I'm sure that's true. I was simply saying that people who DID want to leave, or who opposed the government in any number of other ways, generally had a very bad time of it. A lot of them ended up in mental hospitals, others were spied on constantly, etc. I knew a lot of these people, and friends of mine did a tremendous amount of organizing work with them (in Neither East Nor West, a group that opposed both the USSR and U.S. governments).
When I said that a lot of opponents of the Soviet government ended up in mental hospitals, you replied that people like Sakharov weren't typical. I'm sure they weren't. But that doesn't change the facts about the way dissidents were treated. Most Americans will never be bothered by the Patriot Act at all, since they lead harmless work/TV/sleep lives. Doesn't mean the Patriot Act's not a bad thing.
--Dave.
-- Dave Mandl dmandl at panix.com davem at wfmu.org http://www.wfmu.org/~davem