Only the Wicked Governors of Men Dread What is Said of Them

While reading "The Real Benjamin Franklin", a book given to me by my mother, I found the following quote from Benjamin Franklin regarding freedom of speech, writing under his famous pseudonym Silence Dogood:

"Without freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech, which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know.

This sacred privilege is so essential to free governments that the security of property and the freedom of speech always go together; and in those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything else hi own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.

The administration of government is nothing else but the attendance of the trustees of the people upon the interest and affairs of the people; and as it is part and business of the people, for whose sake alone all public matters are, or ought to be, transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted, so it is the interest and ought to be the ambition of all honest magistrates to have their deeds openly examined and publicly scanned. Only the wicked governors of men dread what is said of them."

Though Franklin wrote this at the age of 16, he displays the wisdom which came to mark his life as one of our great founding fathers. I would like to focus attention on that last line. Think of all the things I have written about here which show President Obama's disdain for dissent (attacking all critics), his disregard for freedom of speech (boycotting a news organization and saying they aren't a news organization) and his disdain for transparency (appointing czars with questionable backgrounds who aren't reviewed by the Senate to important policy positions). If Benjamin Franklin is correct, and he is far wiser than President Obama, then truly our current president is a wicked governor of men.