This is why I'm becoming a big fan of Andrew Sullivan.  Writing in Time Magazine, he notes:

There's barely a speech by President Bush that doesn't cite the glories of human freedom. It's God's gift to mankind, he believes. And in some ways this President has clearly expanded it: the people of Afghanistan and Iraq enjoy liberties unimaginable only a few years ago. But there's a strange exception to this Bush doctrine. It ends when you reach America's shores. Within the U.S., the Bush Administration has shown an unusually hostile attitude toward the exercise of personal freedom...

...There has always been a tension in conservatism between those who favor more liberty and those who want more morality. But what's indisputable is that Bush's "compassionate conservatism" is a move toward the latter — the use of the government to impose and subsidize certain morals over others. He is fusing Big Government liberalism with religious-right moralism. It's the nanny state with more cash. Your cash, that is. And their morals.

Thank you.   Andrew - I'll keep you in mind next time you rattle the tip jar. 

When forced to choose between an economic rights inhibiting Democratic party and a personal-rights inhibiting Republican party, I still tend to choose the Republicans as the lessor of 2 evils.   Without GNP growth, people die.  Moral freedom - while still something I cherish - isn't quite as linear.  And operationally at the personal level, it's far easier to "evade" the morality police than the IRS. 

What's worse and pisses me almost as much, is that while the GOP has at least ostensibly been pro-business and markets, their budget deficits have been anything but.   The growing cynic in me is forced to note that government deadlock may be the only way to preserve both sets of rights.