Surely you can't expect Grandma and Grandpa to stop watching Fox News.  To have to actually do some critical thinking instead of being fed talking points goes way beyond most Americans.  Personally, I hardly bother with national/worldwide news anymore.  I click on Google News and look at a few of the headlines.  I then move to the technology news section.

That was a typo.  I meant "say" instead of "see".

That's the point.  They never really define it.  Does freedom mean being able to start a business without so many government regulations and tax?  The US is probably better than most places for that.  Or does freedom mean that I can go to a bar after 2AM with a 20 year old responsible adult?  The US is worse about that than most of the world.  Or does it simply mean that I can speak against the government, assemble peaceably, etc.  OWS is testing the boundaries for that freedom at the moment.  Let's not forget "free speech zones" which is a paradox in itself.  Does it mean the freedom for citizens to have equal opportunity to find employment without having to worry about race, gender, religion, SO, etc.? Or does it mean that business owners can hire or deny anyone for race or any other reason?

There are many ways to define freedom, which is one reason I think that the statement is too vague.

Good point. Sadly it seems most average people are either ignorant or are stuck in too much debt to focus on the big political picture.

The fact that you seem to believe that the Iraq war was fought for anything other than the dominion of a strategic country and its vast natural resources is troubling. Most people I know that follow international politics as well as myself predicted that Iraq will be a disaster not to mention many analysts.

There are many things that America itself has stated which discredit your theory. Unless I am mistaken the first reason for invading Iraq was because they supposedly had weapons of mass destruction. Once that was deemed to be false we were told that Saddam may have had links with terrorists and then finally it came down to spreading freedom and democracy.

Sadly all of those reasons are false otherwise if the USA was truly hell bent on spreading freedom they could have started with the house of Saud and Bahrain or a number of other dictatorships which are allied to the US but that's a story for another time.

Communism, Socialism and Capitalism are economic terms, not political.

You can even have a democratic communist society if you so wanted.

However... What constitutes a free country some may ask?
That's simple, there are 5 fundamental freedoms that make up a free society, which conversely such freedoms are restrictive in some nations; even in the USA.
The Freedoms are:
1) Speech. - Basically you are allowed to speak or write whatever you desire about any topic. - A Good example was me telling the Prime Minister of Australia "John Howard" years back that he was a wanker in person and getting in no trouble for it.

2) Association. - Basically, the freedom to join any organization or group, trade union or political party without consequence.

3) Assembly. - The freedom to meet people in a public or private place for political or social purposes, provided you're not trespassing or acting violently, examples would be a protest.

4) Religion. - The freedom to follow any religion.

5) Movement. - Freedom to move between all states and territory's or even leave and enter the country at any time or movement between public areas.

If you don't have those, then it's not a free country, regardless of the social/economic/political systems in place, any country could indeed be considered free. (Even China.)

As for what I think of the Military... To me they are vital to stop aggressors and keep a country peaceful.
The military however do allot more than just wage war...
The Military will help protect the citizens from natural disasters and help with the clean-up afterwards.
It also provides allot of jobs for a country which can help an economy.
The Military have been known to influence the creation of allot of technologies that even citizens today use, for instance... Explosives in mining operations, body Armour to protect bike riders and the police, Gas masks to protect from chemicals/vapors that may be leaked from an accident from something like a petrol station spill etc'. The list goes on.

The military's mere existence is protecting our freedom to some degree. If we had no military, other countries would be chomping at the bit to get our resources, and there'd be little bloodshed required to get them.

However, "protecting our freedom" can only be used to justify action in other countries when our freedom is legitimately threatened by those countries. In the case of Afghanistan, at the very least the dismantling of the Taliban was justified given the significant threat they posed to American lives, but the task of nation building we took upon ourselves in both Afghanistan and Iraq is not justifiable, in my opinion. There's too much blood and death involved with if anything a negative impact to national security and little overall improvement in the lives of the people within these countries.

Also, I do believe our actions in Libya were justified.  Our light involvement prevented thousands of innocents from slaughter.   We're all a part of this world, and at the very least we owe that to our neighbors.  That has absolutely nothing to do with American freedom, however.

I'd believe it was blind optimism on Bush's part.

Backed by plenty of prodding from Cheney.

And that's what it all boils down to. Protecting innocent lives.

And if you knew me personally, that's a belief I hold firmly. Innocents never deserve to die no matter what color they are.

oh wait, you do know me and we already discussed this xD I think.

Wow great signature, that entirely sets up the pretext for most military actions. I fully support the military, but many of the actions they take are down to political agendas. WWII is the major exception to this as Hitler and his Third Reich would have eventually conquered Europe and in time would have brought the fight to other shores.