Their freedom always boils down to I’m allowed the freedom to make terrible choices, whereas your pussy government tries to care for and protect your community. Be it gun access, their healthcare system, food safety, gambling regulation, medical programs, pollution laws… (this list in almost infinite).
By their yardstick, the most freedom-loving countries in the world are just those where money buys you access and permission to everything - Somalia, Sudan, Cameroon, Cambodia, North Korea, Russia… you know… the same places they call shitholes.
One day they’ll maybe figure out collectively that they have been had by the wealthy, who advertise and campaign to trick them into voting against taxation and regulation and protections that benefit them and their whole community, but it won’t be anytime soon.
The NYT haven’t changed. They’ve been aligned with corporate greed and neo-conservative goals and attitudes for at least 40 years. Yes you can find individual articles that don’t, but editorially they always have.
Though they always presented their image as ‘social liberal progressive attitudes’ and ‘fiscal responsibility with social support’, if you look at their actual reporting track record they’ve helped manufacture consent for almost every US war of the last 30+ years, and have consistently sided with the desires of whatever government is currently in power and fiscal conservative attitudes throughout.