Negative Liberalism

The implications of liberals believing in this statement are that they believe that rational individuals should want to sign up to a social contract to establish a sovereign government. Individuals would want to do this because life before government was endless civil war, with life being; solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. Life would be this way because individuals are selfish, greedy and power seeking. Therefore rational beings would enter into a social contract and sacrifice a portion of their liberty to set up a system of law; this would prevent the otherwise inevitable: property and lives being under constant threat. Seventeenth century writer John Locke said “Where there is no law there is no freedom.”

Liberalism was translated into a pursuit of wealth by the middle class. "The principal concern of early-nineteenth-century liberalism was protecting the rights of the individual against the demands of the state", explains Davies. (A History of Europe, p.802) Here, the liberals were concerned with the state interfering with the natural rights of man. The tenets of liberalism affected the political deve... ... middle of paper ... ...he natural right of man. As a result, nationalism and liberalism want people to live together in harmony.

In the very nature of their argument they want government to take a laissez-faire approach, allowing for negative side effects to be imposed on people. The most obvious of these externalities is air and water pollution (Lindblom, 2001, p.148). Conservatives would oppose government regulation over industry believing that ... ... middle of paper ... ...effects, in fact corporation have a desire to lack transparency. They are artificial constructs designed to maximize profit and should be treated as such. Allowing for limits to be placed on their rights and powers.

Thomas Jefferson called these rights "inalienable rights" and indicative of the classical liberal belief that rights do not come from the law, but that the law serves to guard natural individual rights. And government exists to protect those moral rights, ensured by a constitution that defends individual ... ... middle of paper ... ...ood of their society. But to draw the today’s conclusion the lineage of contemporary Liberalism is frequently flawed, regularly contradictory and sometimes tarnished with the blood of the innocent. Nowadays, liberal values propose a type of abundant life the liberty and independence to sin and to set one's own standards in every area of life. But we harvest what we sow and the modern western societies are now reaping the rewards of this faulty "liberty" in unparalleled abortions, numerous teenage pregnancies, high rates of drug abuse, high divorce rates, and high suicide rate that stuns those who come from the very poorest nations.

Taxation, the government acquisition of property from the individual has mixed support in any Western democratic system. To make its way into the good will of the majority, taxation has surrounded itself with doctrines of justification. No law which lacks public approval or acquiescence is enforceable, and to gain such support it must address itself to our sense of correctness. This is particularly necessary for statutes authorizing the taking of private property. Sometimes depicted as ‘theft’ by those who are subject to taxation, the accusation is commonly based on the sentiment what do I get from it?

Unless, of course, their state is a form of fascism to which there is an absolute power leadership. Although, while more modern forms of liberalism support the restrictions placed on governments they are still supportive of the continued use of services provided to ensure equal rights and freedom (Young 2002). Having personal liberty would be pointless if they lacked the supplies to be able to benefit from having these rights. Locke (1960) vowed that if a government truly breaches an individuals’ rights and liberty, these individuals may legitimately rebel against the government. Hence why liberalism rejects the idea of an absolute rule.

Thus effectively preventing tyranny, and creating equality before the law, irrelevant to the citizen’s position, which denies high ranking individuals legal advantages seen during the feudal era. Accordingly, the rule of law comes across to liberals as their greatest triumph, for they perceive it as the lawful representation of equality and liberty. There are numerous critics of the liberal minimalist interpretation of equality and social liberty before the law. Such as inequalities of opportunity, and material inequality which results in exploitation. However, liberals will reject “to impose upon the public a consciously selected model of distribution, whether it promotes equality or of inequality.”[2] Numerous critics agree that capitalism in the liberal minimalist model does not depict true equality and thus is problematic.

This then leads to helping to ensure that there is individual freedom and rights, and that individuals have autonomy. Liberals tend to be suspicious of the government and the power that they posses to limit an individual and their freedom. By limiting the government, it makes sure that they are not using their power to target citizens and to constrain their liberty. Friedrich von Hayek (1960) debated for the rule of law, where individuals under this law can make choices and act upon them without constraint. With the rule of law and separation of powers, it ensures that no single person can rule over the people and rob them of their freedom.

However, in my opinion, individual freedom and social equality are equally important, and a government should not promote one of them and suppress the other. In fact, they can be balanced in a liberal democratic system, due to the fact that this system is very flexible and allows changes. Liberal democracies were born mainly for two reasons: limiting the arbitrary power of a state and protect the individual freedoms of every citizen with a judicial system. Thus, the main aim of a liberal democratic regime is to promote freedom. Freedom not in

an overbearing government and therefore it places the “fellow-subjects” in a subservient position. Another support of liberalism by this quote is the mentioning of the “confiscation of our property” which is, by way of John Locke, an infringement of natural rights and therefore an infringement of human individuality. Since Jefferson is condemning these infringements, he is then supporting the opposing view, which is liberalism. Jefferson also writes “He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it’s most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people…” This statement is actively working for the ideology of liberalism by stating the life’s most sacred rights are life and liberty, which goes back to the statement by John Locke. By using the term sacred, Jefferson has created a sense of religiousness in his argument.