I hate that quote. We gave up freedom for safety the minute we instituted government so we could have a society where nerds like Zuck could have tremendous wealth even though he can't very well physically defend it against bigger, stronger people. We are so many sheep in the midst of a handful of wolves, and we wanted a society where the sheep could rule, and so we traded some freedoms we had in the statute of nature (the freedom to use force) in return for collective safety.
This isn't a matter of whether you give up freedom for safety. It's about how you balance the competing concerns of freedom and security, both of which are important. I certainly agree TSA doesn't strike the right balance, but it's not because its a trade of freedom for security but because it gives you very little security in return for the onerous and invasive process it creates.
Obviously part of the reason you hate that quote is that it's a misquote.
It was written in 1755 by a then-loyal subject of George II. It's uncertain --- maybe even a little unlikely --- that Franklin was even its author. The quote is taken from a letter from the whole of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the governor of Pennsylvania. Franklin denied authorship of the compilation from which it's taken.
The quote itself is: "Thofe who would give up essential liberty to purchafe a little temporary safety deferve neither liberty nor safety".
Note the words "essential" and "a little temporary". The letter to the governor isn't an extended treatise on the rights of man; it concerns the utility of a bill funding the protection of far-flung frontier settlements in the context of the French & Indian War. The words mean what they say: it's bad to trade essential freedoms for small amounts of temporary security. The PA assembly wasn't interested in helping us with situations involving ephemeral freedoms or large amounts of transient security or small amounts of important security.
It doesn't help that this quote started a centuries-long game of telephone almost immediately.
You are of course right in the broader sense. The quote as it's usually deployed on message boards is borderline nonsensical. Benjamin Franklin signed the US Constitution, which is the world's oldest enforced contract regarding the exchange of liberties for security.
Let's have both. Freedom planes for me, with sane boarding procedures, and safety planes for you, with 4 hour waits while everyone is xrayed, strip-searched, and cavity inspected.
I don't begrudge you your choice of guaranteed safety, hopefully you will not begrudge me mine of privacy and freedom.
I take the train because I can't stand the TSA, and I'm willing to take my chances that someone fires an RPG at a train somewhere along the 500 miles of completely out in the open track on the Northeast Regional.
My point is that the TSA is bad not because "zOMG any impingement on freedom is bad!" but because it's just bad. They are too invasive for the imagined security benefits they provide against improbable threats.
But going from that to "those who trade freedom for safety deserve neither" is silly. I purposefully choose to live in a city (New York) that has a massive police presence. Why? Because I think its a reasonable trade-off of a little freedom for substantial security. Manhattan is like Disneyland now, and it's great, and I don't care if I would theoretically be more free if there weren't a cop on every corner. We trade freedom for security all the time--it's called organized civilization, and it's a good thing.
> Freedom planes for me, with sane boarding procedures, and safety planes for you, with 4 hour waits while everyone is xrayed, strip-searched, and cavity inspected.
Thank you for trying to skew the Overton Window in such an obvious fashion. Let's try something else:
For you, there are Liberty Planes™, with no metal detectors, no bomb detectors, and no sky marshals. In addition, alcohol is served on every flight. For the rest of us, air security is scaled back to what it was September 10, 2001. Fair?
This isn't a matter of whether you give up freedom for safety. It's about how you balance the competing concerns of freedom and security, both of which are important. I certainly agree TSA doesn't strike the right balance, but it's not because its a trade of freedom for security but because it gives you very little security in return for the onerous and invasive process it creates.