Feb 23, 2018

“Misppropriation” of a Franklin quote?

“Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” B. Franklin

This quote is often adopted in defense of the 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendments, usually in opposition to propositions abridging rights in order to promote the government’s exercise of their “duty to protect.” I am sure there have been other appropriations, but the underlying principles are consistent. Those advocating “the erosion of rights” vs “government exercise” frequently suggest it is a zero sum game. That is, the advancement of one can only come at the expense of the other, in direct and equal proportion. I disagree. While it may become easier for the government to “protect” if citizens renounce their right to privacy, speech, and/or protection from “...unreasonable searches and seizures...”, it also makes it easier, and much more likely for government abuse.

Allow me give my micro synopsis of our constitution, and its immediate need for 10 amendments as a preamble to the discussion. The Constitution enumerates the organization, and form of our government. It is founded on the principle of the consent of the governed, opposed to monarchical, or aristocratic governance. It is essentially a contract between the government and the governed. There are two ways of looking at any contract. One assumes that anything not explicitly prohibited in the contract is therefore permitted. The other assumes anything not explicitly permitted in the contract is therefore prohibited.

Acutely aware of human history, the Framers added the Bill of Rights to limit (i.e. explicitly prohibit) the government’s ability to encroach on the liberties the Constitution intended to recognize. I say recognize rather than establish because the founders believed individual rights and liberties do not come from government, but are instead natural rights. They believed government can infringe on, but not grant rights.

The intellectual elite would have you believe that context is everything, and that Franklin offered these words in an entirely different context than the aforementioned rights discussions. They insist Franklin was arguing from the position of the government, not from the position of the governed. That he was speaking of the right of the government to levy a tax, and that establishes the singular context to which the sentiment can rightfully be applied. In their mind it proves misappropriation when used in any other context. I suggest that these erudites suffer from self imposed intellectual myopia, because the underlying principles are not thus limited. If we extend this same shortsighted logic Supreme Court decisions would not establish legal precedents.

So what was the context of Franklin’s quote? In a 1755, during the French and Indian War the Pennsylvania Assembly, as duly elected representatives passed a tax to raise funds for the defense of the frontier. The Penn Family, landowners and absentee rulers decided they were not subject to the authority of the assembly, and used their influence over the Governor to have him veto the assembly’s efforts to tax them. It was not a matter of money to the Penn’s, but rather an unwillingness to subjugate themselves to the rule of the Pennsylvania Assembly. The Penn family offered to provide funds on the condition that the Pennsylvania Assembly renounce their right to tax them (i.e. renounce their right to govern Penn family and/or property). In a letter written on behalf of the Assembly, Franklin recognized that the assembly’s authority came from the rights of the people that elected them, not from absentee rulers such as the Penn family, and it was in this context he wrote.

The different context crowd contends that this limits Franklin's statement solely to the right of government to levy taxes, and precludes all other situations. The principle of generalized knowledge contradicts this sort of minimalization, as does Franklin's preceding line “...consistent with the just Rights of the Freemen of Pennsylvania,...”

However, whatever Franklin meant in this specific instance, it is clear from the entire body of his work that he believed that surrendering any right to advance a purpose, no matter how noble that purpose, is a fools bargain.