If it didn't do either of those things, there would be nothing to love**. Someone who has had to escape totalitarianism would understand***

I once knew a fellow who had lived in a Russian dominated state in Eastern Europe. I think it was Czechoslovakia, but not sure. He had been a psychotherapist there, and he said the most chilling thing was he would have workers who had worked next to someone for 20 years, and one day they were gone. When they inquired about their workmate they were simply told not to ask, but they never saw their workmate again. How could you treat someone who that happened to? What could you say?

Then he told me one day a friend of his told him that the borders were open temporarily and anyone could leave by driving across the border. This was a border with high fences, barbed wire, machine gunned manned guard towers, and a road stretching across a no man's land to the guard station on the other side. He went upstairs, got his wife, and they drove across the border. They didn't take time to pack anything, just got in the car and drove. They spent months in a refugee camp but it was worth it, he told me, as we both drank a beer sitting by the pool after a set of water volley ball in sunny Southern California.

Dammed immigrant.