On Tom Polger's Post re: Liberty

I was struck very much by Tom's post on freedom and liberty. It's been on my mind quite a bit since President Bush delivered his inaugural. As often happens, Jon Stewart put into words what I was mulling in my brain. He showed that the president's speech contained 27 references to "Liberty" and 15 to "Freedom" in a scoreboard-style graphic, and then pointed out that Liberty beat Freedom, "Freedom, of course, playing hurt since the passage of the Patriot Act."

I've been deeply troubled by our approach to civil liberties in the US since 9/11, and felt that the limited access to the inaugural festivities and the extent to which the president seemed literally barricaded from people underscored the disturbing change. Then, to have us preach liberty to the globe without at least an honest look at, and discussion of, freedom at home--even if, as a result of that discussion, we decide to do nothing different--seems incomplete at best, hypocritical at worst.