Ben Franklin Quote - Your feedback please

August 14, 2003

[MeekOneGOP]

"A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."

-- Benjamin Franklin

[ThomasMore]

It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."

Liberal media spin distorts the truth and keeps the masses ignorant of the truth.

[ChewedGum]

Nicely done!

Gum

[Charles Martel]

Governments are there to protect rights, not grant them. Governments only grant powers and that is where the tyranny begins.

"How fortunate for Governments that people do not think."
- Adolf Hitler

[scan58]

""A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."

Notice Mr. Franklin said, "...that tyranny begins." We are slowly being bread to be ignorant of our God-given rights. We are now being told that these rights are actually priveleges given to us by men. And if they are by given by men, they may also be slowly taken away. Sort of like setting a frog in a pot of cold water on the stove. Soon that pot is boiling and the frog cooked, and he never knew what happened.

[samuel_adams_us]

"A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."

-- Benjamin Franklin


Or in the words of our current congress:

"A nation of well manipulated idiots who have been taught to dispise God and their given rights have been enslaved. It is in the region of our public's ignorance that our supremecy begins."

[Ragtime Cowgirl]

I agree, Meekie. Our founding fathers were very wise.

About that 'informed public':

"We are seeing people being drawn into the madrasses (sp) schools - being trained in terrorism - how to kill other people - being led to believe that enough people have hijacked these schools and religions and - for whatever reason - convince others to kill..What's the end state? That there are fewer people being brought into those systems.  As successful as we are (in the DoD),..we have to be more successful in the war of ideas....The world will be a terrible place if they win - if nation-states are (so terrorized ) that they become tolerant - allow the training of (and rule by) terrorists within - it will change the world...The war also involved people's minds and ideas. That's terribly important." - SOD Rumsfeld, Townhall meeting for the DoD, Aug. 14,  2003.

"In general, the biggest shortcoming from Iraq to Afghanistan is not the accomplishment of the mission as much as it is getting the word out about the successes we're achieving every day."  -  Gen. Richard Myers, 8/05/03

Lack of accurate info, combined with a lack of understanding (bad schools, bad press, bad culture) is hurting our war efforts - hurting those who do understand, are informed and our risking their lives for the rest of us.

[HeadOn]

(Please stick with me, I'm starting out with religious examples, but will get to my secular point...)

This concept is not new. It was true long before Ben Franklin:

Eve was deceived in the Garden of Eden, partly because she forgot exactly what God said.

In the Middle Ages, the Church held ultimate sway, because 1)there were very few copies of scripture available, and 2)the masses couldn't read a Bible if they had one. Therefore, leaders could tell followers whatever they "interpreted" the scripture to mean. The same thing happens today in many denominations (Episcopals this week) because God's people are ignorant of what is in God's word.

In today's America, citizens are ignorant of their rights under the Constitution. They are ignorant of opportunities. They are ignorant, in large part, because for the last 20-30 years, children have been grossly under-educated. More emphasis has been placed on "feeling" and not on facts.
If today's kids had been taught to reason and come to logical conclusions, to do their own reading and research, then they would be richer, healthier, smarter, and content. They would have enough initiative to take charge of their lives instead of feeling like helpless victims.

Many men and women today assume the role of leaders only because their followers will believe whatever they are told, and will not think for themselves. These followers are just as enslaved as if they were wearing chains on their hands and feet.

[MeekOneGOP]

Thank you ! I think there is a lot of good stuff to chew on here on this thread too.

Great responses overall I think !

Thanks again to ALL on this thread. Freepers are the best !!

[onyx]

Most often, quotes by BF are so obvious in meaning! This one is food for thought.

I've read the entire thread and all of the posts are excellent.

My interpretation: Once men understand our God given rights of freedom (see Declaration of Independ.) then no man should ever permit another man or government to take-away what God has granted.

[LiberationIT]

I'd not heard that one. Thanks.

[Iwo Jima]

The public school system promotes ignorance. Get government out of education, and the number of well-informed men will soar. Education is too important to leave allow government to have anything to do with it.

[.30Carbine]

You ever heard of the KISS principle?

Don't answer that!

A distinguished fellow FReeper answered your question already. I'll quote him:

As Franklin predicted, the purpose of our dumbded down government schools is to produce citizens who simply don't know what they are missing. How can you resent the loss of liberty if you never knew you were intended to have it?

[.30Carbine]

I just have to ask you something.

If human rights do not come from God nor from government, where *do* they come from?

[Quix]

"A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."

-- Benjamin Franklin
What does this quote mean to you? Do you agree with it? Or disagree with it?

---

--well informed persons
--taught to know
--and to prize
--the rights
--GOD HAS GIVEN THEM
--CANNOT BE ENSLAVED.

--The quote means a lot to me:

1) Being informed and educated enough to make rational sense out of the information is crucial to freedom. The heavy-handed control and mangling of information by puppet master and cliques behind the scenes of our country in our era is criminal and should be wholesale overturned and prevented.

2) Being educated enough to make rational sense and vote accordingly is no small thing. Our shools are currently under the same control by the same cliques and are making things worse instead of better. That insanity also needs corrected wholesale and steps taken to prevent repeats of same.

3) Given the opportunity to be educated available to virtually all, I mostly think that some sort of VOTER'S TEST ought to be implemented. If someone is not well informed enough and rational/logical enough to make rational sense out of the information, they have no business voting for the future of The Republic.

4) Knowing our rights in our era is a challenge in many respects as the same ruling cliques behind the scenes have wholesale eroded so many of our rights for decades. And with even the Supreme Court trashing the Constitution in favor of FOREIGN COURTS rulings, knowing our Constitutional rights is no easy or assured thing. That also needs wholesale correction and preventive actions in place.

5) Prizing our rights is also a challenge. It's easier to prize chaotic extreme noise as music, fat as food, excesses and irresponsibility as freedom, brazen selfishness as individualism, abuse as personal expression, voter fraud as patriotic, Presidential felonies as nothing-much-move-along, treason as false accusations, cover-up murders as suicides, Lying as history, . . .

6) OUR RIGHTS--an overblown, out of balance rallying cry in our era. Largely, IMHO, because of screaming abuses by the Communist driven left. They have deliberately distorted all concept of rights way off the cliff of rationality. They have done so not in the interest of furthering rights but in the interest of using interest groups to pit them against each other. They have deliberately done so to gain control--power--political control over the society to push it toward global socialism/Communism/tyranny.

7) Therefore, they have wholesale invented rights which are antethetical to the whole idea of INALIENABLE RIGHTS GIVEN FROM GOD ALMIGHTY. Where are the RIGHTS of the unborn child created of God in it's mother's womb? Where are the rights of the father? All recorded history demonstrates care toward such rights until our era. Now humans created in God's image by an Almighty God are reduced to "tissue" to have their brains mushed by cold steel implements just prior to exiting the birth canal. This infanticide is strictly for convenience. But great political power has been garnered over calling it the 'mother's' RIGHT.

God will have His response in His time. It will not be pretty. But the ugliness of mass infanticide has not been pretty either--regardless of the whitewash of the left.

Guess that's what Ben's quote means to me.

Blessings, (c) B Quix at FreeRepublilc.com Permission granted for nonprofit use.

[happygrl]

Dieists still believed that they were accountable to God, even if they were not Christians.

THAT is crucial; in Western tradition, even the notion of the "Divine right of Kings" had a corollary right out of the Old Testament: the King was either a good king or a bad king insofar as he followed the laws given by God.

[MeekOneGOP]

Wow. You express it so well. Thanks ...

[onyx]

Really? Why thank you, Meek and you're most welcome. ;-)

[BradyLS]

"A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins." -- Benjamin Franklin

I agree with Ben Franklin's quote. To me, it means that as long as you understand and assert the rights given to you by God, no government can take them away from you. The easy part is to learn what your rights are. The hard part is asserting them. Because a government that does not inform its citizens of their rights will allow no challenge to its authority.

Do YOU know what your rights are? And how to assert them?

[LiberationIT]

That’s a question that a lot of people have spent more time than I answering; and time and space here are limited, but a few examples may help.

Assume for a moment that you and I are the only two people around, nobody else. Do you have rights? Do I? Of course. Do you have the right to infringe on my rights? Of course not. Nothing gives you that right. Not a government or a god. You may have the power to do so, by virtue of size, equipment, etc., but you do not have the right. The same applies to me. If you and I decide on a few rules to live by so that our rights are not infringed, we have developed a rudimentary way to govern ourselves in order to protect our rights. We did not and do not need a government to grant out rights. We may agree on one to protect our rights.

When Hillary says we have a “right” to health care, she is wrong. We have as much right to health care as cotton plantations have to cheap labor. One’s rights cannot impose obligations on others.

If your question is about rights coming from some god; that will probably be a fruitless debate for us to have and I have a much more enjoyable day planned. I may spend a little time pondering who has the most rights among say, Jerry Falwell, Mother Teresa, Ted Bundy and the various ayatollahs. Nah, I already know the answer to that question.

[natewill]

Didnt BF also counsel to attach a key to your kite string before flying it in the nearest lightning storm? Great guy, but some out there ideas... I mean, knowledge being the defense against tyranny. Whew.

But seriously, this reminds me of the idea that the socialists, communists, et al try to target the youngest of a population, as they are the most easily influenced, and have the least amount of knowledge of history and their surroundings.