"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." – Benjamin Franklin
"When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither." – Thomas Jefferson
Brilliant statements from Franklin and Jefferson, and I certainly couldn't improve upon either of them. Freedom obviously demands some security, but the more security one has (if that security is transferred into the hands of government, as it almost always is), the less freedom there will be. The Founders hoped that our security would come largely from personal virtue (i.e., the Judeo-Christian moral code); even Franklin wrote, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." If people choose to be virtuous—that is, if they select true freedom—their liberties will be secure. If security is forced upon them, they lose those freedoms. And usually security as well. Is forced security really security? Is government "security" to be trusted? Ask the people of the Soviet Union, China, and other communist countries.
So, it isn't a strict choice between security and freedom. We do need some of the former to protect the latter. But the less security-producing virtue that comes from within us, the more freedom-limiting power we must give to government. And what government ever stops trying to gain more power? You "lose both and deserve neither" liberty or security, for what part of either do we have under a tyrannical, totalitarian government?
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other," John Adams wrote. Limit government to protect against tyranny. Exalt individual virtue to enhance both liberty and security. That was the system our Founding Fathers believed in and constructed for America.
Thus, we freely choose virtuous freedom, or we end up with tyranny. That's the message of the Founding Fathers of America, a lesson we have never learned and sorely need today.
Let me expand on this for those readers who might be new to true American history and civics. "I've never heard this before," 100 percent of leftists will say. Well, then, please listen carefully and think.
A government that is not strictly limited and controlled with defined powers, a government with the arbitrary power to do anything it wants to do and can get away with, a government that gives people everything they want, can also take everything they've got, and does not provide true liberty or security.
How free and secure were the people of Germany under Adolf Hitler? How free and secure were the people of Russia under the Soviet Union? How free and secure were the people of China under Mao Zedong, and are they under Xi Jinping? There is no true freedom or security under totalitarian government. Government has been the greatest killer in human history. It wasn't virtuous people in Germany who started World War II; it was their government. It wasn't the people of China who killed 60-70 million Chinese under Mao Zedong, or thousands at Tiananmen Square in 1989, or who turned the COVID virus loose on the world; it was their government. Only a government of virtue, limited by strict Constitutional boundaries, can provide freedom. And even that government should never be trusted. Witness 250 years of American history.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." We either believe that or we don't. American "conservatives" believe it; the "Left" in America does not. "But, but, but," Lefty says, "the Founding Fathers didn't even believe it. They were slaveowners." But they lived in a different world than we do, a world where slavery existed, a world where they led the way to the ending of slavery because of the words above! We don't live where slavery exists, and the principles the Founders spoke are eternal in their nature because they are based in the very nature of God. We have no excuse today for not believing what they said in the Declaration of Independence. But the Left has a different view of the world, a different view of government, a different view of God, and of what they want America to be. The divide is unbridgeable at present. Two polar opposite worldviews.
We conservatives want in America a virtuous, limited government with a populous of industrious, virtuous, godly, compassionate, loving people. A country where freedom and security are not based on government, but on the laws of God. As James Madison so correctly stated, "The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which this Constitution is founded." That is where true freedom and security reside. The Left wants neither freedom nor security because the "security" they want will be based on government ("our rights come from government," Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine recently said), and government robs freedom and gives no one true security (witness again the USSR and China). So, it's a choice between virtue or hedonism, freedom/security or totalitarian government. I believe in God. The Left believes in government.
I close with Edmund Burke: "Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters." Virtuous freedom and security—or totalitarianism. Those are the only two choices.
My substacks are a little unique. Not just current events, but history, our Founding Fathers, what America was meant to be, and Biblical exegesis. Check them out. "Mark It Down! (mklewis929.substack.com), and "Mark It Down! Bible Substack" (mklbibless.substack.com). Both free. Follow me on X: @thailandmkl. Read my western novels, "Whitewater," "River Bend," "Return to River Bend," and "Allie's Dilemma," all available on Amazon.