Sir - Edward C. Ryan is remarkably dutiful when he offers a word of warning to those who condone or ignore the erosion of our civil freedoms (March 1st). The Benjamin Franklin line he quotes is very interesting. It should have read: "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety".
The quote has virtually been monopolised by the gun lobby in the US who use it to warn the proponents of repeal of the Second Amendment that without the right to keep and bear arms, all basic freedoms could be subject to erosion and destruction.
Franklin's 18th century quote is constantly aired like a stinking carcass in order to dissuade politicians from introducing legislation for, in the gun lobby's view, useless feel-good gun control laws. Hopefully, this quote will not be used in Ireland to thwart Minister O'Donoghue's new crime-fighting proposals from becoming law. Its effect in the US has been less than glorious.
It was Winston Churchill who once said: "It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Unfortunately, liberty doesn't work as well in practice as it does in speeches". - Yours, etc.,
Raymond Tierney, Mount Merrion, Co Dublin.