'Berlin was wrong'

Although Curtis sets out to disagree with Berlin on positive and negative liberty, he starts from the assumption that Berlin was right in believing that the distinction can be meaningful in practice. This undermines Curtis' conclusion that positive liberty (contrary to what Berlin argued) can in fact be a benevolent force, because that's a difficult end to reach from the Berlin-based premises Curtis starts from.

My position, however, is that negative liberty can never in practice exist: human nature prevents it. That's where Berlin went wrong.

But Curtis does succeed in demonstrating that Berlin was right about one thing: the danger that if his theory of "negative liberty" should come to be seen as effectively a form of positive liberty, people would make the same end-justifies-the-means argument in pursuit of it that had caused so much bloodshed already. This has happened: as far as I'm concerned, it was inevitable.

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"An inglorious peace is better than a dishonourable war" ~ John Adams