>That's still somewhat true. We may criticise our society in this forum and not be arrested by thugs. This is possible in many if not most oppressive countries

>That's still somewhat true. We may criticise our society in this forum and not be arrested by thugs. This is possible in many if not most oppressive countries too. It's simply not worthwhile to throw every critic in prison. This doesn't mean they are protecting freedom, it just means that they've made a cost/benefit trade off that left somebody who wasn't that much of a threat to begin with out of prison. When you see how we treat dissidents who are a threat to the powers that be (Assange, Snowden, Gonzalo Lira) I don't see a huge difference in how we treat them and how our geopolitical rivals treat theirs. We're slightly better than them at not doing it, but that could just be because our elites feel less threatened. >That should be evidence enough that for 80 years since the last world war we've maintained an alliance of ideals that were worth fighting for. Not very well, and we get more like Russia with every passing year. Sometimes the similarities are a little too on the nose - like when we bring down a jet to try and grab one dissident and then a year or two later they do it too.