The Future of Freedom Foundation
May 10, 2025
Benjamin Franklin stated, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Would modern-day Americans do that? Would they give up liberty to purchase a little temporary safety?
There is no question about it. They already have. In fact, they have been doing it for their entire lives.
Consider the fact that we live under a government that has the omnipotent power to assassinate, torture, and indefinitely incarcerate without trial any American citizen. It goes without saying that anyone who lives under a regime that wields that type of total power cannot possibly be considered to be a free person, even if the power isn't being exercised widely. The fact that the government just wields the power is enough to nullify freedom in that country.
It wasn't always that way. For the first 150 years or so of America's existence, the federal government lacked those totalitarian-like powers. That was made clear in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which expressly forbade the federal government from killing people, including American citizens, without due process of law, from inflicting cruel and unusual punishments on people, such as torture, and from jailing people indefinitely without trial.
So, what happened? The American people in the 20th century became afraid, very afraid. They were afraid of the communists. They were convinced that Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, North Vietnam, and other Red nations were coming to get them.
Thus, to purchase a little temporary safety, Americans acceded to the conversion of the federal government, with its limited powers, to a national-security state, with its omnipotent, totalitarian-like powers of assassination, torture, and indefinite detention.
The same phenomenon has occurred with the war on drugs. At one time, Americans were free to ingest whatever they wanted, including drugs. They understood that the right to ingest whatever they wanted was necessarily part and parcel of a free society.
Later Americans, however, became afraid, very afraid. They were convinced that if drugs were readily available, everyone would become a drug addict. So, they purchased a little temporary safety by enacting drug prohibition, which not only punished people for ingesting unapproved substances but also subjected everyone to a massive destruction of civil liberties and privacy, especially financial privacy, at the hands of their own government. For modern-day Americans, the trade was worth it because it purchased a little temporary safety.
Consider Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, public housing, farm subsidies, education grants, corporate bailouts, and other welfare programs, along with the income tax that funds them and the IRS that enforces it. Americans lived without these things for more than 100 years because they understood that liberty entails the right to keep everything a person earns and decide for himself what to do with it.
Modern-day Americans, on the other hand, became afraid, very afraid. They became convinced that a free society would mean people dying in the streets from starvation, illness, or destitution. Thus they purchased a little temporary safety by converting America to a welfare state, one based on the concept of mandatory "charity."
Another good example is immigration. Our American ancestors favored a system in which people were free to cross borders. They understood that freedom of movement, freedom of association, and liberty of contract were necessary aspects of a free society.
Later Americans, however, became afraid, very afraid. They convinced themselves that open borders would mean that murderers, robbers, rapists, invaders, and other scary entities would come and get them. Thus, today, Americans live under an expanding militarized immigration police state - especially those Americans who live on or near the U.S.-Mexico border. For modern-day Americans, the loss of liberty has been worth it because it enables them to purchase a little temporary safety from all those scary people.
Recall the 9/11 attacks. Americans became afraid, very afraid. They were convinced that the terrorists or the Muslims were coming to get them. So, they traded away liberty, like with the USA Patriot Act, in order to gain a little temporary safety.
One big problem, of course, is that the loss of liberty has become permanent because the American people have remained afraid, very afraid. Another big problem is that Americans have convinced themselves that they still live in a free country even though they have clearly traded away their liberty in the hope of gaining a little temporary safety. A third problem is that in trading away liberty, Americans failed to secure safety from the biggest threat of all - their very own government.
Franklin was right but we should modify his statement as follows: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety and will inevitably end up with neither.
Reprinted with permission from The Future of Freedom Foundation.