Why We Should Stop Citing The Ben Franklin Quote About Liberty and Security...

There is a famous Ben Franklin quote that gets tossed around a lot in these times.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
It is a famous quote, but has any of us ever given it any thought to what it actually means? The quote to mean seems a little ridiculous. Trading your liberties for security or safety some how means we all live a substandard form of life. What are people talking about? What does this apply to?

For example I do not have unlimited rights to move freely say in my car. This is why we have imposed traffic lights. The quote comes to mind here with these. I am trading away some of liberty, to drive anywhere I want whenever I want, in order for some safety, mainly avoiding other cars from driving into as a speed through a red light into a busy intersection. Matter of fact there are several laws that limit our liberty with intentions of increasing our security. We are not free to do whatever we want whenever we want and we shouldn't want to live our lives that way. This is called the Social Contract.

This is what you do when you put on your seat belt, eat food that has been inspected by the health department, and buy paint that isn't lead based. We trade our liberty to paint our houses with lead based products through the creation and enforcement of laws for the security and safety of not being exposed to the toxic chemicals.

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