Giving Up Freedom For Security?

One of the commentators at Crooks & Liars asks a very good question, I think:

The Bush Administration's mantra has been "give up some of your freedoms and we will keep you safe." These are some of the rights that the Bush Administration and the GOP (including Joe Lieberman) think you should sacrifice:

The right to read what you want without the government looking over your shoulder to see what you have checked out of the library.

The right to spend your money without the government watching your bank account and credit transactions.

The right to send correspondence electronically without the government reading it.

The right to know the charges against you, the right to an attorney and to trial if the government says you shouldn't get them.

The right to be free from searches without a warrant.

The right to dissent (a lot of GOPers seem to think that it is treasonous to dissent, unless, of course, a Democrat is in the White House, in which case it is just peachy).

The right to make a telephone call without being monitored.

The right to be any religion other than Christion, let alone the right to not have to believe in a god at all.

Basically, the Bush Administration, the Republican Party, and yes, many of the self-styled conservatives are all in favor of giving up all of those rights to be safe.

So why do they draw the line at the right to own weapons?

And if we surrender our rights for everything else, of what value is it to live in a police state with a gun?

After all, there was a time, not long ago, when a pre-dawn knock on the door was considered to be a hallmark of a totalitarian state. That happened in Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, it didn't happen here. But now it does, and for the very same reasons that the Gestapo and the KGB favored midnight raids.

When did we transition from "the land of the free and the home of the brave" to the "land of the monitored and the home of the terrified?"

How free are we?