One more thought on liberties:

One thing I never understood about the whole picture was the way we, as the US, goes out and touts the benefits of Democracies when we don't practice one ourselves. Sure at the town level, but as a nation, we are a representative republic, unless I'm mistaken (which I've been known to be on more than one occasion.) Whatever we are, there is more than overwhelming proof that we are not a democracy, nor were we ever intended to be one. Some really old guys (and now really dead guys) spoke out directly against the formation or the mutation into such a government (before they were dead, of course.) "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759.
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." - John Adams (1814).
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largest out of the public treasury." - Alexander Tyler

And I'm sure that if any of these men were alive today, they'd all say just about the same thing...

"help, help, let me out of this box, it's dark in here."