| QUOTE (MDF3530 @ 24-Jan-2006, 09:08 PM) | I've said it before and I'll say it again:
When you trade liberty for security, you don't have either. |
Nah, I was going to let you go when you just said it once.
But when you said it twice I had to jump in.
The Ben Franklin quote that has been so misused and abused originally appeared in 1755:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
The version that appears on the Statue of Liberty's pedestal reads:
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Your omission of those key qualifiers--"essential" and "little"-- makes all the difference in the world. Ben Franklin has been hijacked to endorse an untenable and deadly view that no sacrifice of any liberty for any amount of safety at any time should ever be made.
The conflict against al Qaeda is, in fundamental respects, a war of information. We cannot build walls thick enough, fences high enough, or systems strong enough to keep our enemies out of our open and welcoming country. Instead, as the bipartisan 9/11 and WMD Commissions have urged, we must understand better who they are and what they’re doing – we have to collect more dots, if you will, before we can “connect the dots.” This program to surveil al Qaeda is a necessary weapon as we fight to detect and prevent another attack before it happens.
It's worth noting that Franklin was talking about liberty, not privacy. There is a relationship between the two, but I find it strange that no one bothers to quote Franklin when we're talking about the liberty to choose how your children are taught.
The misquotation of Franklin in the argument about information gathering strikes me as particularly amusing in light of Franklin's role as one of the premier intelligence agents during the Revolutionary War. The CIA has a nice summary of the intelligence activities undertaken during that war, and no one is so prominent as Franklin, including in covert activities. More to the point here, Franklin was a member of the original committee, appointed by the Continental Congress, to review and publish intercepted communications from England. Hmm, Benjamin Franklin: Domestic Spy?! If he meant what the liberals think he meant, we're going to have to change his statues to read "Printer, Inventor, Statesman, Hypocrite".
Funny that the same screamers currently in a Franklin frenzy never quote this:
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
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) need to see the logs? It seems to me this is what the CIA, FBI, and all those other secrect people are for, If they cant do the job then why are we spending billions on these idiots. To me these people cause more trouble then they prevent, If we are so big and powerful then we should be able to find all these people causing trouble but I think the Government not (Bush) wants things to happen for the politicians have thier hands in a lot of dirt and they wish to get richer at everybody elses expense (gas prices for one).
for your wife and the library, someones library card is of no concern of the Gov. I can see it know 10 year old jailed for reading Harry Potter charge