Ben Franklin, Tom Paine and the Fourth Of July

Ben Franklin, Tom Paine and the Fourth of July

 

On this, America’s 238th birthday, Old Ben Franklin’s famous observation that “Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one” is worth remembering today as are the words of Thomas Paine: “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it” even though they are almost totally antithetical sentiments.

Franklin, the oldest member of the Continental Congress to sign the Declaration of Independence who is considered among the most brilliant of our Founding Fathers and Paine, the English-American author of the pamphlet “Common Sense” without which “the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain” (John Adams) were two of our nation’s greatest patriots yet they had much different views on precisely what the newly-born United States of America was and should become.

Franklin, along with Thomas Jefferson, was one of our greatest early diplomats despite his engagements in a rather randy sex life and Paine who later would viciously criticize Washington for reasons unrelated to the American Revolution and ended life as a bitter, old man is not regarded kindly by many liberal-leftists today.

Franklin has gained favor among that tribe in recent years primarily because of the above quotation . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=37929.)