> All people are born vulnerable to being beaten up and coerced by the guy with the biggest club. There is no "inherent" freedom in nature. Well humans don't l

> All people are born vulnerable to being beaten up and coerced by the guy with the biggest club. There is no "inherent" freedom in nature. Well humans don't live in traditional Darwinian nature, our brains have evolved beyond that. A key distinction between humans and animals is our ability to think and imagine. Freedom, at it's root, is based on the idea that people have an inherent right to "think" and believe. If "thought" is an intrinsic right, then it follows that freedom to think should be protected. It further follows that to protect thought, we need to protect speech, religion, certain aspects of privacy (i.e., you can't freely think if you're constantly being watched). A whole moral code can be built from the basic concept of the right to think.