Violation Of Negative Liberty In The United States

“We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless.” - Lech Walesa. Freedom - the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Such a small definition for a word with so much meaning. This miniscule word has inspired people and even started wars.This topic is rarely regarded; even though we would certainly know if someone took our freedom from us.

Liberty. This word means many things to many people. There is no way to distinctly define the term without leaving someone's crucial point of view out of the equation.

Freedom is defined as the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. The soldiers in the American revolution demonstrated this at the Battle of Valley Forge when facing starvation, disease, and hypothermic temperatures.

The concept of Liberty can be very complex when trying to define it, one of the reasons for that is that no one seems to agree on what it means to be free. There is the connotation of the word Liberty which is “Freedom from captivity imprisonment, slavery, or despotic control.” (566 Oxford Dictionary) but Liberty is often portrayed as more than just that. When looking at the past, Liberty is an interesting concept, considering the social structure at the time and how the king and the church had so much power. A lot changed with the French Revolution and the abolishment of the French monarchy but let us take a look a few years before that, where two great minds of this time had their own opinion of Liberty an how to achieve it.

“We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless.” - Lech Walesa. Freedom - the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Such a small definition for a word with so much meaning. This miniscule word has inspired people and even started wars.This topic is rarely regarded; even though we would certainly know if someone took our freedom from us.

America is known as the land of the free. The people have many liberties that other countries don’t get to enjoy. The government does its best to secure these liberties, but what can the citizens themselves do to protect their freedoms?

Freedom is defined in many different ways: The state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint;Political or national independence; Personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery.(Dictionary)

The United States has been known as the “Land of the Free,” “Land of the brave,” and many more other referral words that make it a great nation. It is known from history as the land where everyone is welcome and can make great life. The history of the United States is profound with its rise to the top as the country that is most powerful after the fall of European giants. The opportunities that the land offered to its settlers have continued to be felt till date. But of importance is the freedom from tyranny that America offers its citizens. Culminated in the Constitution is the fact that the country takes seriously individual liberty and this can be seen through important events in the past (Farber & Sherry,

Knowledge & Understanding The outcome of King Louis XIV’s trial was decided by a Jury consisting of a total of 693 deputies. These deputies voted to determine Louis fate, using their opinion to determine the answer to a series of three questions. The first question was on whether the King was guilty or not, the next one was determining if a referendum was necessary, and the last question was asking what punishment was most suitable. When asked the second question, which was asking if a referendum (or a second hearing) was necessary, the vote became more split unlike the total vote for the first question, which determined whether the King was guilty or not.

America is known in history as “The Land of Opportunities,” which has led many people to attempt the treacherous journey to experience this land for themselves. Our country was founded on the principles that the people who live there have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I agree with Judge Learned Hand’s speech “Spirit of Liberty” that the theoretical spirit of liberty exists and is what this country was founded on. In my opinion, being an American means having the freedom to work hard and reap the benefits of that work.

In the United States we follow the rules of what is called the “Constitution”. The constitution protects the rights of citizens living in the U.S. Does it really protect ALL rights? No, sadly it does not. The Constitution was created on September 17, 1787, by white men to benefit white men. Our current political climate in the United States infringes civil liberties and takes us back to the 1940s.

Since the beginning of its inception, the United States of America has been known to be a nation of freedom. However, whether this freedom has been for all its citizens has been left up to debate. While many people declare that many social factors such as sex, race, and religion have no imposement on liberty, there is much evidence to show liberty has always been and still is prejudice. Because of the way they are, people who decide the innocence of a person of a minority will likely have many judgements and assumptions based on the individual’s race as well as view someone within the same demographic as them as more trustworthy. Consequently, America does not guarantee liberty to all its citizens.

Liberty is defined as the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one’s way of life, behavior, or political views. It is commonly overlooked by today’s society that liberty wasn’t guaranteed and protected in the 1600s compared to how it is today. In colonial North America, various groups struggled to attain their basic human right to liberty. It was constantly sought after from the Native Americans and white British men. Between these two groups, however, were different goals and an overall meaning of freedom and liberty. The Native Americans considered liberty as the right to land, spiritual worship, and the well-being and security of community; meanwhile, the white British men regarded liberty as the right to property, self-government, and an exemption from taxes.

Freedom has a large range of meaning. The encyclopedia Britannica defines freedom as “the quality or state of being free, and the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action” (Britannica). In the American society there is a lot of emphasis on freedom, and the right to be free, but one must question to what extent we are truly “free”.

The idea of liberty, or freedom, varies between different theorists. One theorist, Isaiah Berlin, focused on the difference between two different ways of thinking about political liberty (Cherniss & Hardy, 2010). Berlin called these two different concepts negative and positive liberty. According to Berlin, negative freedom can be defined as ‘freedom from’, that is, freedom from constraint or interference of others. In contrast, positive freedom can be defined in two ways: ‘freedom to’, that is the ability to pursue and achieve willed goals; and also as autonomy or self-rule, as opposed to the dependence on others (Cherniss & Hardy, 2010). Keeping the idea of positive liberty at