Where do you live in the west? I'm in the us, I just don't see extreme censorship except for racist pandering comments. Don't like the president, or cell phones, or capitalism, all good. Don't like poor people, no one will try to stop you. Only if you make racist, sexist, or gay bashing comments will people try to stop you from speaking. I haven't lived in China but I see the value in people being free to ask questions, read what they want, and not be worried about being kidnapped in the night and taken to prison - those seem pretty safe as universal rights to me.
> Only if you make racist, sexist, or gay bashing comments will people try to stop you from speaking.
Beware of conflating "the ideas you express suck and we want nothing to do with you" (on either a social or an economic basis) with "you can't speak". There's a very large difference and the people who are speaking in the way you describe are absolutely begging (shout outs to Laura Loomer) to be thought of as "persecuted by the normies".
I live in Canada. I have a graduate degree in Equity stuides and have spent my life writing and working to fight racism, sexism and homophobia. It's death by a thousand cuts in the West. I am currently in St. Petersburg Russia on an art project and it is so much more open and nuturing to new ideas than Toronto ever was. On the contrary, not liking capitalism and supporting poor people comes with a very high social cost.
Living somewhere, and contextualizing geopoltics and the difference between a citystate like St. Petersburg and a nation state (Russia), is highly recommended before concluding from afar. Though, it is certainly the mindset of our culture to do so.
