I don't feel repressed in any way and I have the freedom of speech, by law, that repressed people do not. Comparing those two is an insult to those that lived in the Soviet era.
Did you seriously just link to an interview in very popular, US-hosted website with a US-based (presumably tenured) professor at one of the best universities in the world (did I mention US based?) in which he lays out in great detail his public academic research on how he considers the US an oligarchy -- as evidence of repression and harassment of those advocating for fundamental change?
Do you understand the words repression and harassment? Do you understand that if he had ventured into such research (much less published it, much much less been interviewed about it in a publication), he (and his wife) would at best have lost their jobs. Probably reassigned a new flat of the sort described in the article, in a remote area (docile academics often enjoyed access to privileged accommodation). Worst case, re-education in a Gulag.
The fact that the US isn't by a long shot perfect doesn't make it Soviet Russia.
Excuse me. It seems like you are the one assuming "Not as bad as the Soviet Union" is good enough. My family is from an FSU country, and they would not settle for that.
GP: > Edward Snowden revealed that the USA was monitoring its citizens and storing that data in a way that far outstrips anything the KGB was ever capable of. Should he fear repression?
Me: > There is little evidence that the NSA monitoring was used for repression of citizens, and even less evidence of the sort of repression that was rampant in the Soviet bloc
You: > Do you think that people who want fundamental change in the US are not harassed and repressed, and their activities criminalized?
The context of the discussion is literally about whether the US is better than the Soviet Union. And is is, by a huge margin.
It's not about settling, it's about not derailing a discussion about NSA overreach and legitimate democratic issues in the US (and most other western countries) by making hyperbolic comparisons that aren't even in the same league.
But even then, the article you linked to is not even remotely evidence of anyone being "harassed and repressed, and their activities criminalized" in any sense, Soviet or otherwise. To the contrary, it's evidence that there exists freedom to openly discuss big and fundamental issues of government without fearing repression.
