Wait for the punchline!At the core of legal theory is this idea that there are essentially two forms of liberty—positive and negative. Positive liberty is the freedom to do something, such as the freedom of speech or the freedom of worship. Negative liberty is freedom from something, which is a little more complicated. For instance, in the United States, the Third Amendment to the Constitution stipulates that the government cannot quarter troops in the home of any private individual. The Fourth Amendment protects citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures. As FDR famously pointed out, freedom from want and fear are just as important as speech and worship.
The complicated part of all this, of course, is where somebody else’s freedom to do something intersects with somebody else’s desire to be free from it.
Feel Free To Set A Better Example — by Ryan Holiday
http://www.awakin.org/read/view.php?op=audio&tid=2379