>Lockdowns of the duration that we experienced should be illegal
I fully agree with you. If people want to sit at home it should be a personal choice. However people do like to control other peoples lives, that is the bottom line and they will use any argument to justify it.
The thing is though that, by and large, there never were "lockdowns" in the US. I'm sure there are exceptions but most people were free to go out in public if they wanted to (perhaps with masks/distancing), many types of "essential" businesses remained open, etc.
I know in my area, there was zero enforcement of travel restrictions, zero enforcement of stay-at-home, zero government enforcement of mask wearing (shops generally had to kick people out), and very spotty enforcement of business closures. There was no lockdown. It was totally voluntary, and luckily enough people voluntarily did the right thing that hospitals didn't overflow.
Or people voluntarily did things like wearing masks/distancing indoors that presumably helped. I was more conservative personally but I'm not sure how much, say, driving to adjacent states for outdoor activities made a difference.
I fully agree with you. If people want to sit at home it should be a personal choice. However people do like to control other peoples lives, that is the bottom line and they will use any argument to justify it.