about equal opportunities in a free for all. Free to fail and free to succeed.
But that's self-evidently not the case. Formal and informal discrimination massively limit participation, and quite often commercial success is rooted in an ability to dump externalities rather than create value.
Perfect can be the enemy of good, in the sense that in a city of people there must be compromises so that everyone can coexist in a small space.
Sure, the US isn't fair. In practice it is grossly unfair. But talk to anyone with, eg, a congenital disability and it is apparent that this isn't because the US is doing something wrong, it is because life is unfair.
The US is very free. Some people have to work orders of magnitude harder to excercise their freedom, but in freedom of speech and action the US compares well with, eg, the UK, China, Russia, Middle Eastern countries, etc, etc. There are a few very small nations (eg, Luxembourg, Sweden, New Zealand, etc), where the numbers are smaller and the results are arguably better. But recall that human communities are governed by absolute numbers (see Dunbar's number) and reflect that the US does pretty well for its size.
Basically, don't conflate freedom and fairness. The US has a lot of freedom, but freedom is a pretty basic idea, and exercising it is crazy hard for some people.
But that's self-evidently not the case. Formal and informal discrimination massively limit participation, and quite often commercial success is rooted in an ability to dump externalities rather than create value.