What about Ben Franklin? (was Re: [PLUG-TALK] O.J. and guns)

[glen e. p. ropella]

=><=><= "seniorr" == Russell Senior <seniorr at aracnet.com> writes:

> According to a quick google search, the quote is:
>
>   <http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/freedom/>
>
>   ``They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
> temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.''
>
> On the other hand, just because he (or anyone else) said it and
> others repeat it doesn't make it true.

Well, that's just because not _enough_ people are saying it.  If
we could get more people to say it, then it would be true.

In the same way that history is written by the survivors, the things
that become "Truth" in our socially constructed world are those things
that are said and repeated often enough and by enough people.

Pick a "fact"... any fact... and I would bet (if I were a betting
man) that you can trace the roots of that fact to rhetoric that
eventually overtook its opposing rhetoric.  This is true not only
in science but in an individual's psyche as well.

Fact is what your society says it is.... unless you have a touchstone
for Truth that I'm not aware of.

=><=><= "athlonrob" == AthlonRob  <AthlonRob at axpr.net> writes:

> Note the adjectives in there, too - essential and temporary.

Yeah, adding in the adjectives makes it a totally useless statement
since the difference between an essential liberty and an expendable
one is subjective.  And "temporary safety" is just redundant, since
all safeties are temporary.

I much prefer the more streamlined version.



-- 
glen e. p. ropella              =><=                           Hail Eris!
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