What Ben Franklin Had Actually Said.

[CrackpotAmerica]

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Ben Franklin


"THOSE WHO WOULD SACRIFICE LIBERTY FOR SECURITY DESERVE NEITHER"
- Protest banner from today's Gonzolas Georgetown Law speech


They have precisely the same meaning, only the latter is expressed in a more contemporary style

~ Just so you know.

[Swamp Rat]

1. Shut up!

:D

[BrklynLiberal]

Gawd! O'Liely is soooo ug-lee!

[HysteryDiagnosis]

11. If Scully had an ugly older brother..... much much older and very

very ugly.

[CrackpotAmerica]

2. Are those liver spots?

Nice Photoshop
:rofl:

[BrklynLiberal]

5. It is his inner poison coming thru his skin.

[Swamp Rat]

12. yes

thanks. :D

[BrklynLiberal]

7. Hey! Isn't O'Liely starting to look alot like Joseph McCarthy?

[CrackpotAmerica]

9. Evil seems to be bad for the skin

[Swamp Rat]

10. That's what I was thinking.

Except if you put on the 'speshul' sunglasses, you can see THEM! :scared:

[GreenPartyVoter]

15. Yikes!!

[Redstone]

3. They could even make it a bit snappier:

"Those who sacrifice liberty for security have neither."

Police states don't work.

Redstone

[Double T]

4. You don't give up freedoms to have or maintain freedoms.......

regardless of what the other side tells you.

[sui generis]

8. well they don't think they're giving their OWN up

that's the issue. Even the media parrots the line: domestic spying on terrorists! mmm hmmm.

I'm not terrorist so I know they won't be spying on me. durrr.

[Hosnon]

17. I don't think that is what they are saying...I believe the traditional

tradeoff is liberty v. security.

[CrackpotAmerica]

6. I thought it was important because ..

Robert turner tried to use it as a slant against the protesters @ Georgetown.

It is a rediculous assertion..


Remember the famous * "Fool me once" quote? I wonder what he would have to say about that.

[Hosnon]

13. I think the difference in meaning is significant actually:

Sacrificing essential liberty for a little temporary security is specifically qualified.

The protesters "version" took out the qualifiers and rendered the quote basically meaningless.

Social contract theory says that in the "beginning" of civilization humans give up some liberty for some security.

And according to the abridged version of the protesters no human that is a part of the social contract deserves either...NOT what Franklin was trying to say.

The original quote is foundational to our sense of democracy, et al, in my opinion. The revised quote is simply a talking point.

The question now is: Is allowing the executive the authority to eavesdrop on communications made by foreign suspected terrorists without a warrant a sacrifice of an essential liberty and if so, is the security obtained "little" and "temporary?"

[CrackpotAmerica]

22. That is a very interesting point.

Thank you for sharing:

I don't think that the protesters should have re-versioned the actual quote. However, I am glad that they used such a statement.

It's funny, when I was making dinner for my wife, the word "temporary" kept ringing in my head. After reading your point, I am especially grateful.

I disagree that it was "rendered basically meaningless." However, I think that had they kept it in accordance to your point it would be much more meaningful.

Note that buried in the President's tone is the "temporary" nature of his criminal activity (which means nothing when one realizes that he is trying to create a perpetual and most un-temporary war.)


Thanks!

[Hosnon]

32. The quote is a personal favorite of mine as well and I am glad that

they chose to use it.

You're right that the quote wasn't "rendered basically meaningless." In its abridged form it still conveys the core message that survives literal parcing. My mindset (probably) was that as a statement representing an ideological belief that must withstand logical expansion, it doesn't fit well into the concepts that Americans/free people believe support our systems.

A bit ad hoc but I hope that's what I meant, haha.

So yeah, I agree with you that it has a very powerful meaning as was evidenced by the response in another post here with all of the "hell yea's," "true patriots," etc.

And I most definitely agree with your worry about a 1984ish perpetual war that could justify indefinite "emergency powers" assumed by the Executive.

Hopefully we'll get a Dem or Moderate Republican that doesn't believe that the power of the Executive has been diminished and will willingly cede more power back to Congress.

[CrackpotAmerica]

33. To quote a famous philosoph-ist, namely me:

I digs your smarts!

You are a great benefit to DU~!

Thanks so much for contributing to my thread. It was the best discussion I have seen from within my threads in a while :)

[Hosnon]

34. Thanks:

You too. It's always refreshing to have a civil discussion.

Although we may have benefited from the fact that the subject-matter was not flame-bait for either one of us.

Much easier to remain civil when we both agree and discuss in detail what we agree on:)

Enjoyed it...and I hope to see you around in other threads.

[ucmike]

14. i've had that quote on my fridge for 3 years

i love it.

i think the students changed it to fit on their banner.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

16. better to have tried to banner & lost, then never to have bannered at all

Oh, wait, Now I am screwing up a quote.

[ucmike]

18. a banner to the ag is worth two to the bush.....

heheh. if they had shortened franklin's quote to F*CK YOU! i would've been thrilled.

[Gormy Cuss]

19. In what context did he say it?

I don't recall seeing it attributed to an actual document. Just curious

[CrackpotAmerica]

25. It was in his opening statement as kind of an after thought.. NT

[Kansas Wyatt]

20. BREAKING: Fox Propaganda Catapult says Ben Franklin...

Was a Liberal Terrorist, and must be removed from our nation's history. Attorney General Alberto Gonzolas, claims the law will allow for a Televangelist to substitute Ben Franklin's place in history and his input into the government of the United States. President Bush is keeping Congress informed of this development, and promises that the law will be upheld as he selects the Televangelist to replace Ben Franklin's dubious ideals in our government and nation's history.

Fox Propaganda Catapult strongly encourages Americans to start burning anything written by Ben Franklin to remove him from our society.

[Uncle Joe]

21. I believe Bush listens more to Patrick Henry.

"Give me liberty or give me death" Mad King George's 21st century clone has decided on giving us death.

[Deja Q]

23. For all his smarts, Ben Franklin used too much verbiage... he must've been

an Aspie. We aspies love droning on and on and on and on and on and on about things that can otherwise be summed up using half the number of words used...

Ditto for Vulcans. Cmdr Sela had a field day dissin' Spock as I recall... :D

[CrackpotAmerica]

24. Edit:

Please read MJDuncan1982's point.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=229254&mesg_id=229527

Therefore, "precisely" wasn't a good choice of words on my part.

Please replace it with:

"very similar, in my opinion."

[indie_voter]

26. I think it was Jefferson not Franklin who said that ( protest banner) n/t

[CrackpotAmerica]

27. I don't think so..

Do you mean Jefferson paraphrasing Franklin?

I looked in Bartlets, but didn't find anything..

Please let us know

[indie_voter]

29. You know, I don't know..

I am trying to find it, I find that quote attributed to Jefferson a lot BUT I can't find the official paper/letter he supposedly said it in.

http://www.nflgoddess.com/features.php?ID=D1

I am going to search more and see what I can find, if anything!

[CrackpotAmerica]

30. Thanks for trying!

Research can be hard sometimes...

:headbang:

[indie_voter]

31. LOL! Especially with two kids fighting in the background! ;)

This is from Wikpedia

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

* Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
o This statement was used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759) which was attributed to Franklin in the edition of 1812, but in a letter of September 27, 1760 to David Hume, he states that he published this book and denies that he wrote it, other than a few remarks that were credited to the Pennsylvania Assembly, in which he served. The phrase itself was first used in a letter from that Assembly dated November 11, 1755 to the Governor of Pennsylvania. An article on the origins of this statement here includes a scan that indicates the original typography of the 1759 document. Researchers now believe that a fellow diplomat by the name of Richard Jackson to be the primary author of the book. With the information thus far available the issue of authorship of the statement is not yet definitely resolved, but the evidence indicates it was very likely Franklin, who in the Poor Richard's Almanack of 1738 is known to have written a similar proverb: "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."
o Many variants derived from this phrase have arisen and have usually been attributed to Franklin:
+ "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
"He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security"
"He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither"
"If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both."
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Link to sourced Jefferson Quotes:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

That quote does not show up anywhere in the letters etc. It is so close to the Ben Franklin quote, it must be a mis-attribution.

FWIW, this is interesting spin that I found freeper sites (not from today but any time they see the paraphrased phrase). They like to point out the misquotes (and mis-attribution), then they hang on the "essential" part of the original quote. I don't think they feel that modern day methods of communication falls under essential liberties.

:eyes:

Edited to add: a similar question on the mis-attribution....

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7842/archives/quote019.htm

(I don't agree with the editorializing on "sunset provisions" )

[cascadiance]

28. Gonzales hopefully got this message at Georgetown!