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Showing posts with the label definitions

Freedom From vs. Freedom To

Following a post on Krugman, probably because that is what he was reading, Nathan posted the following comment: In your description of yourself, you are a classical liberal defined as: "Classical liberalism embodies the original concept of liberalism: a faith in freedom to, not freedom from as a guiding principle." Yet the concept of 'freedom to,' which is positive liberty, is contained nowhere in the U.S. Constitution. The founding fathers of our country were, as far as the definition of classical liberal that I know, mostly classical liberals - hence where we get the term. Yet, the U.S. Constitution is only written in terms of negative liberty, or 'freedom from.' How do you reconcile what appears to be a modern interpretation of classical liberalism from what is most assuredly a different actual and historical definition of the term classical liberal? Check the definition with references from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy before answering ...