Our founding fathers were intelligent men, and they certainly provided our society with a well-written constitution on which to base our nation.

In addition to the formally recognized constitution, as well as many other documents like the Declaration of Independence, they provided us with intelligent quotes that we now use as conventional wisdom.

One of the more famous bits of conventional wisdom was spoken by Thomas Jefferson, and it reads, “When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

Today, this quote is often narrowed down and paraphrased as “people shouldn’t fear the government. The government should fear the people.” So many Americans like throwing out this quote, and I’m sure it provides them with a certain level of security and satisfaction. However, this quote assumes that citizens are always better than the government. I have yet to see any evidence to back this assertion.

If you need historical basis, look at the civil war in Sierra Leone back in the 1990s. The government certainly feared the people in this situation. It probably had something to do with the fact that some of the people, the Revolutionary United Front, were cutting off the hands of their fellow citizens to prevent them from voting. This is when they weren’t using children as puppet soldiers and forcing villagers to work the fields looking for diamonds to fund their rebellion.

For a historical reference closer to home, look at the 1920s. There was a certain individual named Al Capone, and he was a citizen the government certainly feared. It might have been because he was a bootlegging kingpin and head of the Chicago mafia who was literally out of the law’s reach, having essentially every cop, judge and elected official in the city in his pocket. He was the undisputed political boss of Chicago for seven years before he was busted for income tax evasion by the federal government in 1931.

Look at current world politics. This time last year, we were supposed to be bombing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his government for using sarin gas on his own people. Fast forward almost exactly a year later, and we have pulled a complete 180 because a certain group of citizens known as ISIS have made quite a violent reputation for themselves.

Speaking of ISIS, let’s bring up the situation surrounding the aftermath of the Iraq war. We overthrew Saddam Hussein, the head of a Sunni dictatorship, and put the Shiites in charge. A decade later, we have a Sunni group so extreme that Al-Qaeda wants no connection to it in trying to take the country back.

This is what can happen if the phrase “government should fear the people” takes a real-life extreme.  You have criminals, gangsters, rebels and extremists to run a society rather than an authoritarian government.

Now let me be clear, I understand that I’m using extreme examples to back up my argument. But my point is that this conventional wisdom that so many of us love to use is extreme itself. As stated earlier, it presumes that the citizens are always better than the government. And history has shown us time and again that this is just too much of a generalization.

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