Not content with the singular achievement of having coined the word "Dowdifying," Michelle Malkin labors mightily to prove the intellectual superiority of the pro-COINTELPRO right. Let's see how she does...
Writes Malkin, apparently a noted authority on Bartlett's Familiar Quotations online Ben Franklin:
The Ben Franklin quote that has been so misused and abused by the civil liberties absolutists since Sept. 11 originally appeared in 1755:
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
The omission of those key qualifiers--"essential" and "little"-- makes all the difference in the world. Ben Franklin has been hijacked to endorse an untenable and deadly view that no sacrifice of any liberty for any amount of safety at any time should ever be made.
Damn those "civil liberties absolutists!" Don't they know key qualifiers when they see them? All right, Michelle. Why don't you explain to the class what the word "essential" means. Since we're searching the web for pro-Bush gotchas, let's go to Dictionary.com:
es·sen·tial ( P) Pronunciation Key (-snshl)adj. Constituting or being part of the essence of something; inherent. Basic or indispensable; necessary: essential ingredients. See Synonyms at indispensable.
Now then. Which of the liberties promised to all Americans in the Constitution would you describe as "dispensible"? Which amendments do you find "inessential"? The First? The Second? The Fourth? (apparently, that's the one...) And which of the essential, indispensible liberties that gave rise to this great country your parents immigrated to are you willing to lay on the table, so that George Bush can chase the dusky boogeymen out from under your bed?
Putting aside, of course, that this argument isn't just about liberties -- it's about whether the president of the United States is required to obey a duly written law passed by Congress; one whose constitutionality has not been challenged and which, as far as I know, can't be rendered moot by a terrorist attack or simply shoved aside because it would inconvenience the president and his boy genius of an attorney general (who to be fair, only advocated breaking the really cumbersome laws...) Since no such "liberty" to set aside laws exists in the Constitution, I'm going to go with "yes he is."
You know? I think the right and I can agree on one thing: the Iraqis have demonstrated that democracy requires courage. The way I read the quote, it means that he who would part with the indispensible liberties that are the natural rights of a free person, for a temporary feeling of security is a fool deserving neither. And a rank coward at that. Maybe that's what the "chicken little" protesters at Georgetown were trying to say.
Malkin also quotes a fellow traveler who points out gleefully that Benjamin Franklin, to whom Michelle's bombshell corrected quote is attributed, participated in the gathering and dissemination of enemy communications from Britain during the Revolutionary War. Take it away, "reader Jeff T:"
The misquotation of Franklin in the argument about "domestic wiretapping" strikes me as particularly amusing in light of Franklin's role as one of the premier intelligence agents during the Revolutionary War. The CIA has a nice summary of the intelligence activities undertaken in that war, and no one is so prominent as Franklin, including in covert activities. More to the point here, Franklin was a member of the original committee, appointed by the Continental Congress, to review and publish intercepted communications from England. Hmm, Benjamin Franklin: Domestic Spy! If he meant what the liberals think he meant, we're going to have to change his statues to read "Printer, Inventor, Statesman, Hypocrite"!
The Continental Congress regularly received quantities of intercepted British and Tory mail. On November 20, 1775, it received some intercepted letters from Cork, Ireland, and appointed a committee made up of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Johnson, Robert Livingston, Edward Rutledge, James Wilson and George Wythe "to select such parts of them as may be proper to publish." The Congress later ordered a thousand copies of the portions selected by the Committee to be printed and distributed. A month later, when another batch of intercepted mail was received, a second committee was appointed to examine it. Based on its report, the Congress resolved that "the contents of the intercepted letters this day read, and the steps which Congress may take in consequence of said intelligence thereby given, be kept secret until further orders." By early 1776, abuses were noted in the practice, and Congress resolved that only the councils or committees of safety of each colony, and their designees, could henceforth open the mail or detain any letters from the post.
Oh Ben! You guys and your silly Congress making all those rules and regulations and ... laws ...! If you knew what Michelle knew you'd hand those foreign letters over to George W(ashington) to do with as his commander in chief vibe instructs him and just have Scott McClellan brief a couple of Whigs!
Oh, and by the way, all you scholars on the right: Go back and Google that quote again. It's kind of like "I didn't chop down that cherry tree" -- makes for nice cliches, but the guy never said it. He did say this, though:
"Who has deceiv'd thee so oft as thy self?"
Cheerio!
Related: The Conservative Cat explains that the right to privacy is, like, totally different from liberty ... well OK give him a break, he's a cat... they pretty much just lick themselves and eat dried food. What the hell do they know about the Constitution... Still, anyone up for a "Carnival of the clueless?"
The Stop the ACLUers quote Thomas Jefferson in the context of the real, 18th century threat of a European invasion of the nascent American republic to make the case that Dubya breaking a few laws is nothing when THE TERRORISTS ARE PREPARING TO TAKE OUR COUNTRY AWAY!!! Who knew there were that many of them and that they were that organized? (Somebody better tell Osama because if he thinks taking over a country of 22 million Arabs is a bitch, wait till the Islamist occupiers get a load of South Central L.A. ... they got guns and stuff over there, man...)
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
