He wasn’t being poetic he was speaking for the Pennsylvania Assembly during a bitter fight with the colonial governor. The Penn family, who owned the colony, refused to pay taxes for defense
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during the French and Indian War unless their estates were exempt. Franklin and the Assembly pushed back, warning that surrendering the people’s rights of self-governance for a promise of temporary protection was a dangerous trade-off.
aug 28, 2025, 1:51 am • 793 88 • view
Fast forward nearly 270 years, and here we are in Washington, D.C., watching this lesson repeat itself. Once again, people in power are demanding we give up freedoms in exchange for the illusion of “safety.” Federal troops and militarized police flood the streets, agencies are
aug 28, 2025, 1:51 am • 942 136 • view
reshaped by executive whim, and broad powers are justified under the vague banner of “ensuring public order.” Just like in Franklin’s time, the deal on offer is a scam: we hand over essential liberties, and what we get back isn’t real safety it’s control, submission, and fear.
aug 28, 2025, 1:51 am • 903 130 • view
aug 28, 2025, 7:13 pm • 0 0 • view
aug 28, 2025, 7:13 pm • 0 0 • view
The truth is, temporary safety measures imposed by force rarely stay temporary. History shows that once freedom is surrendered, it is almost never freely given back. And just like Franklin, we’re here to say no.
aug 28, 2025, 1:51 am • 915 146 • view
Americans do not want to live under a military state, that was never the American dream. Our country was founded on the promise of liberty, not soldiers patrolling our streets. The Constitution is clear: the military does not police civilians.
aug 28, 2025, 1:51 am • 1,012 194 • view
Yet MAGA propaganda insists Trump is “protecting” you, while branding dissenters as supporting criminals. That’s a fake choice built on fear, not fact.
aug 28, 2025, 1:51 am • 1,307 141 • view
The reality is simple our rights are not bargaining chips. Liberty is not something you trade away for “temporary safety”, because when you do, you lose both.
aug 28, 2025, 1:51 am • 1,403 180 • view
I just heard that this week! I’m think it was on MSNBC. Very appropriate!
aug 28, 2025, 3:02 am • 5 1 • view
Thank you.
aug 28, 2025, 3:09 am • 6 1 • view
The trains ran on time in Nazi Germany.
aug 28, 2025, 2:39 am • 4 0 • view
President’s friend gets mugged and DC is now occupied.
aug 28, 2025, 5:25 pm • 3 0 • view
"mugged" is a term MAGA is using but: Original report said that Coristine "confronted" a group of children who then beat him up. So, seems Trump/Musk's minion picked a fight and lost so Trump then ordered the military to occupy DC?
aug 28, 2025, 8:34 pm • 4 3 • view
That computes. Money turns kids into idiots.
aug 28, 2025, 9:02 pm • 3 0 • view
And we are actually much less safe. The safety is a lie as well, of course.
aug 28, 2025, 3:36 pm • 3 0 • view
👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼👆🏼 🧵 Thread up.
aug 28, 2025, 3:20 pm • 0 0 • view
Like the patriot act...
aug 28, 2025, 2:12 am • 175 8 • view
My first thought as well.
aug 28, 2025, 9:38 am • 0 0 • view
The Patriot Act and Citizens United were two of the biggest attacks on democracy in the US leading up to this year... both have such misleading names for what they ended up doing.
aug 28, 2025, 2:12 pm • 1 0 • view
Senator Feingold knew what was up back then, the only one to vote against it in the Senate
aug 28, 2025, 5:27 pm • 0 0 • view
Exactly! We have been sliding down a slippery slope since 9/11.
aug 28, 2025, 3:12 am • 130 7 • view
And 9/11 was a false flag. When Americans finally realize that that was the Republicans doing also, then you will shudder at where we actually are in this on going coup and that this evil regime does not care one wit about a single one of us.
aug 28, 2025, 3:22 am • 7 1 • view
Sad is 24 years later there are still 10 Senators left in the US Senate. 4-GOP 6-Dem, including both from Washington. List is as follows: Mike Carpo(R-ID) Dick Durbin(D-IL) Chuck Grassley(R-IA) Mitch McConnell(R-KY) Susan Collins(R-ME) Chuck Schumer(D-NY) Ron Wyden(D-OR) Jack Reed(D-RI)
aug 28, 2025, 5:24 pm • 0 0 • view
“Homeland Security” was just early ICE. Unnecessary and redundant.
aug 28, 2025, 3:44 am • 12 1 • view
That's what happens when you are at a permanent state of war.
aug 28, 2025, 4:45 pm • 0 0 • view
Since the 80's
aug 28, 2025, 2:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Bernie and Ron Paul (credit where due) warned us.
aug 28, 2025, 9:22 am • 2 0 • view
Agreed. It was something we should never have allowed. Radical knee jerk fear and unilateral hate should never be the basis for anything because ultimately the harm and restrictions tend to boomerang and engulf everyone.
aug 28, 2025, 3:24 am • 24 1 • view
Since Edwin Gerry…
aug 28, 2025, 8:11 am • 0 0 • view
9/11 was a test of American freedom. A test that we failed.
aug 28, 2025, 5:00 am • 5 0 • view
Trump would not and could not be if that damned "patriot act" didn't exist!
aug 28, 2025, 4:05 pm • 1 0 • view
Has there ever been a time, in human history, that a department named “Homeland (Anything)” has turned out to be a net positive? I can’t think of one.
aug 28, 2025, 11:07 am • 0 0 • view
THAT was the start.
aug 28, 2025, 1:12 pm • 1 0 • view
I am pissed off to this day about the patriot act. Once we lose a right, we rarely recover that right. More often than not, the right is lost forever.
aug 28, 2025, 3:55 pm • 1 0 • view
In this context, explain The Patriot Act? No snark. I just think that was a huge overreach and don't really understand why Americans just kinda shrugged.
aug 28, 2025, 2:39 am • 2 1 • view
The only senator to vote against I was Russ Feingold. Alt right Ron Johnson hammered on the fact that he didn’t vote for it. A real selling point for ( at that time) tea party people.
aug 28, 2025, 2:52 am • 1 0 • view
Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain…
aug 28, 2025, 3:14 pm • 0 0 • view
youtu.be/6fMLMAFM9S8?...
aug 28, 2025, 5:12 am • 1 0 • view
I'll give that an Amen 🙏
aug 28, 2025, 2:23 am • 3 0 • view
Never surrender a right because you’ll never get it back. Fight like hell to keep it and make darn sure to teach the youngsters to honor it as well.
aug 28, 2025, 2:59 am • 6 4 • view
The people who spent the Obama years screaming about MAH RAIGHTS over healthcare voted to put jackbooted thugs in the streets
aug 28, 2025, 2:27 am • 4 1 • view
The suited thugs installed themselves. Electiontruthalliance.org
aug 28, 2025, 9:41 am • 0 0 • view
As someone intimately aware of election processes, this website is bonkers. It doesn’t even rise to the level of lies- it just muddles information and charts that are designed to look important, but either contradict themselves or simply don’t even provide any actual information.
aug 28, 2025, 12:13 pm • 2 0 • view
I do not abide conspiracy theories. The voters are responsible for this and no one else. Do not try to shift blame away from them.
aug 28, 2025, 11:30 am • 2 0 • view
He’s only interested in control and power! He said “I am the president of the United States I can do anything I want! He really believes this is true! It could be because he doesn’t know American History! He doesn’t understand the Constitution and therefore ignores it! He sells anything he can!
aug 28, 2025, 4:06 am • 4 1 • view
I think it’s because Congress, voters, & the Supreme Court, etc. continue to let him do anything he wants without any severe consequences.
aug 28, 2025, 5:07 am • 1 0 • view
youtu.be/6fMLMAFM9S8?...
aug 28, 2025, 5:12 am • 0 0 • view
Classic narcissistic, sociopathic domestic abuser line. Without them everything will go to shit. You can’t possibly survive without them. It’s all your fault they’re punishing you like this. Blah blah blah bullshit.
aug 28, 2025, 8:15 am • 2 1 • view
Suburbs and rural areas are challenges for trump to march troops into. Yet, he can easily activate the armed MAGA in these areas like he did the KKK, Neo-Nazi, Proud Boys terrorist cells on Jan 6th, 2021. He'll activate these racists again. And this time they'll shit in our homes if we let him.
aug 29, 2025, 6:51 am • 1 1 • view
How many people are arrested for burglary, assault, robbery and how many are arrested while working or walking their dog for not having paperwork? They are not making anyone safer.
aug 28, 2025, 4:00 pm • 1 0 • view
Yeah, liars will keep lying in order to continue scamming people who is still dumb enough to believe anything that a conservative says. They speak for two key purposes: spreading lies and spreading hate.
aug 28, 2025, 3:38 am • 2 1 • view
YES! Depose the fascist orange dictator and restore liberty, harmony, and stability to the people!!
aug 29, 2025, 12:14 am • 1 0 • view
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness...
aug 28, 2025, 2:16 am • 0 0 • view
The sheep are not listening.
aug 28, 2025, 6:16 am • 1 0 • view
🤬
aug 28, 2025, 2:30 am • 0 0 • view
FREE DC!
aug 28, 2025, 4:58 pm • 0 0 • view
This really started after 9/11 if we're being honest (Patriot Act).
aug 28, 2025, 2:51 am • 0 0 • view
Not as ballsy as wearing a mask during pandemic, that was just WAY TOO MUCH to ask.
aug 28, 2025, 2:57 pm • 2 0 • view
🤭
aug 28, 2025, 5:26 pm • 0 0 • view
> demanding we give up freedoms in exchange for the illusion of “safety.” I talked myself hoarse about this following 9/11, which is when the fascists got their foot in the door. No one fucking listened, including my well educated liberal friends who *should* have known better.
aug 28, 2025, 8:02 am • 5 1 • view
Why are "Christians" doing this with zero appreciation of their own liability to sin and the kind of devotion to God that is needed to avert the danger?
aug 28, 2025, 3:26 am • 4 0 • view
I D K …!
aug 28, 2025, 7:41 am • 1 0 • view
Or if not zero, perfunctory. This can't fail but to blow back, and it blows back even on other Christians who are looking to God to be more conscientious. It gives the enemy "cause to blaspheme" as the bible text puts it.
aug 29, 2025, 4:28 pm • 0 0 • view
I’d argue that it’s less safe for anyone who isn’t a sycophantic, rabidly heterosexual, white, (preferably blonde), evangelical cisgendered male. For everyone else, nowhere is safe in America. That’s why no one’s coming to visit.
aug 28, 2025, 8:13 am • 1 0 • view
Like the patriot act, like Covid mandates? Gosh we are hypocrites sometimes but hypocrites on the right side amiright?
aug 28, 2025, 3:03 am • 2 0 • view
Like we did for COVID?!?
aug 28, 2025, 3:01 am • 1 0 • view
no. and its weird you read this story and still come away with this. benjamin franklin was talking about property. not the rights of self governance.
aug 28, 2025, 2:46 pm • 0 0 • view