Some pages that discuss negative freedom in a book I'm reading: https://imgur.com/a/xXN4ivm
Bear in mind that I personally reject those things as abhorent, but "no fear of reprisal"?
Mind you, I do agree that you know you're in a free society when you can react to stuff and have no fear of reprisal.
I don't know why people keep going around thinking they're being repressed if their decisions have consequences. The only way that will happen is if you're a brain in a vat. Or being treated like one by your society; where nothing you do matters but you keep being fed an illusion of response in order to make you think such actions are still worth taking.
The willful disingenuousness of that argument becomes apparent when applied to other acts most people would abhor:
"That anti-X graffiti sprayed on your house is perfectly okay since it isn't the government that's persecuting you. I don't know why people keep going around thinking they're being repressed if their decision to worship X/be an X/etc. has consequences."
The "free of reprisal from the government" isn't a principled stance; it's a tacit admission that the the speaker is ethically okay with mob justice as long as the mob is on their side.
If you don't want to (for example) not lose your job for saying racist things, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you.
America in the 1910s: "If you want to (for example) not lose your job for supporting women's suffrage, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you."
America in the 1950s: "If you want to (for example) not lose your job for supporting leftists, then you've got to find and sell the value of that. If you can't, that's on you."
See a problem with your viewpoint here?
For me, it’s because I fear both the government putting me in jail and private business putting me in poverty.
Today, private enterprise fills many roles previously by government. So while getting put in jail for “slandering” the government is bad, so is losing your ability to use the internet or be gainfully employed.
“Decisions have consequences” is such a weird statement as no one argues they don’t. The argument is that the consequences are inappropriate and don’t have the rule of law to protect people. By this I mean, going to jail means a trial and jury and judge and due process. Private enterprise making arbitrary decisions that have similar impact (losing hosting, delisting from Google, removed from Facebook, blackballed by industry) has no rule of law.
So for me, it seems odd that people don’t understand this aspect.