It's always interesting to me when people bring up Franklin in this context because the aphorism is usually completely misunderstood. The audience and context

It's always interesting to me when people bring up Franklin in this context because the aphorism is usually completely misunderstood. The audience and context was the colony of Pennsylvania deciding to accept an offer from the Penn family to provide a one-off detachment of mercenaries to patrol the colony's western border in exchange for a perpetual ban on taxing the Penn landholdings. The safety was border defense. The liberty was the colonial government's authority to pass law. In context, Franklin is saying "The government that cedes its taxation authority over the citizens for a temporary boon from its richest citizens deserves neither the boon nor the authority."