“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”

— Benjamin Franklin, 1755

More than 270 years later, those words still deserve our attention.

Not just on Election Day.

Not just when a controversial law is being debated.

Not just when taxes go up.

Every day.

Because beneath nearly every debate over government, public safety, taxation, education and technology is a fundamental question:

How much liberty are we willing to surrender in exchange for the promise of safety, convenience or government services?

At IRC Media, we back the blue.

We respect the men and women of law enforcement who put themselves in harm’s way to protect our communities. We want criminals caught. We want our families safe. We want officers to have the tools necessary to do their jobs.

But supporting law enforcement does not require blindly supporting a surveillance camera on every corner.

Technology such as automated license plate readers can provide legitimate benefits to law enforcement. They can also raise legitimate questions about privacy, data collection, retention, access and the expanding ability of government and private companies to track the movements of ordinary citizens.

Those questions are not anti-police.

They are questions free people should ask.

Public safety and individual liberty are not enemies. A free society must be capable of supporting its police officers while still establishing boundaries on government surveillance.

The same principle applies to taxation.

We love our cities and counties.

We want clean parks, maintained roads, dependable infrastructure, effective emergency services and safe communities.

Those things cost money.

But appreciating local government does not mean taxpayers should stop asking how much government actually needs.

Thomas Jefferson addressed almost this exact relationship between government, spending and the citizen in his First Inaugural Address.

He called for “a wise and frugal Government” that would allow people the freedom to pursue their own industry and improvement and “shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.”

Jefferson went even further when describing the principles that should guide government, calling for “economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened.”

More than two centuries later, that remains a remarkably relevant standard.

Government has legitimate responsibilities, and legitimate government requires revenue. But there is a difference between collecting what is reasonably necessary to perform those responsibilities and treating every additional dollar available to government as another dollar that must be spent.

When governments accumulate substantial reserves or consistently collect more revenue than necessary to provide essential services, citizens have every right to question whether that money should remain in government accounts or in the pockets of the people who earned it.

Street fairs can be enjoyable.

Coffee talks can build community.

Festivals and special events can make our hometowns better places to live.

But those things should never become the justification for forgetting who supplied the money in the first place.

It came from someone’s paycheck.

Someone’s business.

Someone’s property.

Someone’s labor.

Fiscal restraint is not hostility toward government. It is recognition that every dollar government spends first had to be earned by somebody else.

That is why debates over property taxes are ultimately about more than property taxes.

They are about the relationship between citizens and their government.

Jefferson’s vision was not a government incapable of performing its duties. It was a government disciplined enough to perform those duties while leaving its citizens as free — and as lightly burdened — as reasonably possible.

That is a principle worth remembering whenever government asks for more.

The same is true of our schools.

We want excellent teachers, safe classrooms and schools that prepare children to succeed.

But parents should never surrender their responsibility simply because their children walk through the doors of a government institution.

Parents are not guests in their children’s education.

They are their children’s parents.

Whether the issue is taxation, education, surveillance, public safety or another expansion of government authority, the principle remains the same:

Government works for the people.

The people do not exist to serve the government.

America’s founders understood this.

The Declaration of Independence did not proclaim that government grants people liberty. It recognized that people possess unalienable rights and that governments are instituted to secure those rights, deriving their legitimate authority from the consent of the governed.

That distinction is everything.

We are not subjects asking government for permission to be free.

We are a free people who created government to accomplish legitimate public purposes while respecting liberties that existed before government granted its permission.

And liberty is rarely lost overnight.

More often, it disappears through a series of seemingly reasonable compromises.

One more camera because it might make us safer.

One more tax because government promises something worthwhile.

One more regulation because officials insist it is necessary.

One more database because technology makes it possible.

One more intrusion because we’re told that people with nothing to hide have nothing to fear.

Individually, each decision may appear insignificant.

Collectively, they determine the relationship between government and citizen that our children will inherit.

That does not mean every tax is tyranny.

It does not mean every regulation is oppression.

It does not mean every camera is unconstitutional.

And it certainly does not mean government has no legitimate role in maintaining public order, building infrastructure, educating children or providing essential services.

The responsibility of a free people is not to reject government.

It is to control it.

It is to continually ask where the line should be drawn.

That responsibility belongs to us.

Elections are one opportunity to exercise it.

When you walk into a voting booth — whether it is a local election, primary, general election or referendum — don’t look only at the letter beside someone’s name.

Ask what that candidate believes about the relationship between government and citizen.

When someone promises safer communities, ask what freedoms must be surrendered to achieve that safety.

When someone promises new programs, ask who will pay for them.

When government says it needs more revenue, ask where the money it already collects is going.

When technology promises convenience, ask what information is being collected and who controls it.

When officials make decisions affecting your children, ask whether parents are being treated as partners or obstacles.

And when government asks for additional power, remember that government power has a tendency to remain long after the emergency or justification used to obtain it has passed.

That is why Franklin’s warning remains so powerful.

He wasn’t arguing that safety doesn’t matter.

He was warning about the price we are willing to pay for it.

America was built upon an extraordinary proposition: ordinary people could govern themselves.

That proposition requires something from us.

It requires participation.

It requires skepticism.

It requires responsibility.

And sometimes it requires telling government no.

We can back the blue while demanding limits on surveillance.

We can love our hometowns while demanding fiscal responsibility from city hall.

We can support our schools while insisting that parents remain central to their children’s upbringing.

We can support essential government services while questioning whether government needs every dollar it collects.

Those positions are not contradictions.

They are what self-government looks like.

So when the next election comes, remember liberty.

When the next tax proposal comes, remember liberty.

When the next surveillance technology arrives, remember liberty.

When the next emergency is used to justify another expansion of government authority, remember liberty.

And when someone tells you surrendering just a little freedom will make everything easier, safer or more convenient, remember Franklin.

Freedom has never survived on autopilot.

Every generation inherits it.

Every generation decides what to do with it.

And every generation has a responsibility to leave as much of it as possible to the generation that follows.

Safety matters.

Good government matters.

Strong communities matter.

But liberty matters too.

We were not born to be governed into freedom.

We were born free.

IRC Media uses aggregated public data and verified sources; articles reviewed by editorial team to the best of our ability.