Positive liberty is, in essence, the
liberty from certain problems in the world. It is the elimination of
those things that lead to problems, usually. It is positive liberty
that believes that envy, poverty, and hatred should be discontinued
before the people can be truly free. You've have heard the
influential communist/socialist telling you that only
communism/socialism is free since it is the only system that allows
the people to get to live their own life or not have to have the
glass ceiling scenario apply to them. And there is much evidence to
it. Look at history, in the last four thousand years many empires
have risen and fallen, many people have starved, and the pain and
suffering for causes became forgotten when they were eventually
crushed. The Assyrians revolted against the kingdom that controlled
them only to be crushed around 1400 years later. The kingdom that
survived them got crushed and the kingdom that survived that got
crushed. It is human characteristics that lead to the constant
repetition of history and the destruction of those things that have
been fought for years before. Human greed leads to constant and
unending wars along with exploitation which has occurred since the
bronze age, or earlier. Positive liberty appears to be the noble
stallion that will free us from this horrid repetition and deliver us
and, more importantly those that would otherwise never get to
experience life, to a world of near perfection and peace.
But it is not that perfect. In order
for you to see what positive liberty is then you have to see the
things that it implies as human characteristics. It implies that
human conscience and human beliefs are of little or no power in human
decisions as a whole. It implies that we can't be rational, only
animal-like in our real behavior. Now this may seem true at times
when you hear about the many evils of the world but it is also not
true when you see what we are. Humans are a rational entity with
conscienceness and will. The only problem is that there are those in
the world who want to live off of their animal instincts. We have the
ability to do things that go against nature and we have
conscienceness which is something that has no place in a completely
instinct based world.
Positive liberty advocates are against
religion for a reason: religion teaches that people are both good and
bad but they have control over their actions and their lives. They
can make decisions and decide how to live.
It is not surprising then that
positive liberty is the liberty of communism and negative liberty is
the liberty of capitalism. One last thing: the repetition of history
has made us aware of our actions and is changing human motives and
beliefs.
