As a counter to your story I grew up in the US, in a largish city, my friends and I also had basically total freedom to wander around, we mostly spent time in the nearby parks/playgrounds (of which there were 3), but we had quiet a bit of autonomy.
I’m sure there were children in Moscow, Kyiv or Cracow who had very different experiences from you. Whose parents did something that caught the KGB’s attention and then they were in for a world of pain.
I think it’s very accurate to say that for most people living in a relatively rural area anywhere in the world, they’ll be pretty safe from this sorta attention. The big difference is the degree to which your life is ruined. In China (or USSR) any sort of individual disagreement with the police would virtually guarantee a trip to an undisclosed location, bribes and probably torture. Here in the US you still have to deal with people and their egos but many of the laws will protect you from the worst of other peoples’ power trips.
How is your grabbing at straws, bringing in something completely different - politically persecuted - and making assumptions ("I'm sure") and looking for the worst outliers instead of what is normal inside the distribution curve a "counter"?
Sometimes I'm just disgusted by the discussion. Some people, instead of curiosity and wanting to learn, have some cognitive dissonance issue whenever anyone says anything non-binary about the East. The responses are always exactly the same and perfectly predictable too.
Imagine somebody said something about their nice life in the US of A and then you would always and predictably get a slew of responses along the lines of "but police shootings", "not true democracy because only two parties both heavily dependent on big money", "health care", "prisons", "US wars after WWII", "guns", etc. etc. Point being, anything but pointing out to the negatives is accepted by those people, "Thou must not have any other truths!" kind of.
I’m sure there were children in Moscow, Kyiv or Cracow who had very different experiences from you. Whose parents did something that caught the KGB’s attention and then they were in for a world of pain.
I think it’s very accurate to say that for most people living in a relatively rural area anywhere in the world, they’ll be pretty safe from this sorta attention. The big difference is the degree to which your life is ruined. In China (or USSR) any sort of individual disagreement with the police would virtually guarantee a trip to an undisclosed location, bribes and probably torture. Here in the US you still have to deal with people and their egos but many of the laws will protect you from the worst of other peoples’ power trips.