I didn't state that, at all.

The point was that the US touts itself as a free country while having many perverse incentives and mechanisms oppressing part of its citizenry. There's a veneer on top of it of individual freedoms compared to a state like China but in reality it can be as brutal against its population as any totalitarian state, it's just that the power to subjugate and oppress isn't centralised and is more diffused through its institutions across history.

It's not too far in history that the US was deploying the National Guard to fire live ammo against protesters, American police has military-grade equipment deployed against their citizens, I think it makes it even harder that the oppressive power isn't centralised since to uproot this there are countless battles to be won for any change to happen. It's institutionalised, any big institution is really hard to change.