So freedom is a binary condition, like pregnancy? (someone can’t be “a bit” pregnant)
I disagree, perfect freedom is unattainable - but it’s possible to become “freer” as it’s possible to become “happier”. Having been to countries greatly lacking in freedoms, both freedom to (eg to do what you like) and freedom from (freedom from, say, hunger)coming back to Britain made the old cliche “It’s a free country” seem more than a jokey phrase.
Britain didn’t become “free” overnight, or as a result of one factor. The famous Magna Carta was a step, but very very limited in who got to be “freer” (a bunch of dodgy barons IIRC)
If someone had said “hang on, this is worthless, unless every man is free, no man is free! tear it up, we will settle for nothing less than perfection!” there would have been no gradual spreading of various freedoms to almost all of the population (children don’t have the same freedoms as adults, criminals aren’t free to commit crimes etc)
But as a population gets “freer” it gets harder and harder to give any one group more freedoms without damaging the freedoms of another group - and the freedoms become paradoxical - so your “freedom from coercion” ideal still relies on a government enforcing utopia by coercing anyone not going along with it willingly.
I have been wondering if the belief in a absolute binary state of “being free” is the reason for so much of the initial misplaced optimism over post-war Iraq. There seemed to be a feeling that all that was necessary was to declare Iraq “free” and all would be well, without any thought to how complex and contradictory all the various “freedoms to” and “freedoms from” actually are.