"Great firewalls" are necessary as a matter of fact. They have nothing to do with government overreach and curtailment of freedoms. In a liberal, democratic country what is blocked is what has been identified as illegal/criminal enough to warrant it, so why would Joe public want to get technical tools to "ignore all of that" has to raise red flags because that would not be "to protects his rights"...
Crucially, as mentioned, there is also the aspect of national security and protection against cyber attacks.
It's good to have ideals but on those issues we should not be "too simple, sometimes naive" (Jiang Zemin)
Edit: Oh dear, oh dear...
Is the History not enough to convince you that no mater the purpose (nefarious or not) Democratic/Liberal Governments can be wrong as much as Dictatorial ones in enacting laws?
If even access to information is forbidden, how are people supposed to get informed that maybe something is not right with these laws so they try to change them?
You believe some information must be illegal an politicians must protect us from seeing it.
I believe only actions should be criminalized and that no one should have the right to decide what we, as adults, can see and what not
Your arguments are basic and the kind that lead us to the Iraq invasion and many other wars that are for profit but, at the time, always sold as a matter of national security or similar and dissent is punished in whichever way possible.
You can make dissent virtually nonexistent online if you censor enough.
Empirically not true, because most countries don’t have them, and are doing fine.
They literally curtail freedom.
Quoting Jiang Zemin on Hong Kong is just perfect here.
I'm obviously provoking with that quote but it is a very good point: The world is not black and white and claiming that it is is extremely naive and simplistic, and I am afraid that what I read here in response to my comment is exactly that.