You dont value freedom or democracy because you were never faced with the prospect of losing them.
Prospect of losing them? What planet are you on? A country as diverse as the US with one party a half, where a couple of billionaires decide what you can say on "social media" is a free democracy? Try to say out loud that men can't get pregnant and kiss you job goodbye. Or, in Germany, that Hitler was a patriot.
You don't even know how to define "democracy". I asked for the definition many times and all I got were childish evasions.
So why don't you try now and, to make it current and relevant, tell me in what sense Ukraine was "free" and "democratic" before the war started? For reference, you can use DDR.
...a wasteland resembling the worst of the depression,...
Go to Apalachia and Luoisiana to see "wasteland" and "deperession". It's so depressing that thousands of them die every year from that happiness fentanyl and other wonders of modern chemistry bring to their lives - all happily allowed in by the "democratic" US ruling mob in search of better voters.