This is something I wish was addressed more in conversation when it devolves into a pissing match of freedom.

Here's the deal. Yes, the US has been getting into some shady areas, even more-so since 9/11. All the things you reference are big issues that haven't been addressed properly yet. I'll grant you all that and more, because it's true.

Here's the problem though. This is where I generally hear about how the Nordic/Scandinavian countries have a much higher level of "freedom", (que statistics dump here), and how the US isn't really free.

The problem I have with this outlook is that it forgets the history and origins of the US, and it's purpose and function as a place of freedom where there was little in other places; namely freedom under the laws of the land, which in the US is the Constitution.

Yes, the Constitution is in tatters at the moment. We have had presidents abusing it and stretching it, congress who disregards it, and a public that is largely apathetic about it. The bottom line though, is that while, functionally, we are indeed less "free" than many other nations, we at least have a legal framework to base a new kind of freedom upon, where as many of those other countries lack key freedoms.

I think the best example of this is freedom of speech. The US still has the best levels of freedom of speech according to law (an important distinction to be made between the law, eg the Constitution, and practice, eg stifling of dissent via programs like COINTELPRO.)

Here some some experts from a Christopher Hitchens speech on the related matters.

“…It’s not the right of the person who speaks to be heard, it is the right of everyone in the audience to listen and to hear; and every time you silence somebody, you make yourself a prisoner of your action because you deny yourself the right to hear something.

…It’s a tiny thought experiment: if you hear the Pope saying he believes in God, you think, well, the Pope is doing his job again today. If you hear the Pope saying he’s really begun to doubt the existence of God, you begin to think he might be on to something.

…And one person gets up and says, “you know what, this holocaust, I’m not even sure it happened. In fact, I’m pretty certain it didn’t. Indeed, I begin to wonder if the only thing is that the Jews brought a little bit of violence on themselves.”—That person doesn’t just have a right to speak, that person’s right to speak must be given extra protection. Because what he has to say must have taken him some effort to come up with. Might be, might contain, a grain of historical truth; might, in any case, give people to think why do they know what they think they already know. How do I know I know this except I’ve always been taught this and never heard any thing else? It’s always worth establishing first principle….don’t take refuge in the false security of consensus and the feeling that, whatever you think, you’re bound to be okay because you’re in the safely, moral majority. One of the proudest moment in my life, that’s to say, in the recent past is defending the British historian David Irving, who is now in prison in Austria, for nothing more than the potential of uttering an unwelcomed thought on Austrian soil. He didn’t actually say anything in Austria. He wasn’t even accused of saying anything; he was accused of perhaps planning to say something that violated an Austrian law that says only one version of the history of the Second World War may be taught in our brave little Terellian republic. The republic that gave us Kurt Waldheim, Secretary General of the United Nations, a man wanted in several countries for war crimes. You know, the country that has Jorg Haider, the leader of its own Fascist party, in the cabinet that sent David Irving to jail.”

So you are absolutely right. The US is not the only place that values freedom, and in many cases the US is far from the best, but its Constitution, the associated Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence still stand as beacons for every nation and person to aspire to.

America has simply been failing at it's own ideals. I won't devolve yet into who I think is behind it all, as that's a conversation best left for another time.