I don’t gel I’ve any European country claims to be “home of the free” while massively limiting pretty much any freedom other than gun ownership

It becomes a complex and nuanced concept if you want to call freedom what ain't freedom.

Yet in all aggregated benchmarks the US never ends up on top

They're absolutely on top when they bomb you from above, for voting the wrong candidate at the elections.

Partisanship and hyperbole? Where's the partisanship? There's no political party in the US that wants to legalize alcohol consumption in public parks (maybe the libertarians, but no one pays attention to them anyway, for good reason; their last Pres candidate didn't even know what Aleppo was when it was all over the news). Hyperbole? It's *literally* the truth. Go try it for yourself. Make sure a cop knows you're drinking a beer. There's nothing "complex" about this.