In a real "land of the free," legislature allowing government agents to pry into private lives without actual evidence of wrongdoing would never have been passed, nor would it have remained valid four years after being instated.

In a land of the free, the news media wouldn't inflate or fabricate stories about threats of terrorism in every town, city, or airplane, working sane human beings into a frightened frenzy about pretty much everything, while simultaneously disregarding the real threats to our liberty brought about by our own government.

In a land of the free, "terrorist" wouldn't be an overbroad, vague term for anything that makes the government unhappy, and, of course, for Middle Easterners.

The government wouldn't have the authority to detain immigrants indefinitely without any clear reason. It certainly wouldn't have the authority to detain its own citizens without warrants, for indefinite period of time and without disclosing their identities. In a land of the free, citizens wouldn't just vanish off the public record and be spirited away by the government.

Simply put, citizens in a "land of the free" would never have allowed the Patriot Act to become a permanent fixture in our legislation.

When I find myself wondering how we ever let it pass in the first place, I remind myself that nothing we Americans have allowed to happen in recent memory has actually increased or protected our basic liberties - you know, those "rights" we are apparently supposed to possess?

Over two centuries ago, Benjamin Franklin warned us, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security."

But we have done precisely that: we surrendered our liberty in exchange for temporary security.

And the real question is not, "Do we deserve either?" but, "Do we even have either?"

Despite all the changes made to the government's national security arm after Sept. 11, 2001, it failed the test of Hurricane Katrina miserably. Throughout the bungled, mismanaged and botched preparation and recovery efforts, one fact shone through clearly: our government was grossly unprepared for a disaster.

One wonders how curbing the freedom of every man, woman and child in this country better prepares us for the next catastrophe.

We have been selling our liberty piece by piece, and the people who bought it - our own government, perhaps, or the corporations who are swiftly becoming our government - have it locked in a safe. Everyone once in awhile we take it out (on loan, of course) to admire it - especially when we're dipping our collective finger into the global war pie.

When that happens, we all ooh and aah over it, and tell each other how pretty and shiny it is.

Then we have to put it back in the safe, because after all, freedom is really too delicate an idea for regular people to be dealing with. Let's leave it to the professionals. Otherwise, somebody might get hurt.