> As bad as McCarthyism was, nothing in the US could compare to the Great Purge [0], or Culture Revolution [1], or Cambodia Genocide

Tell that to those whose lives were destroyed by McCarthyism - and this is without touching the subject of extrajudicial FBI actions. Leaving aside operation gladio, cointelpro and all that - a democratic storefront is easy if you just extrajudicially blow up any regime opponent with a car bomb in the morning when they turn on their car key. All across Europe in between 10,000 to 50,000 is estimated to have been murdered that way, or just taken out and 'disappeared'. In South America, its far worse - extrajudicial killings were in the open there.

What you call "Great Purge" was a filtering of the anti-system personas in the Soviet Union, which is something that the US already have done way before with the laws that were made in ~1917 to persecute the anti-war opposition. Andin the great purge, most of those were reinstated to their former positions in a few years anyway. Cultural Revolution was directed against the anti-system elite in China as well, and just like the Great Purge, a lot of those were reinstated - the current president of China had his family 'purged' during the cultural revolution. Cambodian Genocide is a genocide as much as Vietnam War, 2003 Iraq war, all the CIA-organized paramilitary murders that killed an uncountable amount of people in South America are. And even in that, it was something that happened over existing racial hatreds, not anything related to the system.

Funnily how whatever happens in non-imperialist countries are 'genocides' and 'purges' whereas nothing that happens in a US backed country etc is. Like how Indonesia killed 300,000 left wingers, communists, or the first US backed dictator of South Korea killed 3 million people. Indonesian government just recently recognized those murders and apologized for it, but they still pushed out a law to !surprise! persecute communists and communism. Or pick any US-backed coup. In my country, the US-backed coup that brought 'democracy' immediately hanged 10,000+ people from the opposition and jailed 30,000 for 2 decades afterwards. So save that 'freedom and democracy' tirade. That only exists if you arent in the targeted anti-system opposition demographic.

> Did you live under the communists? I did. My family suffered. For 30 years.

You do look like to have suffered so much with your family and very probably you getting a top tier education to the point of being able to speak fluent English and be on this site where white-collar tech professionals frequent. So that horrible repressive communist country provided your parents and very probably you with all the financial resources and also the higher education that catapulted your family to this position. Which is something you would never get if you were born into a disadvantaged minority in the US during the cold war. And which is something difficult even for those from the 'right background' today thanks to education costs for college pushing upwards of $100,000.

...

One thing that people like you who lived in such Eastern Bloc or communist countries make is to think that you would have been able to have housing, education and all that if you lived in a 'democratic' (read: capitalist) country. This is because your segment was those who were able to receive such perks and benefits at the right time before they were abolished by the free market and who were able to get into the top 10% segment of the society. Those who werent able to do that think totally different now, as they have to work as underpaid labor in other European countries.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/homesick-for-a-...

I belong to a segment like you - whose family was lifted thanks to socialized education and amenities that a country that imitated the Eastern Bloc provided. But unlike many of those from my socioeconomic white collar segment who think that they would have 'just' happened to be in the same educated white collar jobs with 'the free market', I know what was lost after the transition to a randian economy.

However, beyond that - really, just try declaring yourself to be an opponent of the system and see what happens in your 'democratic' country. You are 'free' only because you are a collaborator of the system with only minor criticisms and you dont constitute any threat whatsoever.