People tout the historical accident of the circumstances around Ben's words as if that should somehow blunt the force of his statement in the hands of their detractors, but Ben's statement is equally valid wielded by both sides of the equation. This counterintuitively proves the opposite of what this author claims it does. It reaffirms that Liberty and Security share a spectrum, and the tradeoff of an in-perpetuity Liberty for a one-time bump in Security is not worth making; and furthermore that those who would espouse doing so should not be considered worthy of either in the least.
The Penn's wanted immunity to taxation, at the price of funding this one defense effort. Ben was on the right side of it, stating it was absurd for the legislature to grant that request, or for the Governor to champion it. The Penn's land would benefit from the expenditure anyway, so they should also bear the cost of defense.
Their concession was not even of a fungible nature in terms of political calculus. Once again proving that the Founders understood that Liberties >> mere budgetary concerns, and the role of government in managing any type of budget was to make those expenditures which would tend to prolong the ability of the Jurisdiction to ensure that Liberties could be realized within.
In short, the statement bears the same meaning everyone has been reading into it all along. The rest is just the mental gymnastics required to present it such that "your favored half" of the spectrum is in one way more legitimately entitled to supremacy in wielding the argument than the other side is.
The Penn's wanted immunity to taxation, at the price of funding this one defense effort. Ben was on the right side of it, stating it was absurd for the legislature to grant that request, or for the Governor to champion it. The Penn's land would benefit from the expenditure anyway, so they should also bear the cost of defense.
Their concession was not even of a fungible nature in terms of political calculus. Once again proving that the Founders understood that Liberties >> mere budgetary concerns, and the role of government in managing any type of budget was to make those expenditures which would tend to prolong the ability of the Jurisdiction to ensure that Liberties could be realized within.
In short, the statement bears the same meaning everyone has been reading into it all along. The rest is just the mental gymnastics required to present it such that "your favored half" of the spectrum is in one way more legitimately entitled to supremacy in wielding the argument than the other side is.