Need help with an elusive quotation

[Thomas Veil]

"People get the kind of government they deserve."

I heard this quote, or a variation of it, years and years ago. Though it's pretty well-known, I'll be damned if I can find it anywhere on those sites where they collect famous quotations.

Anybody know who said it, and the exact wording?

 

[Jaffa Cake]

Could you be thinking of...

"Every country has the government it deserves"
Joseph de Maistre

 

[Thomas Veil]

That threw me for a loop a bit, because my vague memory seems to recall reading it in the context of a similarly-worded quote from one of the Founding Fathers.

Could be my memory is just flaky, or that what I read was wrong, and this quotation is indeed the one. Thanks.

 

[Jaffa Cake]

You're welcome. I suspect that there have been others who have said something along the same lines, so you may well be right. I wouldn't be surprised to hear something similar that had come from the likes of Franklin or Jefferson.

 

[clayj]

You're welcome. I suspect that there have been others who have said something along the same lines, so you may well be right. I wouldn't be surprised to hear something similar that had come from the likes of Franklin or Jefferson.

Well, Franklin said something along the lines of "Those who would sacrifice security to preserve freedom deserve neither."

 

[DZ/015]

My favorite along these lines is from PJ O'Rourke:

'Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us."