At some point a leap of faith is necessary, and considerably more pernicious than the assumption that the mind is capable of clear reasoning, or the senses of reliable perception.

This is the leap of faith I am referring to, I think, to arrive at Natural Rights theory. I believe this leap to be the mental shortcut Sunni is referring to when she said she was examining mental shortcuts. It is a shortcut most (or all) of us here use and travel frequently.

I assert the only framework in question is reason itself.

I understand that you assert this. This very framework is the one I assert exists inside of a larger framework of Nature, of which reason is only a small subset. This natural framework contains many beings that, as far as we (the "superior" monkeys) know, don't reason. It could - and has in these comments - be argued that even some of our own species don't necessarily occupy a frame of reference housed inside of reason and especially the same flavor of reason we may perceive ourselves in.