Actually, you’ve got both the quotation and the idea wrong. We all give up some freedom for security at times. We surrender the freedom to drive at any speed we like on the highway, so that we may have the security of traveling on roads where we do not have to deal danger of reckless drivers. Individually, we give up a little liberty of movement for the sake of safety when we put on a seat belt. Collectively, in WWII we gave up many liberties for the sake of safety that victory represented (just think of the draft). Franklin’s actual words, in 1755, were more sensible: “They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Nothing there about “will not have.” And those words “essential” and “a little temporary” are necessary to the idea. Try reversing them, and see what you get: “Those who would give up a little temporary liberty to purchase essential safety …” Well, that is what we do every time we limit our actions for the sake of safety. The question is, how essential is the liberty are we giving up, and how little, or how temporary, is the safety we are gaining? The actual words of Franklin were right. The bogus paraphrase is not. Further, Franklin was actually talking about the liberty of the people’s representatives to carry out the people’s wishes and to tax the elite for the common good, and not be bought off instead by a one-off gift from them. Here’s an historical analysis by Benjamin Wittes of the context in which Franklin wrote: "The words appear originally in a 1755 letter that Franklin is presumed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War. The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the Assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the Assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family, which ruled Pennsylvania from afar, to raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the Assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him. So to start matters, Franklin was writing not as a subject being asked to cede his liberty to government, but in his capacity as a legislator being asked to renounce his power to tax lands notionally under his jurisdiction. In other words, the “essential liberty” to which Franklin referred was thus not what we would think of today as civil liberties but, rather, the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security.“What’s more the “purchase [of] a little temporary safety” of which Franklin complains was not the ceding of power to a government Leviathan in exchange for some promise of protection from external threat; for in Franklin’s letter, the word “purchase” does not appear to have been a metaphor. The governor was accusing the Assembly of stalling on appropriating money for frontier defense by insisting on including the Penn lands in its taxes–and thus triggering his intervention. And the Penn family later offered cash to fund defense of the frontier–as long as the Assembly would acknowledge that it lacked the power to tax the family’s lands. Franklin was thus complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance–and he was criticizing the governor for suggesting it should be willing to give up the latter to ensure the former.“In short, Franklin was not describing some tension between government power and individual liberty. He was describing, rather, effective self-government in the service of security as the very liberty it would be contemptible to trade. Notwithstanding the way the quotation has come down to us, Franklin saw the liberty and security interests of Pennsylvanians as aligned.”
Actually, you’ve got both the quotation and the idea wrong. We all give up some freedom for security at times. We surrender the freedom to drive at any speed we like on the highway, so that we may have the security of traveling on roads where we do not have to deal danger of reckless drivers. Individually, we give up a little liberty of movement for the sake of safety when we put on a seat belt. Collectively, in WWII we gave up many liberties for the sake of safety that victory represented (just think of the draft). Franklin’s actual words, in 1755, were more sensible: “They who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Nothing there about “will not have.” And those words “essential” and “a little temporary” are necessary to the idea. Try reversing them, and see what you get: “Those who would give up a little temporary liberty to purchase essential safety …” Well, that is what we do every time we limit our actions for the sake of safety. The question is, how essential is the liberty are we giving up, and how little, or how temporary, is the safety we are gaining? The actual words of Franklin were right. The bogus paraphrase is not. Further, Franklin was actually talking about the liberty of the people’s representatives to carry out the people’s wishes and to tax the elite for the common good, and not be bought off instead by a one-off gift from them. Here’s an historical analysis by Benjamin Wittes of the context in which Franklin wrote: "The words appear originally in a 1755 letter that Franklin is presumed to have written on behalf of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the colonial governor during the French and Indian War. The letter was a salvo in a power struggle between the governor and the Assembly over funding for security on the frontier, one in which the Assembly wished to tax the lands of the Penn family, which ruled Pennsylvania from afar, to raise money for defense against French and Indian attacks. The governor kept vetoing the Assembly’s efforts at the behest of the family, which had appointed him. So to start matters, Franklin was writing not as a subject being asked to cede his liberty to government, but in his capacity as a legislator being asked to renounce his power to tax lands notionally under his jurisdiction. In other words, the “essential liberty” to which Franklin referred was thus not what we would think of today as civil liberties but, rather, the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security.“What’s more the “purchase [of] a little temporary safety” of which Franklin complains was not the ceding of power to a government Leviathan in exchange for some promise of protection from external threat; for in Franklin’s letter, the word “purchase” does not appear to have been a metaphor. The governor was accusing the Assembly of stalling on appropriating money for frontier defense by insisting on including the Penn lands in its taxes–and thus triggering his intervention. And the Penn family later offered cash to fund defense of the frontier–as long as the Assembly would acknowledge that it lacked the power to tax the family’s lands. Franklin was thus complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance–and he was criticizing the governor for suggesting it should be willing to give up the latter to ensure the former.“In short, Franklin was not describing some tension between government power and individual liberty. He was describing, rather, effective self-government in the service of security as the very liberty it would be contemptible to trade. Notwithstanding the way the quotation has come down to us, Franklin saw the liberty and security interests of Pennsylvanians as aligned.”