Feb. 19, 2010: On Fox News, former Attorney General John Ashcroft responds to the question of whether he thinks we are safer now than we were during the Bush years:
“I believe we ought to maximize our safety so we can exercise freely our liberty, and I don’t believe in trading off liberty for safety. I believe the purpose of safety is to secure liberty. And whether we’re more or less than we used to be isn’t the question. The question is: could we be safer if we adopted different policies, and if we were to adopt those different policies, would it make our liberty an enhanced liberty and give us a better opportunity to reach the objectives we have, and I believe we should always be on the lookout to improve the safety and security of American liberty. That’s what the responsibility of government is all about.”
Feb. 17, 1775: Benjamin Franklin, not responding to Fox News: “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”