Comment by threethirtytwo
13 hours ago
I guess the keyword is "individual freedom." Technically, freedom can be expanded in the way you're implying but usually in common parlance they are referring to individual freedoms. That is what people mean when they say the US is "more free" than China. Under your expanded definition it's not clear which one is more free.
Extreme individual freedom is often called anarchy.
There is nearly universal agreement among humans that nobody should have the "freedom" to commit non-consensual violence against another person. This is often cast as interfering with their freedom to be left alone and then the argument is that you don't have the freedom to deprive someone else of their freedom. But as soon as you have a government that so much as prohibits murder you're not doing something that can be described as anarchy.
The question is, in a "free country", does the government limit itself to punishing compelling violations with near-universal consensus like murder, or does it seize control over the micromanagement of dubious and petty violations like hypothetically marginally increasing traffic by carrying out a construction project?
It seems like the thing you're objecting to is the latter.