Larry Rhoden quoted opened his Friday propaganda by quoting Thomas Jefferson, and immediately I could smell an error coming.
“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” The man who wrote those words knew a thing or two about the subject. After all, he had authored a Declaration of Independence making the bold, dangerous proclamation that the thirteen original colonies “[were], and of right ought to be, free and independent states.”
When Thomas Jefferson wrote about “dangerous freedom,” he was writing to fellow Founding Father James Madison, the architect behind America’s Constitution. These two men realized that freedom is not always clean and tidy – not always safe and predictable. Freedom can be messy, even chaotic. And the order that emerges from that chaos is far more wonderful than anything “peaceful slavery” could ever achieve [Gov. Larry Rhoden, “Dangerous Freedom,” press release, 2025.08.08].
Jefferson didn’t write the exact words that Rhoden puts in quote marks. In a January 30, 1787, letter to James Madison, Jefferson wrote in Latin, “Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.” Throwing in a superfluous comma and varied declension, Jefferson was quoting Jean-Jacques Rousseau from The Social Contract, in which Rousseau was citing “what a virtuous Count Palatine said in the Diet of Poland: Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.”
But Rhoden’s (or, more aptly, his comms team’s, since I’m pretty sure Rhoden isn’t composing essays with quotes that open with bracketed re-tensed verbs) primary error isn’t in the finer points of citation. His big boo-boo is in his sloppy affixation of a quote pulled from a Founding Father to a specious and contradictory tourism pitch:
I can think of no better example of “dangerous freedom” than the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally [Rhoden, 2025.08.08].
No better example? Jefferson himself would disagree. Jefferson certainly wasn’t talking about the community-eroding public debauchery of beer, skimpy outfits, and wasteful consumption on which South Dakota hands its summer sales tax hopes. He was expressing mixed feelings about Shay’s Rebellion—an actual political uprising, not a beer party—saying the “uneasiness” over economic troubles “has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable” but maintaining that “I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.” Within that idea-stream, to which Rhoden did not turn for context, Jefferson compares not tourist festivals but forms of government:
I am impatient to learn your sentiments on the late troubles in the Eastern states. So far as I have yet seen, they do not appear to threaten serious consequences. Those states have suffered by the stoppage of the channels of their commerce, which have not yet found other issues. This must render money scarce, and make the people uneasy. This uneasiness has produced acts absolutely unjustifiable: but I hope they will provoke no severities from their governments. A consciousness of those in power that their administration of the public affairs has been honest, may perhaps produce too great a degree of indignation: and those characters wherein fear predominates over hope may apprehend too much from these instances of irregularity. They may conclude too hastily that nature has formed man insusceptible of any other government but that of force, a conclusion not founded in truth, nor experience. Societies exist under three forms sufficiently distinguishable. 1. Without government, as among our Indians. 2. Under governments wherein the will of every one has a just influence, as is the case in England in a slight degree and in our states, in a great one. 3. Under governments of force: as is the case in all other monarchies & in most of the other republics. To have an idea of the curse of existence under these last, they must be seen. It is a government of wolves over sheep. It is a problem, not clear in my mind, that the 1st. condition is not the best, but I believe it to be inconsistent with any great degree of population. The second state has a great deal of good in it. The mass of mankind under that enjoys a precious degree of liberty & happiness. It has it’s evils too: the principal of which is the turbulence to which it is subject. But weigh this against the oppressions of monarchy, and it becomes nothing. Malo periculosam libertatem quom quietam servitutem. Even this evil is productive of good. It prevents the degeneracy of government, and nourishes a general attention to the public affairs. I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical [Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1787.01.30, posted by the National Archives].
To say that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is the best possible example of what Jefferson and Rousseau meant by Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium trivializes and misreads the philosophy on which this nation was founded. The danger to which Jefferson refers is not the thrill of riding a motorcycle down a curvy road in the Black Hills without a helmet or ogling naked boobies at the Buffalo Chip. Jefferson refers instead to civil tumult, vigorous political opposition, and the vigilant participation in government affairs to which patriots must commit to sustain a free nation.
In mistaking celebration for civic duty, Rhoden has trouble picking a lane:
Hundreds of thousands of bikers descend on South Dakota’s Black Hills to celebrate their freedom, and they don’t do so half-heartedly. They rev their engines, blast their music, and enjoy their comradery. The air has a wild tinge to it. It’s chaotic, even dangerous – but it’s free.
That being said, there is a thin blue line keeping that freedom from becoming too dangerous. The men and women of law enforcement attend the Rally in numbers, as well. They do heroes’ work to tamp down on the overindulgence of the Rally’s vices. I attended several events at the Rally, including the annual Law Enforcement Picnic (an event I try to never miss), and I thanked those brave men and women in uniform for everything they do to keep the event safe.
Amidst all that freedom, flags wave everywhere you turn. Old Glory is on proud display, whether it be in the hundreds of flags in the field at the Buffalo Chip or towering from a crane above downtown Sturgis. And the rallygoers take the time to honor the men and women who served in our nation’s armed forces. I also attended the annual Military Appreciation Day festivities. It was a privilege to honor those who signed their name on the dotted line to make sure that our freedoms remain intact [Rhoden, 2025.08.08].
So Rhoden doesn’t really embrace danger; for him, the Sturgis Rally is just another opportunity to wrap himself in the flag and the over-sanctified agents of state force, the police and military whom the government arms and dispatches to quash danger.
Rhoden’s façadery is reflected in Sturgis itself, in the town that lingers after the weeklong party ends and Rhoden’s capital-F’d Freedom is replaced by a town less free than hollowed out:
It was 20 years ago, and I was new to the Black Hills. I met a couple from Sturgis, and looking for a way to continue the conversation, I asked what they thought of the Motorcycle Rally.
I expected a few colorful stories, maybe a few memories of Rallies they especially enjoyed. Nope.
They hated it.
They were a middle-aged pair, with grown kids. When they were younger, they said Sturgis was a full-service community. If a kid needed a pair of shoes, they could buy them downtown.
There were other businesses that served the people who spent all year in Sturgis, not a few days in August. But many were gone, the building torn down with just a concrete slab to indicate where it had stood.
Those local firms made a reasonable but hardly excessive amount of money during the year, my new friends told me. The property owners could make about as much by renting space for T-shirt and souvenir stands, they said. Plus, no property taxes were assessed on buildings that no longer existed.
They went on, elaborating on the reasons they disliked — the word “hated” may have been used — for some time. Scantily clad women, some topless or totally nude, were seen riding around town.
The crowds overwhelmed the small Meade County town every summer, they said. Sturgis just wasn’t Sturgis anymore [Tom Lawrence, “The Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally Changed the Community of Sturgis Forever—and Many Locals Aren’t Happy,” South Dakota Standard, 2025.08.08].
Being able to buy a pair of shoes in an economically diverse community seems to be more essential to freedom than motorcycling to a state-hyped kegger. But what do I know—none of my bikes have gasoline engines.
But don’t let Governor Rhoden’s keyword-quote-search fool you. Jefferson wasn’t talking about Sturgis. He was talking about the proper form of government, infused with robust democratic participation and opposition tolerated by a state that does not quash dissent.