Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
The governor was blocking this, because the Penn family, which owned a lot of Pennsylvania land, objected. The Penn family did recognize the need for defense (although they were largely absentee landlords so not in personal danger), and offered to donate a lump sum for the arms if the legislator would agree that it did not have the power to tax Penn land.
Franklin's quote was in a letter he wrote to the governor arguing for rejection of this offer.
The "essential Liberty" he was referring to was the liberty of the legislature to legislate how it saw fit, including taxing Penn land to pay for security, and the "purchase a little temporary Safety" was the one time lump sum for arms.
That was in 1755. He did re-use the phrase 20 years later in 1775 in a more general context, closer to what people quote it for nowadays.
But it turns out that his opinion of what constitutes security and safety is completely opposite my own.
So that's really a bit of a non-starter. I would say that Franklin has more credibility however; if only because of the man's legendary common sense.
I'll also point out, Franklin's sentiment can be traced back to the principle that "Vigilia aeterna est pretium libertatis". A consequence of which is, sorry Mr. Barr. Tell your police to do some actual investigative work. It is not the job of the populace to relinquish essential liberty to make tyranny in the making that much further realized.
It is what we do with our Liberty that elevates us as angels, or drops us to the level of daemonic debasement.
Law enforcement needs to understand their job should never be made trivial as their very existence in and of itself is as the sole means to rescension of that which culturally we value most; hich should absolutely be as burdensome a process as possible in the light of what is being taken.
Never mind that making unbackdoored encryption illegal just adds a token charge to a long list of other charges, which to me is an absolute anti-pattern, of the same level as most firearm regulation in light of the second amendment; which I'll admit to being a bit of a hard-liner on.
My 2 cents.
To this day the United States Munitions List, classifies cryptographic devices under Category XIII Materials and Miscellaneous Articles.
All the way back to the pre-constitution 1784 Virgina General Assembly, to some extent recognizes the need for secure communications channels in a militia. "There shall be a private muster of every company once in every three months", and setting forth those in charge of initiating and communicating the time and place of the muster.
People often focus on the first amendment right to encryption. But I at least feel that the second amendment right is equally strong, with the governments own position on arms control behind it, legal interpretation should if anything not tolerate it's own inconsistency.
William Barr is none of these thing.
One is a person with a well-earned a reputation, the other.. well you get the point.
Yes
>An argument from authority, also called an appeal to authority, or argumentum ad verecundiam, is a form of defeasible argument in which a claimed authority's support is used as evidence for an argument's conclusion
You're not defending the point logically; you're only supporting argument is that someone with a good reputation supports it as well.
He absolutely is
The annoying thing about "logical fallacies" is that if anyone season argument they disagree with that resembles a "fallacy", that quote it and act like theyve won.
He is not saying that everything Benjamin Franklin has ever said is true. Obviously. However, if a well renowned and respected Authority has an opinion that some evil schmuck disagrees with, it provides evidence as to who is more likely to be correct. That's not what an appeal to Authority is
Show me where that happened.
>The annoying thing about "logical fallacies" is that if anyone season argument they disagree with that resembles a "fallacy", that quote it and act like theyve won.
That is annoying and I agree, but that's not what's going on here.
>He is not saying that everything Benjamin Franklin has ever said is true.
No one said he was.
>However, if a well renowned and respected Authority has an opinion that some evil schmuck disagrees with, it provides evidence as to who is more likely to be correct.
No it doesn't. It absolutely _does not_. Reputation isn't irrelevant in so far as it lends credibility to a person's statements, but the discussion doesn't stop there. If you're going to defend a quote then defend it. Saying "this is true because X is trustworthy and Y is an 'evil schmuck'" is not an argument.
If this is not a prime example of Appeal to Authority then show me why it's not and provide an example. You're just throwing out your opinions as if they were fact.
...huh?
>If all parties agree on the reliability of an authority in the given context it becomes a valid inductive argument.
No, it doesn't. Why do you believe that? How do you feel about quantum mechanics? Do you realize that Einstein fought tooth and nail against it for years?
>Otherwise every Citation or Source or Bibliography would be a "logical fallacy".
Citations link to works, not authorities. A citation may link to, say, an academic paper which provides evidence to support its assertions. No one is linking to random comments made by so-called authorities, that would never be accepted (unless the citation was to literally show that a quote is legitimate, i.e., made by the person claimed to have made it.)
I'd also like to point out you have yet to provide a single fact in support of anything you're saying.
Great! I didnt say that and neither did the gp you originally replied to. Whats your point?
That's you as you seem to have forgotten.
Are you actually trying to argue you can't tell the opinion of children and subject matter experts apart because gathering evidence based on reputation is a logical fallacy?
But if people disagree they can go ride a bike without a helmet, people in the transplant list will thank you.
I don't think opinions of people who were born before telegraphs matter much in today's political discourse. Basically, it boils down to, "I found a quote I agree with, and when I attach $(some famous dead person)'s name on to it, it sounds really great and authoritative."
He also didn't think much of private property.
[1] http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12....
If you take someone else's property for your own use by force without their permission, they are perfectly justified in using force to take your property without your permission. That is the fundamental natural law which underlies property rights, as well as all other natural rights: reciprocation. It doesn't matter who the property belongs to, how much other property they have, or who is doing the taking.
If you take someone's property without their permission there are three possibilities: (1) you admit that it's wrong and deserving of punishment; (2) you claim that taking property without permission is universally right (i.e. that there are no property rights), in which case you can't complain when others take your property; or (3) you claim that rights are not universal, in which case others can claim the right to take your property just as easily as you claim the right to take theirs. Whichever path you choose, the act of theft justifies its own proportional punishment. The same reasoning applies to any other natural right, as they are all based on the principle of reciprocation.
This is neither the time nor the place, but if you're interested in a more complete treatment of the topic I would recommend this paper: http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/12_1/12_1_3.pdf
It doesn't matter whether or not I agree with you or Franklin (or neither) here - I was noting that your attempt at pointing out his "error" is itself logically flawed and does not demonstrate any such error on his part.
I should hope that this argument is not "unique", since it's just an application of basic logic, and I really couldn't care less whether the conclusions are universally accepted. The logic is sound whether you accept it or not.
I think this has run its course, it’s not a good media to get into something like this at depth.
> Was he some sort of fundamentalist anarchist?
The quote plainly refutes that idea.
Though I would agree it's a quote of triteness and "just so" convenience that gets massively abused.