Cultural relativism aside, I’m sure we can agree on “terrible” if we talk it out. I’m not asking for a “well X country is worse than Y country, so, Y country isn’t THAT bad”. I’d say for this discussion we can go as far back as 1800 for “past” as I’m currently convinced there isn’t a country with a perfect track record going back even that short a time.
Yeah it’ll never happen. You’ll get prefab insults and maybe a talking point or two. Once in a blue moon someone will - eventually - make a reasoned argument but it’s rare.