[nitid_name]

>The right answer to all of your questions is, "it depends". For example, a society where everyone is completely free but dies at the age of 5 is not really worth living in, nor is a society where everyone lives to 100 as a slave. Thus there is no one answer to "Is life more important than liberty?"

I think you're missing the point.

The followup question to "It depends" is "On what?" The answer to that question is where commonality begins to form. We might not agree on the exchange rate between freedom and life expectancy, but we will likely agree that there is one.

It reminds me of an old joke:

A man asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. She looks him up and down, smiles, and says "sure." He then asks her if she'd do it for a dollar. She slaps him, asking what sort of girl he thinks she is. He replies she already told him what sort of girl she is and now they're just haggling.

[randallsquared]

The joke actually makes the opposite point from your point that agreement on substance is easier after agreement that a range exists.

[mikeash]

That sounds OK, but seems like it's getting pretty distant from what I identify as "principles".