"We shouldn't have restrictions or rules because people won't follow them" is a bad argument. You need to come up with rules that people will follow, and rules that actually help the situation.
But what guarantees that a rule will be followed? With any law or rule there's an expectation of how many people will follow it, and there's going to be an enforcement cost. With the COVID restrictions, you either get selective enforcement (parts of the US) or a police state (Australia or New Zealand). I don't know if this is more true in the US than in other countries, but generally our selectively enforced rules tend to sweep up the most disadvantaged segments of our society. Police state tactics tend to go over very poorly.
I raged about a lot of these unhelpful rules last year, but anything that actually limits contacts while providing an alternative to the activity you want to be doing is a helpful restriction. I agree that indoor masking for prolonged periods of time even with surgical masks properly worn (let alone regular cloth) is so many levels below vaccination as a method of defense that talking about masks so much still means we failed at vaccinating, but do they "impose" protective clothing on you in the army? Do they "impose" the right shoes on you when you go rock climbing? I don't wanna wear anything I don't wanna wear or do anything I don't wanna do either, but... tough shit. We should have the best masks we can afford and wear them and wear them properly.
I do agree with you that the focus on masks has been a major strategic blunder in terms of taking attention away from more productive solutions.
When you join the military you sign a contract with your government essentially saying they own you. Ordinary citizens do not do this.
As for the rock climbing thing, that gets more into what restrictions private businesses impose rather than the government. I have serious issues with private businesses mandating a lot of things, but there's more nuance to that.
Yesterday at work we had to explain to a bunch of four and five year olds that this year, because of the new restrictions, Santa will come and visit them but we will only wave at him as he shows up at the door, and he will slide the bag of presents over instead of handing them out. They accepted it completely rationally, as they accept the other one million little kindergarten rules every day. What's the other option? This is daily life now, whether we like it or not. When I was a kid, there were months where I had to accept that during some hours the power doesn't come on and we have to light candles and listen to the radio. Some kids had to accept a lot worse than that. As adults, we should accept that there are situations out of our control and still try to contribute as best we can.
Your story about the power going out is sad. I hope you and presumably your family are out of that situation.
COVID policy is completely within our control though. If we collectively decided to end all restrictions tomorrow then they would be over.
And I guess on a more fundamental level I just don't have it in me to say 'it sucks, deal with it.' Yes you have to be realistic and pick your battles. I've been undergoing medical treatment yet and masks are still stringently enforced in those facilities. Do I really care about freedom or do I need my health problems resolved? But as much as I can I avoid anything that brings me into any sort of contact with having to change anything I do because of COVID policy. There is at least one business I really like but will not give money to until they fix their requirements.
There's no alternative to limiting contacts if you want to slow the infection rate a little with something this crazy transmissible. And you want to slow it until you have either a silver bullet dominant variant (which Omicron may be but we still don't know) or a vaccinated population. Letting the virus burn through unprotected or partially protected populations is bad. Letting a variant take over before we have any solid info on it is bad.
At one point when it looked like I actually had COVID I kept my shopping to nighttime hours when fewer people were in the store. For people who actually are sick I think it's wisest to stay home. Not just a COVID thing. When I still worked at an office at one point we had 20 people out of an 80 person department out sick. Perhaps if 2-3 people stayed home it would not have an issue.
But unless we're dealing with something like airborne smallpox, I don't see how we can possibly hold people accountable for maybe spreading a virus asymptomatically or maybe being at risk of getting it from an asymptomatic person. Just living in a constant state of fear and in the end it can't be controlled anyway.