Freedom can be defined as the ability of individuals to make decisions about what they want to do, how and when they want to do it, without requiring the consent or approval of another.  Such complete freedom is an abstraction, because none of us are totally alone, and by definition some of these things we may do, will prevent some else from having the same freedom.  Therefore for all of us to be free we must accept certain logically imposed impositions on that freedom.  We need to establish a set of principles/rules that cover the intersecting points of human pursuits & interactions.  Thus we create laws and to institute and oversee them we create governments.  In this process we cede a certain amount of our total freedom in exchange for efficiency and order in our interactions with others. 

Life

It’s so basic that we almost overlook it.  To have freedom you must be alive.  (it is not my intent to get into a discussion about the hereafter; the reader is left to decide that on their own).  You can not exercise freedom if you are dead.  Life is the most basic right you have.  You must always have the right to maintain your life; you must always have the right to defend it. It is your life.  End of story.

Property 

In order to survive we all require food and shelter among other things.  For each individual those things and there importance will differ, but we require them.  If you don’t have these things you will not have life.  The only way you have them is by possession.  If you do not posses them then you must be a slave to some else that does possess them for your survival, and therefore you have lost your freedom.

Freedom of Action (or Inaction)

To be free you must be able to do as you please.  You decide what you do today.  How much effort you put into work, how much to leisure, where you go, what you do when you get there.  Absolute freedom requires the ability to do as you please with you time.

 

Responsibility

Liberty requires Life and the Freedom of Action; they both in turn require Personal Property.  But Liberty requires one additional thing, responsibility.  What does responsibility have to do with Liberty?  Think about it this way, what we are really calling liberty, is the right for you to decide how to conduct your life, to gain or lose in an infinite number of ways.  Your decisions, and your actions, and thus your consequences. Your right to make them, your responsibility (and right) to bear their fruits.  The only way you could not bear these fruits is if someone else must bear them for you.  You would be free, but they would not.  Your liberty, without responsibility is someone else’s tyranny.   Liberty requires Life, Freedom of Action, Responsibility, and Personal Property.

The Hermit or the Social Being

One could enjoy absolute freedom if one chose to live as a true hermit.  Totally on their own, with essentially no interaction.  Within their realm they could do as they please.  But most of us are social creatures and require interaction with others, and thus life as a hermit is not desirable.  So living in an interacting condition requires one rule be placed on our freedom, its exercise can not impinge on another’s freedom, without their consent.