Reply #63: the "Ben Franklin" quote in your sig is misattributed

[foo_bar]

* Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

o Widely attributed to Franklin on the internet, sometimes without the second sentence, it is not found in any of his known writings, and the word "lunch" is not known to have appeared anywhere in english literature until the 1820s, decades after his death. The phrasing itself has a very modern tone and the second sentence especially might not even be as old as the internet. Some of these observations are made in response to a query at Google Answers.

A far rarer but somewhat more credible variation also occurs: "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner." Web searches on these lines uncovers the earliest definite citations for such a statement credit libertarian author James Bovard with a similar one in the Sacramento Bee (1994):

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."

This statement also definitely occurs in the "Conclusion" (p. 333) of his book Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (1994) ISBN 0312123337

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

B. Franklin never said anything remotely like the second sentence, which would have opposed everything else he said, and is entirely a choose-your-own-polemic on the internets:

Democracy is when two wolves and a sheep vote on who's for dinner.
Liberty is when the sheep has his own gun.

http://www.wirelessforums.org/alt-cellular-verizon/latest-verizon-commercial-16043.html

But then, I love Neal Boortz, and he always says that a "true democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for dinner". Majority rules.

http://ibloga.blogspot.com/2007/01/united-states-of-america-is-not.html

windbender - I never heard that before "the Democratic Party must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."

http://www.beliefnet.com/boards_mini/index.asp?boardID=77104

For the Arts. Those who confuse our system of government with DEMOCRACY should find a real insight into democracy vs the American Constitutional limited Republic........................democracy being three wolves and a sheep voting for what shall be for dinner!

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a743df962f6.htm

Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is two wolves attempting to have a sheep for dinner and finding a well-informed, well-armed sheep.

http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/16671636.htm

Hat said to me "democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting over what's for lunch: freedom is the sheep with a gun" What if the wolves also have guns? I asked him Oh well I suppose then you're back to democracy then.

http://www.kila.ie/stories/eastCoastTour03.asp

So, I think it unlikely that Franklin said the quotation. For a man who ensured that every other one of his 'clever' saying was put onto paper many times, it is difficult to see how a quotation as commonly repeated as this could have no original written source. And, if we take 1759 as the accepted date of the quotation, it is ever harder to imagine it coming from Franklin in London, the contented, rotund diplomat. Democracy was serving Pennsylvania just fine, and Franklin would soon become one of its great champions. The quotation's pessimism seems out of kilter with the rest of his career. And liberty, as colonial America knew it, was under no great threat - particularly not from any 'wolves' who might achieve power by election.

So, I favour the view that the quotation is apocryphal - made up by some anonymous wag, maybe in its complete 'two-part' form, maybe not - and subsequently attributed to Franklin just because someone thought it sounded a bit like him.

http://www.ovaloffice2008.com/2005_09_01_ovaloffice2008_archive.html

I think I've discovered the internet wag, thanks to Google cache:

Tony Satterwhite tells us: "I came up with my signature below, a twist on the old wolf-and-sheep political definitions. I've received more positive comments on this sig in the past two months than all my others combined, from non-libertarians as well as rational people!"

Here's Tony's signature -- truly a great one:
* Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for
dinner. Liberty is two wolves attempting to have a sheep for
dinner and finding a well-informed, well-armed sheep.

http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:kpngY0jr7_0J:www.theadvocates.org/liberator/vol-02-num-06.htm+%22two+wolves+and+a+sheep%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=182&gl=us&client=firefox-a