The kinds of freedoms that your family members don't remember worrying too much about often only become visible along the edges of behavior. Sure, if you're an

The kinds of freedoms that your family members don't remember worrying too much about often only become visible along the edges of behavior. Sure, if you're an average person living an average life of non-political, squared-away activity, you probably won't notice many of these absences. This applied in the USSR as it did in Nazi Germany. But if you do anything to stand out, move against the system or complain outside of official channels, and especially complain very publicly, then you'd quickly notice the repression. In the west, you'd have and still have far, far more leeway for doing all of these things. Insinuating that a country isn't so bad on authoritarian strictures just because someone can visit relatives or go grocery shopping and enjoy a vacation is flatly disingenuous. These aren't the qualifications that really matter for definitions of freedom. They're a blandly complacant sideshow for distracting from what does.