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Benjamin Franklin's quote comes to mind here: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin's quote comes to mind here: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Everyone realizes perfect enforcement of crimes related to rape or murder would be "great" in the sense no one wants that. However, the risks of those crimes happening to you are very minimal today and dropping every year in the U.S. Most victims of those crimes are placed or place themselves in situations that bad things can occur, think drug violence. In order to combat the stuff you mentioned we would essentially lose the liberty to make mistakes as a society. For example, if I want to smoke weed, and do. I'll go to prison. Today, I get a ticket. Or let's take an even more exterem case, say I am a 16 year old male and my 16 year old girlfriend texts me a picture of her breasts. We both would be labeled paedophiles for life, and got to prison. There are literally millions of laws, to the point no one can keep track. If we made "Perfect Enforcement" we would all be jailed, for crossing the street without a sidewalk, for texting a friend a picture of a statue (copy right violation), potentially for being gay, etc. We don't live in a society where people want to protect your freedom to not be physically hurt. We live in a society which tries to ensure people don't get physically, economically, socially, emotionally, hurt. This leads to many contradicting laws, and makes it impossible to both be free and secure at the same time. If we enforced "Perfect Enforcement" there would only be a totalitarian Enforcement force that doesn't follow laws, and the imprisoned populace who at least tries to follow the laws. That's why the founding fathers added the bill of rights. They understood this, and sadly 200+ years later it appears our society is still incapable of understanding it.

krapp 11y ago
What Benjamin Franklin said, and what you (and many people) believe he meant, are complete opposites[0]. The "essential liberty" he was referring to was the right of the government to form a collective defense against Native Americans, and the purchase of "temporary safety" refers to state assemblies and private landowners refusing to fund that defense. What was intended to be a pro-statist argument has been turned into an anti-statist warning, which it was never intended to be. I'm not saying the "revised" interpretation isn't valuable - it just shouldn't be argued from the authority of Benjamin Franklin (or, by extent, the intent of the founding fathers) when he was complaining that people weren't sufficiently funding the military industrial complex of the time. [0]https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said
- dTal 11y ago
  You don't deserve the downvotes, this is quite interesting. Reminds me of "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre", in that its historical context in misinterpreted in light of modern sensibilities.
- AnthonyMouse 11y ago
  I vote we do this instead: "Those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety will deserve neither and lose both." -Unknown That version of the quote is one Franklin never actually said, so it can't accurately be attributed to him and we can avoid having to care about what he actually meant. Because the thing in the linked post clearly isn't what anybody else means when they use that quote.
dota_fanatic 11y ago
Benjamin Franklin's world is so utterly different from ours because of where they were on the technology curve then, he may as well be talking about a different universe. Maybe if you live in a suburb in the Netherlands and are part of a privileged socioeconomic class, these risks are low to non-existent. How about the billion plus people who don't even have electricity today? How about those who have nothing to give to the global economy because they're unemployable, cast aside, and lack technology, do they not live in risky environments and engage in risky behaviors as a matter of course through no fault of their own? Are there not entire countries of people getting pwned in every sense of the word by more powerful entities, right now, as we speak? Used up and then left to perish? No matter what the statistics, these poor victims are somebody. They're real people. "Oh, but that crime is so rare (for someone like me)" What about slave trade? Our "low crime" existence in first world countries isn't made possible by rampant crime and resource domination on the other side of borders? From where I'm standing, it looks to me like a lot of assholes are not only getting away with murder and ecological destruction, they're getting rich off of it, despite any and all laws to the contrary. How does making law less enforceable by embracing shadows (lack of transparency) in our age of accelerating technological change make life better for the majority (all living things)? Unfortunately the American Bill of Rights doesn't mean shit unless it applies to everyone. American business and government as a matter of course commit atrocities that are against it and nothing happens merely because those atrocities aren't (directly / provably) against Americans. As a response to all the other children posts of this thread, I'm not saying let's maintain the status quo, plus perfect enforcement of the law. I'm saying we're entering a new age and shit needs to get revamped badly. Transparency in all things public would be a big step towards ridding our world of many evils that happen right now because powerful actors always have and will continue to act in the shadows while humanity, as a group, agrees to put up with it, er because e.g. preteens are sexting each other and as a result, the current utterly draconian and provably corrupt & massively inefficient law system has destroyed their first world lives. That really, really sucks. You know what sucks even worse? Being born or sold into sex slavery. Simplify the law, make a universal bill of rights for all living things. Make it global. Automate and enforce it. For everyone. Obsolete the time when you could kill disenfranchised people and get away with it 'because high-priced lawyers'. It's hard for me to see how that could possibly be worse than what we have today, where the few get a nice life and all the rest are grist for the mill, to be used up.

krapp 11y ago

What Benjamin Franklin said, and what you (and many people) believe he meant, are complete opposites[0]. The "essential liberty" he was referring to was the right of the government to form a collective defense against Native Americans, and the purchase of "temporary safety" refers to state assemblies and private landowners refusing to fund that defense. What was intended to be a pro-statist argument has been turned into an anti-statist warning, which it was never intended to be. I'm not saying the "revised" interpretation isn't valuable - it just shouldn't be argued from the authority of Benjamin Franklin (or, by extent, the intent of the founding fathers) when he was complaining that people weren't sufficiently funding the military industrial complex of the time. [0]https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said https://www.lawfareblog.com/what-ben-franklin-really-said

dTal 11y ago
You don't deserve the downvotes, this is quite interesting. Reminds me of "shouting 'fire' in a crowded theatre", in that its historical context in misinterpreted in light of modern sensibilities.
AnthonyMouse 11y ago
I vote we do this instead: "Those who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety will deserve neither and lose both." -Unknown That version of the quote is one Franklin never actually said, so it can't accurately be attributed to him and we can avoid having to care about what he actually meant. Because the thing in the linked post clearly isn't what anybody else means when they use that quote.

dota_fanatic 11y ago

Benjamin Franklin's world is so utterly different from ours because of where they were on the technology curve then, he may as well be talking about a different universe. Maybe if you live in a suburb in the Netherlands and are part of a privileged socioeconomic class, these risks are low to non-existent. How about the billion plus people who don't even have electricity today? How about those who have nothing to give to the global economy because they're unemployable, cast aside, and lack technology, do they not live in risky environments and engage in risky behaviors as a matter of course through no fault of their own? Are there not entire countries of people getting pwned in every sense of the word by more powerful entities, right now, as we speak? Used up and then left to perish? No matter what the statistics, these poor victims are somebody. They're real people. "Oh, but that crime is so rare (for someone like me)" What about slave trade? Our "low crime" existence in first world countries isn't made possible by rampant crime and resource domination on the other side of borders? From where I'm standing, it looks to me like a lot of assholes are not only getting away with murder and ecological destruction, they're getting rich off of it, despite any and all laws to the contrary. How does making law less enforceable by embracing shadows (lack of transparency) in our age of accelerating technological change make life better for the majority (all living things)? Unfortunately the American Bill of Rights doesn't mean shit unless it applies to everyone. American business and government as a matter of course commit atrocities that are against it and nothing happens merely because those atrocities aren't (directly / provably) against Americans. As a response to all the other children posts of this thread, I'm not saying let's maintain the status quo, plus perfect enforcement of the law. I'm saying we're entering a new age and shit needs to get revamped badly. Transparency in all things public would be a big step towards ridding our world of many evils that happen right now because powerful actors always have and will continue to act in the shadows while humanity, as a group, agrees to put up with it, er because e.g. preteens are sexting each other and as a result, the current utterly draconian and provably corrupt & massively inefficient law system has destroyed their first world lives. That really, really sucks. You know what sucks even worse? Being born or sold into sex slavery. Simplify the law, make a universal bill of rights for all living things. Make it global. Automate and enforce it. For everyone. Obsolete the time when you could kill disenfranchised people and get away with it 'because high-priced lawyers'. It's hard for me to see how that could possibly be worse than what we have today, where the few get a nice life and all the rest are grist for the mill, to be used up.