Positive Liberty is understood as "intrapersonal", whereas, negative liberty is "interpersonal". Both are needed, because an individual cannot "become" what he needs to "be", so that he can "do". In this sense, postivie liberty is necessary as the means of negative liberty.
Isaiah Berlin thought that positive liberty divided the self into "higher" and "lower" aspects. Where friends can intervene to interject "wisdom' into a situation, government doing so limits liberty altogether. This is where "to manipulate men, to propel them towards goals which you-the social reformer-see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without will, of thier own and therefore to degrade them" (Isaiah Berlin, 1959) is true.
We are experiencing such tyranny in our government's "universal healthcare program". Americans are not used to other telling them what is "proper behavior", as we are used to negative liberty on the larger scale.
The French Revolution was the result of determining a single "right course" for society, a single cure for its ills and woe be to those who opposed it. This has happened in any totaltarian or authoritarian government. Americans believe that their Constitution protects them from such "forces of power".
I believe that we must stand against such grabs for power. Otherwise, most of us will not have liberty at all in our future. We will be enslaved economically, socially, and politically. American ideals will no long exist as ideals, because they will be cremated on the "rocks of political ex, pendiency".
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