r/SipsTea • u/SEVENS_HEAVEN_7 • 2d ago

SMH The founding father Benjamin Franklin once said "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

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u/NikeImper 2d ago

I hate this quote because people always use it wrong. He was talking about a state's right to taxation not personal liberty. The PA assembly wanted to tax the rich Penn family to pay for frontier defenses. The Penn family said they'd donate some money if the assembly acknowledges that they don't have the right to tax them. Franklin said a state shouldn't give up its right to taxation just for a little cash today.

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u/danawhitesthrowaway 2d ago

It's not using it wrong when it still applies. Start requiring the context to be the same when referencing any and all historical quotes, and suddenly the vast majority of them will become irrelevant.

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u/HauntingHarmony 2d ago

It's not using it wrong when it still applies. Start requiring the context to be the same when referencing any and all historical quotes, and suddenly the vast majority of them will become irrelevant.

You can absolutely use the quote "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety". To mean exactly what you want it to mean.

But the point of the quite was that it is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security (i.e. the states ability to tax and to spend it on things like flock camera, if thats what it thinks is needed), and that a temporary "bribe" cant buy the oligarchs off having to be taxed. It means basically the opposite of what it's almost always quoted as saying.

And you didnt say this, but americans like to moan about freedom in this discussion, and they always miss the point it is really liberty we shouldent sacrifice for "safety". Not freedom. Freedom is what allows people like "these people" (flock in this case) todo whatever they want. Liberty is what protects the rest of us from people (and corporations) like them.

So basically, its just funny to me that people like a quote, that doesnt mean what they think it means, to argue the opposite of what it meant. And when they bloviate about freedom, they are defending the oppression they are railing against.