You're not addressing the issue posed by the GP.

If you experience severe enough side-effects from the vaccine to warrant a lawsuit, then you are still entitled to sue for compensation. The only thing that has changes is the entity who you are suing.

The Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program makes this process much easier than a traditional lawsuit, as you merely have to convince a judge that your symptoms were likely caused by the vaccine. If they agree, you get paid.

If you sued Pfizer, then you'd probably be in a class action, going up against some of the best lawyers in the world, in a case that would drag out for a decade or more, likely have no real say in the case strategy, and would just have to accept whatever agreement the class representative agrees to.

I don't think anyone is stopping you from breathing air. Interstate travel is still open. I'm allowed to walk around my neighborhood. No one is requiring me to show "papers" for any of this.

I know not everyone has the same set of restrictions on them, so I'm genuinely trying to understand if I'm missing something about how other areas are behaving. I know Australia is at the "papers, please" curfew stage, and that definitely bothers me a lot, but I haven't heard of anything like that in the USA.

Australia didn’t get there over night. It was bit by bit. Pseudo-intellectuals would have said it’s a “slippery slope” back when people urged caution though.

Maybe the slope into authoritarianism is actually slippery.