The ability to criticise public officials and politicians without fear of being "disappeared" should surely be a globally shared aspiration, regardless of cultural differences.
As you say, this is no longer the 19th century. Societies evolve and leave behind unfair practices previously regarded as cultural norms.
Politician who caused this mess is done, he may disappear latter when things are quiet.
Thankfully, it is remarkably easy to do in USA despite of far-right and far-left extremism. We ought to watch out though - this is not a permanent liberty.
I am not even sure if we learnt this lesson yet here in the West - power is corrosive to human rights - but your answers seems to be radically rejecting its validity altogether.
Several empires disintegrated after treating their own people badly.
Do Italians have inherently good government skills due to Ancient Rome?
Edit: oops overthrown two or three times depending on whether the Japanese take over of major cities counts. But anyway what I really mean is it had three distinct and extremely different governments. Transfer of skills seems questionable, to understate it.
But we still repeated the same mistakes on different occasions. It often happens that when someone gets all the power, he (usually he) deems himself better at statecraft than those backward ancestors.