Freest nations the most libertarian?

It seems to me that people in anti-libertarian leftist echo chambers that try and envision a libertarian country and what conditions are like there, describe places with the least libertarian governments in the world. Places with rampant violence and disease and poverty.

Obviously there is no currently existing government in the modern world libertarian enough for even non-anarchist libertarians, but that doesn't mean there aren't levels of degree.

The Cato institute does an annual report called the human freedom index. I'm oversimplifying what it shows if I say it's the exact same thing as the most and least libertarian countries, but close enough. According to the latest report (2019), the freest nations were New Zealand, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Luxembourg, and we all know the least free. In terms of regions, the least free were in the Middle East and North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia.

Libertarianism isn't the conditions which exist in warzones, or the conditions that exist in a failed state. It certainly isn't exemplified by states with oppressive governments, or in states where the heads of competing governments are warlords.

Is the freest nation in the world New Zealand?

I really don't know. It would take way more time than I have to research.

But the overall thrust of Cato's rankings seems to be something I agree with. I mean... The kind of nations with rampant violence and starvation and disease seem to have the least libertarian governments, while the nations with the most prosperity seem to be the most free, as a general rule.

I was accused today of wanting the whole violence, starvation, disease thing because I advocated for liberty principles, but those seem most common in places that are the least libertarian (North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Venezuela, most countries in Africa, war zones, etc.)

It just didn't make any sense. Sure, some of the more libertarian countries have more expansive welfare states than some libertarians would like, but... The worst of the lot in terms of places one could live are the least libertarian overall.