For the linguists out there
 

ngrams.googlelabs.com has a tool that allows you to search over four centuries worth of books, and plot the frequency with which the words are used over time.

Benjamin Franklin had am axiom, "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." With that in mind, I plotted this. I'm relieved to see the trend of the past couple years.

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?c...&year_end=2008

Very interesting. I agree with you though, its good to see the sudden spike the other way.

Give me social security or give me death! . . . er . . . uh . . . nevermind.

I wonder what happened in 1800!

Also, I felt slightly bait and switched because of the title :)

I'm sure people started referring to the concept by a new name. I think it's interesting how many major events and cultural changes you can see on this one graph.

I didn't set out to get political, but politics shows up readily on these charts (try plotting "liberal, conservative"). Here's one that'll make it up to you:

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?c...&year_end=2000

And a plot of buzzworthiness:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?c...&year_end=2000

http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/chart?c...&year_end=2008

I'm assuming it's the end date of 2008 that is preventing a current spike in both?