I'll bite. I lived in an authoritarian country.
People occasionally did disappear (usually temporarily).
A lot of things were worse, but a lot were better. You're definitely not going to be arrested or harassed for letting your kids walk alone. Not sure how good their record is for actual child abuse (bad cases would make the news, so there was some enforcement).
While they could prevent you from leaving the country, they didn't have no fly lists, and I believe many more were impacted from the latter than prevented from leaving that country.
No one is disputing things can get really bad in those countries. It's more about probabilities. One thing that becomes very clear in the US if you poke around: It's ridiculously easy to end up with felony charges, and I know plenty who faced them (some convicted). The number of people I knew in the authoritarian country who had a criminal record? Miniscule. Raising my kid here, the chances of him getting a criminal record is significantly higher here than there and is a source of worry.
And typically no one has to worry whether they'll find an apartment due to some crime they committed a decade ago.
And sorry, but no. No local oligarch/overlord. That's orthogonal to authoritarian governments (and is often more about ineffective governments).
> someone who moved to US (why moving if it is such a great place to live?).
Classic false dichotomy.
People occasionally did disappear (usually temporarily).
A lot of things were worse, but a lot were better. You're definitely not going to be arrested or harassed for letting your kids walk alone. Not sure how good their record is for actual child abuse (bad cases would make the news, so there was some enforcement).
While they could prevent you from leaving the country, they didn't have no fly lists, and I believe many more were impacted from the latter than prevented from leaving that country.
No one is disputing things can get really bad in those countries. It's more about probabilities. One thing that becomes very clear in the US if you poke around: It's ridiculously easy to end up with felony charges, and I know plenty who faced them (some convicted). The number of people I knew in the authoritarian country who had a criminal record? Miniscule. Raising my kid here, the chances of him getting a criminal record is significantly higher here than there and is a source of worry.
And typically no one has to worry whether they'll find an apartment due to some crime they committed a decade ago.
And sorry, but no. No local oligarch/overlord. That's orthogonal to authoritarian governments (and is often more about ineffective governments).
> someone who moved to US (why moving if it is such a great place to live?).
Classic false dichotomy.