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This is the view advanced by Benjamin Wittes, made popular in a recent NPR piece which you may have heard or read. I am not convinced it is right. Have you read

This is the view advanced by Benjamin Wittes, made popular in a recent NPR piece which you may have heard or read. I am not convinced it is right. Have you read the rebuttal by David Brick, currently the first comment on https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-benjamin-franklins-quote-on-liberty-vs-security/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/14/how-the-world-butchered-be... ? The entire rebuttal is a bit long to repost, but essentially, Brick says Wittes is taking that statement of Franklin's as applying to the entirety of his letter when in fact "[t]he real context of the quote is actually a very small portion of that letter in which the authors are discussing the defensive needs of certain 'freemen' living on the frontiers, or 'backwoods' areas of the colony." Furthermore, Brick states that Franklin made very similar statements elsewhere where the meaning is very clear--and in line with the conventional pro-liberty understanding, not Wittes' pro-government-power understanding. I would like to see some historians argue it out.

wahern 6y ago
But the usage of "Liberty" only makes sense as the liberty of self-governance through the Assembly. As I read that paragraph, Franklin is rebutting the hypothetical counter argument that the governor is simply doing what he must to keep the frontiersmen safe in exigent circumstances. (I.e. s/frontiersmen/children/--Franklin is anticipating the "but think of the children" deflection.) And Franklin is saying 1) at that very moment those who want arms have been armed, 2) all the Bills the Assembly has tried to have signed by the governor have been precisely to help for their defense, and 3) that any frontiersman willing to give up the "Liberty" (i.e. his right to implement policy, and particularly defense policy, through the Assembly) for whatever additional modicum of security the governor's plan might temporarily provide deserves neither the liberty being denied him (vicariously via the Assembly) nor any security. Even ignoring all the other paragraphs, in no way could the liberty imply the frontiersmen's individual freedom (or civil rights, as we would call them). The contended Bill doesn't encroach on the frontiersmen livelihood or freedoms; it's a Bill to raise money for their defense (it literally says that in the next sentence) by taxing proprietary estate holders, who are definitely not the same people as the frontiersmen. It doesn't effect the frontiersmen directly, except by providing for more consistent defense funding. It's a pretty difficult piece to work through and I wouldn't claim that I fully understand all that Franklin is arguing, but whatever he is saying there, it can't possibly be referring to individual freedom. There's not the slightest hint of such a connotation. Rather, whatever the precise point, it's clearly an equivocation of the Assembly's rights with those of the People. Yeah, he uses that phrase again years later and the arguments are different in those contexts, but it's obviously a cool phrase. Of course he would repurpose it to suit whatever point he's trying to make. For others' convenience, here's the whole thing: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-01...

wahern 6y ago

But the usage of "Liberty" only makes sense as the liberty of self-governance through the Assembly. As I read that paragraph, Franklin is rebutting the hypothetical counter argument that the governor is simply doing what he must to keep the frontiersmen safe in exigent circumstances. (I.e. s/frontiersmen/children/--Franklin is anticipating the "but think of the children" deflection.) And Franklin is saying 1) at that very moment those who want arms have been armed, 2) all the Bills the Assembly has tried to have signed by the governor have been precisely to help for their defense, and 3) that any frontiersman willing to give up the "Liberty" (i.e. his right to implement policy, and particularly defense policy, through the Assembly) for whatever additional modicum of security the governor's plan might temporarily provide deserves neither the liberty being denied him (vicariously via the Assembly) nor any security. Even ignoring all the other paragraphs, in no way could the liberty imply the frontiersmen's individual freedom (or civil rights, as we would call them). The contended Bill doesn't encroach on the frontiersmen livelihood or freedoms; it's a Bill to raise money for their defense (it literally says that in the next sentence) by taxing proprietary estate holders, who are definitely not the same people as the frontiersmen. It doesn't effect the frontiersmen directly, except by providing for more consistent defense funding. It's a pretty difficult piece to work through and I wouldn't claim that I fully understand all that Franklin is arguing, but whatever he is saying there, it can't possibly be referring to individual freedom. There's not the slightest hint of such a connotation. Rather, whatever the precise point, it's clearly an equivocation of the Assembly's rights with those of the People. Yeah, he uses that phrase again years later and the arguments are different in those contexts, but it's obviously a cool phrase. Of course he would repurpose it to suit whatever point he's trying to make. For others' convenience, here's the whole thing: https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-0107 https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-06-02-01...