Benjamin Franklin PLN

Benjamin Franklin PLN

In 1759, Benjamin Franklin spoke of how if one gives up freedom and liberty for temporary security, they deserve neither.

Benjamin Franklin correctly portrays that those who give up liberty for temporary security deserve neither because when one gives up their freedom for government security, they are not even necessarily safe. Most American citizens believe that our government having extra security at airports, surveillance cameras everywhere, or going through their phone calls will keep them safe, but it is now widely known what the government watches over, “ The Government Is Spying On Us Through Our Computers, Phones, Cars, Buses, Streetlights, At Airports And On The Street, Via Mobile Scanners And Drones, Through Our Smart Meters, And In Many Other Ways”(WashingtonBlog.com). It is widely known what the government spies on because one can simply just google it, therefore we aren’t really that safe because it can be common knowledge for terrorists and criminals, resulting in the “bad guys” to wise up and use different methods of communication and such. Basically, if one gave up freedom/ liberty for security, they deserve neither/ will get neither because what the government calls security most of the time doesn’t even stop crimes. However, people should still deserve freedom/ liberty because his quote was not really meant to be taken as today’s civil liberties, but rather, “the right of self-governance of a legislature in the interests of collective security”(lawfareblog.com). Benjamin Franklin was more complaining of the choice facing the legislature between being able to make funds available for frontier defense and maintaining its right of self-governance. Overall, the people should still deserve their liberties along with security, because it is a different context in which Franklin was speaking about. At first glance, one may think that people deserve both liberty and security even if one may give up one for the other because Benjamin Franklin said this in a different context. This point may seem reasonable at first because there are some websites providing the actual connotation of this quote, but it’s more complicated than that… This quote can be related today because of all of the security privacy threats in America. Whether it is Airport security, surveillance cameras, or going through our phones, this quote can directly relate to that, even if it wasn’t intended to be meant like that. Because one can simply just google what our government snoops on, and knows what they can’t bring on an airplane and such, the criminals have wised up. For example, there are bombs that terrorists can used that they could disguise for something else, or wear masks to hide their face on surveillance cameras, etc. All in all, people just do not deserve either liberty or security if they give up one for the other because if one does, than they are not even truly safe with the government that we have today.