn Street quarter organized by DJ Kārlis Ķilkuts (the same one who organized a remote music set for the then Minister of Health Ilze Viņķele last summer) there were no policemen with tasers.

Agnese Margēviča: “Why is the State Police so flashy when detaining the antivaxxer clowns, but not the cool young people? Disclaimer: I do not think that the young people had to be detained, I am interested in the protocol followed by the SP. If I don't know/understand something, I'm sorry - I really don't follow covid restrictions."

Bens Latkovskis: “You answered your own question extremely precisely - because these people are perceived as clowns. Under the new world order (both in the East and in the West), those who have been declared clowns are beyond the law. They can be ignored. Garbage."

Pēteris Krišjānis: "As far as I understand, the event for cool young people followed all the rules, participation was only with the status of a recovered/vaccinated person."

Janka Pipars: "If you are on the right roof, then you can just as well do a naked headstand, and you still will not be detained."

Aigars Prūsis: “The rules are the same for everyone, but it is strange that the content of the gathering during the restrictions and the personality of the organizers can be so decisive. In one, you can dance and yell as much as you please, in the other, the special task battalion will detain them, as if an armed drug cartel had been captured.”

Well-known lawyer Artūrs Zvejsalnieks focused his attention on the increasingly frequent efforts to restrict people's freedom of opinion: "I don't care what nonsense Tautas varas fronte and similar sites are saying. I'm not even going to listen and pollute my brain. But everyone must have the right to express themselves, including foolishly. Double standards and the suppression of freedom of expression are obviously a very nasty trend."

Agnese Margeviča: “Even though we are talking about, in my opinion, some clowns, I am interested in whether the State Police checked their existing/non-existent vaccination certificates before the flashy detention. And whether SP tested them at the cool young people party, with which a comparison was made here. The answer is clear.”

Ēriks Kuks: "Are you ready to have an argumentative discussion with the "clowns" as you defined them, on why they find their arguments important? You don't need much courage to call someone a clown from a distance...”

We could ignore this Mārupe event and the detention of its participants, but this demonstratively brutal type of detention and mutual insults on social networks mark exactly what I have warned about several times. Namely, the fact that the covid crisis and the many restrictions that are logically difficult to justify have exacerbated the contradictions in the worldview of various groups in society. The level of mutual intolerance, anger and rage in society has severely increased.

Government decisions that effectively divide people into vaccinated and non-vaccinated, giving them significantly different rights, are perceived by the general public as overtly segregating. No matter what the intentions of these decisions are, they significantly impair the overall mental health of society, which can turn out very bad in the future. Looking at the actions of the police in Mārupe, its echoes in social networks and the lexical constructions used, it is sad to state that this future has already arrived.

Emīls Buiķis: “I am against antivaxxers, but we have to figure out whether we live in a state governed by the rule of law because it doesn't look like it at the moment. Hundreds can gather in bars, but here for a gathering of a few dozen they are knocked to the ground and tasers are used. Sorry, but it looks pathetic. PS: Before you attack me, I am vaccinated.”

Jānis Melderis: “Thank you to the State Police for a job well done. Please start controlling the use of masks in the supermarket, because every fifth person has it below their nose."

Jurģis Liepnieks: “You know my attitude towards vaccination, towards idiots, etc., but the police actions in Mārupe are totally and completely unacceptable. The use of exaggerated force to disperse a completely innocent barbecue. And at a time when they happen all around.”

One can easily imagine what kind of planetary hysteria would spread over the whole globe (without the slightest exaggeration) if the police were to detain the members of the aforementioned Pride in this way. However, if the detainees are from a different class (as one Madara put it on Twitter: "and these people are among us...") and are not on the list of protected groups (as Pride-goers or black people), then all the anger, dissatisfaction and the accumulated stress can be released upon them, without fear of losing the image of an empathetic, inclusive and progressive person in their self-delighting eyes.