A post from a friend’s blog…
Source: Our New Rights « A Longer View
That first paragraph, with the negative liberties comment, was painful for me to read. When people use language like that I have barely suppressed homicidal impulses. It’s not just that I find the statement inane, I find it to be deliberate obfuscation of the truth. If not deliberate on the part of the person repeating it, certainly deliberate by the original author. Responsibility for it, however, belongs to all those who repeat it.
I think his explanation of free and slave liberties is spot on and the distinction is extremely important in our society today. I am still trying to reconcile where the line is, as far as liberties go. On the one side, you have the extreme leftist state. A psychedelic 1984 where everyone is taken care of by the government and all “freedom” is carefully regulated so as to not offend anyone’s sensibilities. On the other side, you have a situation where any government is considered a use of force against the individual by the masses. Self determination for everyone. All individual liberty is guaranteed through… threat of force by the individual. That’s the utopian dream for many Libertarians and Tea party types, but I don’t find it practical or honest in a nation of many.
