With the Fourth of July coming up, I’ve been thinking about freedom, as I’m sure you have.

We’re bound to be the freest bunch of sapsuckers in this country that ever was. We have freedoms out the Bob Burns bazoo. So many that we couldn’t possibly count them all. But let’s at least try to tote up some of the major ones, the really important ones.

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Starting with a personal favorite, the freedom to retreat into idiosyncracy as the darkness descends. What I’ve been doing for several years now.

And these –

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The freedom to closely inspect the nads on statues as long as they’re certified works of art.

The freedom to diversify your portfolio if there’s still anything in it.

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The freedom to glom off your folks at least until they get your children raised.

The freedom to elide the pledge and make all their old recto-versos draw up.

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The freedom to live in Cabot and act like that’s normal.   

The  freedom to disencumber; to simplify; occasionally to molt.

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The freedom to commit or pursue just about any sort of damfoolery as long as it doesn’t cross the line into malicious mischief or public nuisance.

The fast-disappearing freedom to communicate in traditional English prose.

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The even faster disappearing freedom to bargain collectively.

The freedom, perhaps a civic duty, to laugh not so much with them as at them.

The freedom to aspire to that stratospheric income level at which you not only no longer have to pay taxes but you get subsidies from the taxes of the poor saps who do.  

The freedom to e-send your proudest crotch shots to jailbait.

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The freedom to noogie your little brother whenever you feel like it, or gay people with short-cropped hair but not if they have AIDS.

The freedom to suck the heads of crawfish if you think you just have to.

The freedom to hyperbolize worse than anybody anywhere ever has.

The freedom to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

The freedom to flee Standard Umpstead for the greener pastures of Gepp.

The freedom to put a new corncob in the outhouse might near every day.

The freedom to bottle-rocket right through the burn ban.

The freedom to ambulance-chase if you think there’s someone in there with mesothelioma.

The freedom to search for ways to retard the aging process that aren’t downright pathetic.

The freedom to try to stir up a stink when there’s not one current.

The freedom to garden naked in the moonlight.

The freedom to riposte those already overmatched.

The freedom to violate community decency standards with your message T-shirt as long as it’s funny and not just gross.  

The freedom to choose between onion rings and “real onion rings,” the most intriguing menu option at the Whippet Restaurant at Prattsville.

The freedom to use the grocery money to buy the baby daddy rims.

The freedom to wait six months for the new better cheaper version to come out, and then six more for the next one, etc.

The freedom to have a lawyer appointed to represent you for free if you can’t afford to hire a good one.

The freedom to double-tap zombies caught disemboweling your spouse.

The freedom to weed-eat.

The freedom to shoot watermelon seeds at the earlobes of drowsing geezers.

The freedom to bogart your doobies.

The freedom to hit that reset button if you can’t pay your debts or just don’t want to.

The freedom to make your own reproductive decisions, including the Duggar and Roe options.

The freedom to catapult cowpies at Westboro Baptist sign-carriers as a way of telling them to have a nice day.

The freedom to diddle children if you have the collar for it and sympathetic superiors.

The much underused freedom to mute.

The freedom to wish others happy holidays in whatever words you want to.

The freedom to make up your own facts to support opinions previously made up by other Einsteins of similar kidney.

The freedom to expect divine intervention eventually against this great invading host of pencil-neck geeks.

The freedom to ask the judge in your case to use Sharia law if you think it might help you beat the rap.

The freedom to refudiate airheads.

The freedom to yo-yo for crappie.

The freedom to blame the smell in the elevator on somebody else.

Note: Freedoms cited here seem synonymous with prerogatives, and I don’t know if that’s what the Signers had in mind or not. Probably not.

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