🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Oct27.175848.1578@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu>, denning@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu writes:
> > I'll leave the response to that well-known radical, Benjamin Franklin:
> > 
> > "Those who give up a little liberty to obtain safety deserve neither
> > liberty nor safety."
> > 
> > -- George Mitchell (george@tessi.com)
> This is a wonderful quote, but I don't see liberty and safety as opposites.  
> If I can't walk through some park, say, without a reasonable expectation of
> safety, I lose some liberty to move about freely.  Maybe women are 
> more sensitive to this than men because we are more vulnerable.  As 
> another example, if we as a society don't give up the liberty to kill 
> whomever we want or take whatever we want, we also relinquish the 
> liberty to live without complete fear of being killed or ripped off.
> Society is a contract which requires a lot of give and take.
> 
> Dorothy Denning

I don't think that Ben Franklin saw them as opposites, either.  He was
just making the point that if you have a choice between being free or
being safe, choose free.  

I think you'd find serious disagreement as to whether the ability to
kill or steal is actually a liberty.  (I could also say "The liberty
to be afraid of everything and live in complete fear for my life,"
but that doesn't mean "to be afraid of ..." is actually a liberty,
any more than saying "My dog, the cat" actually makes my cat a dog.)
 
------------------------------------------------------
Chris Fulmer                    Bell-Northern Research
Sr. Software Designer            Research Triangle, NC
mail to woodstock!chris@mcnc.org (preferable) or...
        chrisf@bnr.ca            (not so preferable)
Oh yeah.  The usual disclaimers apply here.