Showing posts with label Benjamin Franklin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Benjamin Franklin. Show all posts

July 1, 2010

Ben Franklin to Max Weber to Today

Max Weber, quoting in parts Benjamin Franklin, wrote;
Remember, that time is money. He that can earn ten shillings a day by his labor, and goes abroad, or sits idle, one half of that day, though he spends but sixpence during his diversion or idleness, ought not to reckon that the only expense; he has really spent, or rather thrown away, five shillings besides. ... Remember, that money is the prolific, generating nature. Money can beget money, and its offspring can beget more, and so on. Five shillings turned is six, turned again is seven and threepence, and so on, till it becomes a hundred pounds. The more there is of it, the more it produces every turning, so that the profits rise quicker and quicker. He that kills a breeding sow, destroys all her offspring to the thousandth generation. He that murders a crown, destroys all that it might have produced, even scores of pounds.

February 25, 2009

A question for discussion

There's greatness in the speech and it's worth watching for the points posed by Reagan and for his eloquence. But watch specifically at 3:58. Reagan states, "Those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course."


The rephrasing of the Benjamin Franklin quote (They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety), puts the question in the lap of liberals - we are trading freedom not for security from terrorists but security from poverty and the tyranny of an intellectual elite, domestically.

Is that the real meaning that Benjamin Franklin had for his phrase? Given the environment of a fledgling government and the issues the revolution had been created from, I'm sure his attention was on domestic government tyranny. And if that's the case, has the phrase been unfairly co-opted by the left in their Bush Derangement Syndrome driven fight against the Homeland Security measures?

Thoughts?

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