Benjamin Franklin quote
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The problem with this quote is that Ben Franklin never in his wildest dreams could have have imagined what modern life would be like. Ben lived in a time of monarchs, horse drawn carriages, and flint lock muskets. Just like the framers of the constitution never could have envisioned modern firearms or their associated problems, Ben had no clue about modern communications networks, the internet, radical Islam, the tactics or terrorists, and the difficulty involved in stopping isolated random nut jobs from committing mass atrocity.
Ben's quote is fine for the 18th century, but it is inadequate and unfitting for the 21rst century. People really need to stop applying 18th century logic to 21rst century problems. This exemplifies how the Tea Party and religious right think. We have modern problems that require modern solutions.
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