Liberty and security

Naomi Wolf is on the book trail promoting her new novel called "The End of America" (oddly, Pat Buchanan has also written a book about the end of America, but for different reasons). Here she is explaining herself to John Kasich:



Her construct essentially relies on the old warning attributed to Ben Franklin about liberty versus security. Michelle Malkin discussed this last year, pointing out how these folks misinterpreted Franklin as such:

"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither"

To be precise, the quote reads:

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security"

Essential and temporary being key words. The top quote suggests an absolutism Franklin probably never intended. But it serves the cause so well, though! I think Franklin probably inserted the qualifiers to suggest a balance as he was a practical man. Jefferson's thoughts about the matter have been on the sidebar of this blog since the beginning.

With the above in mind, how come we never hear people like Wolf lambasting Hillary and the liberals for trying to guarantee 'social security' at the expense of liberty, such as with universal health care, government funded retirement or welfare? Seems the Franklin construct works just as well.

MORE 11/26/07

O'Reilly was bloviating tonight about this Seattle Intelligencer guest editorial suggesting Bush and Cheney's impeachment. My feeling on this? Bring it on!

What I mean is, all those charges could be argued sufficiently by Constitutional attorneys or members of the intelligence community, which might actually put a lid on some of it.