You can claim to not be speaking on the validity and effectiveness of protocol but those two things are at the core of the one example you presented.

Given that things like social distancing and flimsy fabric masks did little to hinder the spread of the virus, requiring them to go into public places was more of an exercise in mass social control than a policy of safety. And while most of the people who went out of their way to violate these ordinances were certainly not doing so with selfless intentions, (I remember thinking very lowly of them at the time) by the end of it, I feel like they weren't in the wrong. All the selfish kids that had parties and were trying to catch the virus for lols may have went and transmitted it to their family and onwards, sure. But they would have caught it just by going to school anyways, considering they weren't required to wear effective respiratory equipment either.

The vaccines are the pinnacle of this seemingly draconian policies. A shot that was rushed through trials concerningly quickly (or several shots) that doesn't prevent the contraction or transmission of the virus. It merely lessens the symptoms. For most people, the symptoms of covid were already quite mild--akin to the common cold or less. However, if you didn't allow yourself to be injected by this hardly tested science experiment, you were persona non grata. No going to school, you may have to resign from your job, you couldn't go out to restaurants, no visiting loved ones. It was a very real and dystopian experience. And remember that the vaccine did not prevent transmission.

So your saying that people were wrongfully disobeying the government and the experts who were trying their best? But clearly, there were huge gaps in their logic, yet our leaders still went to the extent of trying to compel everyone to get a mystery shot, separating families and friends, and making those who didn't follow the rules into pariah. Those don't sound like the good guys to me. I am not saying that everyone who deliberately disobeyed was some brave freedom fighter. Most of them were selfish in intention, yes. But they weren't the bad guys. Do you wonder why Biden gave a preemptive pardon to Fauci? Good guys don't need preemptive pardons.