Comment by QuantumFunnel
14 hours ago
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
14 hours ago
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
i will never tire of the irony of a man who owned humans being lauded as a freedom fighter.
Benjamin Franklin became an abolitionist.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin#Slavery
Whatever you're doing at the moment, I'll bet somebody 200 years from now will condemn it.
It might not even take that long, at the rate we're progressing.
And yet every society makes exactly this trade off.
There is no such thing as avoiding this trade off entirely.
"Those (the Penn family) who would give up essential Liberty (money & power), to purchase a little temporary Safety (a veto over a taxation dispute, trying to raise money from the Penn family), deserve neither Liberty (said money & power) nor Safety (the defense that said taxed money would've bought from the present French & Indian wars)"
The context of the original quote doesn't prevent others from finding it more generally applicable or well-put.
It doesn't, but at that point you're not referencing what a person meant, you're saying something they didn't intend with their words. You might as well make your point with your words, instead of misleadingly quoting someone else.
It's kind of funny if you think about it. Franklin spent so many years arguing for liberty, low taxes and limited government that when he tried to argue in favor of taxation and federal power he unintentionally still argued in favor of the former.
1 reply →
> Those (the Penn family) who would give up essential Liberty
No, you've got it half-backwards.
He's saying the democratic legislature shouldn't forever give up the citizens' collective Liberty to tax the ultra-mega-rich (Penns) in exchange for a one-time Security payment from those rich near-nobles.
https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...
Ironically you're correct, and yet I'm still closer to the original meaning than the typical quotation.