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The context doesn't make what Franklin meant any different.
by alfromspace 7y ago
The context doesn't make what Franklin meant any different.
- krapp 7y agoWhat? The context shows that what Franklin meant is completely the opposite of what people claim. He wasn't warning against the dangers of giving up one's rights to the creeping authoritarianism of the state, he was complaining that people were giving up the "essential Liberty" provided by an effective Federal government for the "temporary safety" purchased by refusing to fund it. Or to quote from the NPR article, "(...) far from being a pro-privacy quotation, if anything, it's a pro-taxation and pro-defense spending quotation."
- alfromspace 7y agoNah. It's a really shallow analysis to call his statement "pro-taxation and pro-defense spending", and far more of an inaccurate generalization than how the quote's usually used. Franklin was writing to answer the problem of the governor being bribed by the Penns to provide security and veto the taxation, rather than the state using its legitimate authority to tax the Penn's lands and provide that security. The alternative was undermining the integrity of the democratic state, not "refusing to fund it". Interestingly enough, the context is being used here to invert the meaning of Franklin's beliefs, rather than clarify them.