[zugi]

> "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" -- Benjamin Franklin

The key phrase is "a little temporary safety". 250 years ago people understood that the "security" gains were small and fleeting, but the loss of liberty was massive and permanent.

[js2]

FWIW, the context of the Franklin quote is him defending the ability of the legislature to tax a family that was trying to bribe/lobby the governor to do otherwise.

The quote is in defense of the government: WITTES: It is a quotation that defends the authority of a legislature to govern in the interests of collective security. It means, in context, not quite the opposite of what it's almost always quoted as saying but much closer to the opposite than to the thing that people think it means.

https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou...

[conartist6]

That context didn't change the meaning at all for me.

Probably because Franklin most certainly thought himself to be writing on behalf of the people and was making a direct appeal that they assert their right to govern themselves rather than letting powerful private interests do as they wished.

That's not equally relevant everywhere the quote gets used, but it seems pretty relevant here, no?

[bluedel]

I feel like that would only change your opinion of the quote if you originally equated it to "Government bad!", which is a thoughtless thought.

[b00ty4breakfast]

the phrase fits the modern usage, even if it's been decontextualized. kinda like "who watches the watchmen?" originally being about cheating wives bribing the folks keeping her locked up in the house.

[BobbyTables2]

Too bad Franklin didn’t just quote Spock:

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few…”

(/s)

Thanks for educating us!

[Der_Einzige]

This dynamic always happens with quotes and attempts to deploy the founding fathers in arguments. Most of the founding fathers (except Thomas Paine) were terrible, horrible, no good people. I’d have been a loyalist in that era.

[nathan_compton]

Maybe I'm just America Pilled but I'll support almost anyone against a hereditary monarchy. The idea should be fundamentally disgusting to any self-respecting human being.

[mapt]

There's no government as effective at instituting necessary changes as a benevolent autocracy, nor any so effective at destruction as a malevolent one.

If our democracy is sufficiently broken, if supermajority voter policy preferences continue to be dismissed by both parties, it might be that we just cannot survive under the old Constitutional order. The Right's open move towards a post-democratic future, and the proceduralist Center's continued failure to fully utilize their popular mandate to fix things that need fixing, implicitly authorizes a Left to develop that is more obsessed with expression of the popular will and with good governance, than it is with a 250 year old bureaucratic structure and "norms". Norms of restraint are a consensual exercise, and cannot persist unilaterally.

The way things are going, the trajectory, make even most 20th century hereditary monarchies look pretty decent. Especially ones that devolve most power to parliamentary bodies.

[roywiggins]

> There's no government as effective at instituting necessary changes as a benevolent autocracy

Autocracies have lots of issues around eg building a sufficiently capable bureaucracy that isn't too corrupt to do things. It can make it harder, not easier. Democracy can lean on democratic legitimacy, constitutional traditions, and a history of allowing power transitions without anyone losing their heads or launching a civil war over it. Those are all really useful things that autocracies have to cope without. It's not like it's easy mode.

[mapt]

All of those can be mooted by the sort of dysfunction currently on offer.

Almost every bill for the past 15 years has been filibustered. More than half the Supreme Court is part of an organized partisan conspiracy, and a third has worked specifically fighting election laws to advantage their guy. The DHS stands as a rogue paramilitary that can be deployed when politically convenient as de facto martial law, the DOJ openly persecuting ethnically defined political opponents and daring Congress to do anything about it, when they're not trying to charge Congresspeople with crimes. People are being disappeared into concentration camps. We are unilaterally withdrawing from the military and economic empire that has served us since the 1940's, in the name of ethnic hatreds and Hitlerian brinksmanship. The economy now has more to do with the Fed chair than any pathetic exchange of goods and services we can string together.

This doesn't end well, and it's broken enough already that a return to Biden/Obama/Clinton type leadership couldn't possibly hope to fix it unless they can lock down leadership for the next couple generations; More damage can be done in a month than they can fix in four years. "Just win every election from now until the end of time" isn't a real strategy.

I don't know what comes next, but if we choose to burn the house down today rather than practice good maintenance, the next homeowner cannot succeed by employing good maintenance.

Similarly, if the neighbor burns your house down deliberately because he hates you, and you start the rebuild process without doing anything about your neighbor's existence, you shouldn't be surprised if you end up with more ashes.

[godelski]

  > There's no government as effective at instituting necessary changes as a benevolent autocracy

This is untrue.

The world is so complex that a single person or group can adapt and develop fast enough. We've seen what happens to planned economies. Their ineffectiveness is not due to malevolence.

Distribution of power not only serves as a protection to autocratic takeover but allows the system to be more flexible. The concentration of power can make some things more efficient but you trade flexibility.

[Terr_]

Aside, the original meaning of Franklin's words are less-inspiring but perhaps more-interesting.

He's saying the local democratic legislature must not give up its "freedom" to pass laws taxing the powerful Penn dynasty which almost owns Pennsylvania.

He wants to reject a deal offered by the Penns: A big lump of money for temporary military security now, in exchange for an agreement that they can never be taxed ever again.

[mathgradthrow]

That's not an aside. The quote is pernicious because of its attribution to Ben. People invoke it without ever asking themselves if its true because they think of it as the hard won wisdom of a great man.

[bigbadfeline]

> The quote is pernicious because of its attribution to Ben.

It's not pernicious for any reason because it's absolutely true in general, Franklin was simply using a general piece of wisdom to justify particular government actions.

Yes, using it that way was an improvisation and a bit of a stretch, but the real issue here is why he needed to resort to it - that's a rabbit hole that pretty much goes to the bottom of today's problems which we're handling in a much worse manner than him back then.

[mathgradthrow]

What do you consider "absolutely true" or "in general" to mean?

[superb_dev]

I don’t find that to be less inspiring

[roywiggins]

Well, quite. And in an American Revolution context it's not like the colonies were notably less secure places to live after they gained independence.

[weaksauce]

basically the patriot act was a big piece of temporary safety that never produced any.