Constitutional scholars talk about "positive" and "negative" rights; the first give you the ability to do things (vote, express yourself) while the second protect you from things being done unto you (be discriminated against). Similarly, Isaiah Berlin split "liberties" up into those that allow you to do something and those that keep you from being constrained. The complication comes, of course, when someone's positive liberty (say, to serenade his sweetheart at midnight) butts up against others' negative liberty (to not have their sleep interfered with). The story of liberal societies is in many ways about how to balance the positive and negative.
Americans seem to have sided with protecting the negative; in the choice between government working to give its citizens more liberty or government just keeping out of our business, we'll take door number two.
The British, however, recognize more that in order to protect the liberties of some you sometimes need to limit the freedom of others. So, in order to exercise the liberty to breathe clean air, the freedom of factories to pollute has to be reined in. Or to give people real freedom to participate in society, the government needs to provide public education - which is paid for by constraining the pocket-books of wealthier citizens.
That's not the kind of liberty Libertarians on our shores like to consider, but maybe Liberals should start co-opting the phrase for themselves. Along with "liberty to own guns" and "liberty to not pay taxes", how about "liberty to get an education" and "liberty to have health care?"
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