JJ - always a pleasure conversing with you! Thanks for the great post and it is good that someone understands Rousseau enough to recognize the danger inherent in his definitions.
I was not, however, trying to imply Roussean “natural state” as the foundational premise of my post. I was trying to convey that we already exist free (not the generic natural state of Rousseau). We choose what limitations on our freedoms we will or will not allow.
In a free society with limited government (BTW this is a limitation on Government - not just a reflection of its size), we choose to allow a curtailing of certain freedoms in order to gain some measure of interactibility with others while protecting ourselves, our families, our property, and yes even our freedoms from harm or destruction. These are restrictions that we choose, thus they have their legitimacy in our approval. In this way, Freedom is seen not just as our natural state, but also with the caveat of not being coerced. Thus I would say that freddom ='s Freedom of Choice, Free of Coersion.
I like your agreement that freedom is a active state, no a passive mentality. Wasn’t that the balance we tried to achieve as evidence in Burke’s writings?