> I'd like some source material on your claim about freedoms

Let's start at the bottom then:

>> The other countries you speak about have already lost their rights, or never had them to begin with.

>and New Zealand is a tiny island, very easy to control

What you're saying here is basically: "even if you back it up with source material, I'm going to claim the US is more diverse/different so it doesn't really apply."

In other words, it's US exceptionalism both ways around, that is, circular reasoning. Why should anyone bother to try and have a good faith argument here?

Here is a well thought out analysis of different attributes tha constitute "free-ness" that breaks down many kind of freedom[1]. Obviously Americans get full marks for "freedom of movement and assembly" but there are other types of freedom. The USA doesn't even break the top 10. If your interest is genuine I recommend further research starting with "why does the USA have the highest incarceration rate in the world", "prison industrial complex", "victims / incarceration by race" (given freedom in the USA is unevenly distributed).

I'm not saying the USA isn't generally a free place (it obviously is and has many good parts), but comparatively it's not the most free.

Also to reply directly to your point about size, Australia and Canada are both higher in the paper I provided, which are (equal sized / slightly smaller) but more sparse, so I don't think size is the issue.

[1] https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/human-freedom-inde...