“We’re an open society, but we’re at war,” Bush told the federal district attorneys. “We must not let foreign enemies use the forms of liberty to destroy liberty itself.”

— George W. Bush, Jr.
After all, we wouldn’t wanna treat these damn foriegners like they’re human or anything.
What would be next? Giving equal rights to gays, lesbians, and republicans?
Maybe some of you out there haven’t taken this to heart yet, but our freedoms and liberities only truley exist, and are only valuable, when they extend to covering those instances where it would be most convenient to sweep them away.
Free speach and freedom of the press is not important until we sue a magazine publisher for printing an article about a software program.
Freedom of movement is not important until I have to show my ID to National Guardsman to get into work at a public building.
Freedom of belief is not important until the government declares all muslims to be suspects in a crime commited for the least holy of reasons.
The founders of this country had a few choice words for their former dictatorial oppresors:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”

— The Declaration of Independence
Granted, my glasses are a little dirty right now, but the way I read that, it seems to completely conflict with the Shrub’s ridiculous comments.
And don’t come talking to me about these times being especially trying and an exceptional circumstance. When the founding fathers of the US wrote those words, at best thirty percent of their countrymen were willing to fight for freedom against the biggest empire the earth had ever known. I call that trying.