[mikestew]

Keywords being "essential" and "temporary" in the original quote. Granted, that leaves a lot of room for interpretation, but Franklin was not advocating doing away with, for example, law enforcement.

Though I would agree it's a quote of triteness and "just so" convenience that gets massively abused.

[mrguyorama]

I wonder how Benjamin Franklin would feel about its common usage nowadays. For specific context I used to use this quote in relation to my dislike of the PATRIOT act and similar, and I never really took any introspection as to whether I was truly defending my position through the use/abuse of the quote. Granted I was literally in middle school at the time, so maybe my lack of a more nuanced position could be forgiven, but a quote is not an argument.