In Katherine Mangu-Ward’s essay, The War on Negative Liberty, she
reflects on the idea of positive and negative liberty. She expresses positive
liberty as the freedom to fulfill your potential, such as the freedom to be
healthy in our environment. Usually this comes from the government creating
laws such as smoking bans and drinking ages. She then expresses negative liberty
as a freedom to express yourself, such as freedom from a dress code (Mangu-Ward
661).
I had never thought of different types of freedom
before. I just thought about what freedoms we weren't receiving. The
differences in freedom was a big eye opener for me. It let me see that there
are different types of freedom and they’re used to protect you or express
yourself.
The government creates laws to protect you. These
laws would include smoking in public places curfew laws, speed limits, or wearing
a seat belt. These allow the people the freedom to be happy, safe, and healthy.
You are also sometimes given the freedom to express
yourself, either in the clothes that you wear, the color you dye your hair, the
kind of music you listen to, your religion, or your beliefs. These are freedoms
from restriction.
Freedom is a very controversial concept in today’s
world, I believe, as some people don’t think we have freedom in the United
States. It’s definitely something to think about.
