Freedom doesn't mean anything.

As the other topic pointed out, each individual has is own view of freedom. For one, it's the right to bear arms, for the other, it's the right to have an abortion, for yet another person, it's the right to believe in a religion.

Most of the time, one person will think that her view of freedom is the right one, while trying to limit other persons's liberty when said liberty goes against her own values (one could think of the freedom to have an abortion, often dismissed by the traditional apostles of 'freedom', but obviously, there are other examples on the other side of the political spectrum - I for myself, despite being a leftist, oppose unlimited freedom of religion).
Freedom is also cultural. For the US, and for the people who admire the US, freedom mostly means little government. For myself, and I think most Europeans, access to a decent healthcare system is also part of 'freedom'.
For a french, unchecked freedom of religion is not freedom. Hence why we are very touchy about laïcité, whether it's related to catholicism or to islam. Yet, as the POTUS rightly pointed out when he visited France in June, the french conception of freedom of religion is not really freedom: people can't do whatever they want and don't give a crap about the rest of the society. Another example of 'my freedom is free-er than yours': I think my freedom to not have to bear with other people's religion is more important than their freedom to show me they're catholic or muslim.

Thing is, the US from their very beginning, have been claiming to be the land of the free, the country of freedom. They created this mythology, and decided to stick to it, even though history has shown repeatedly it's nothing more than a national myth (one could bring up the fate of the native populations, the ACW, the MacCarthysm era and the overall censorship of any communist or socialist idea, the limitations of civic liberties enforced during all the wars fought by the US, the Patriot Act, and the list goes on).

I'm not saying the US have a worse record than any other western country - I don't think they do : European democratic countries have repeatedly trampled freedom when they had to, or thought they had to. I also think the US puts more emphasis on individual freedom, at the expense of society (and I don't think it's a good idea), though it seems to me this individual freedom is strongly kept in check by a wannabe police state.
What I'm saying is that the myth of the the US as the most free state in the world is just another national myth, which really has little ground. Just like France (which is in many ways a country similar to the US) likes to present herself as the country of the Human Rights (tm), and as history shown us, this is quite a big joke.