Freedom

I don't know, little girl. 

We have not been truly free in this country since long before I was born. Don't believe me? Think about this, who owns the fruits of your labors?  Who owns your paycheck?  You?  Think again.

Who decides how much income tax you have to pay? In other words, who decides how much of your paycheck you are required to hand over to the government?  You?  No, the government does.  

And what happens if you decide you want to keep what you've worked so hard for?  That's right.  If you don't pay your taxes, you go to prison.  Now, why would you go to prison for keeping your own property?  Why would you go to prison if your paycheck were really yours?  What this mean is, the government owns all of our wages, and they just give us an allowance to live on.  . 

Who owns your houses and properties? You? No. Even if you've paid off the mortgage, you still have to pay property taxes. What happens if you don't pay? The government seizes your property. What that means is, the government owns all property, and you just rent it from them.

By the same token, who owns all the businesses in this country? Yep, the government. Because the government sets the rules by which you can operate a business. And they set the taxes those businesses have to pay. If a business doesn't comply, what happens? The government shuts them down at best, and at worst, seizes all their assets.

But you think you still have freedom of speech?  No, only speech the government deems is acceptable is still free.  Don't believe me?  Then ask yourself why a man is sitting in prison right now for making a YouTube video, or a 14 year old boy was arrested for wearing a t-shirt.  Better yet, try mentioning God in a public place.  Try putting a Nativity scene in a public park, and see how free your speech still is.
  

Or your religion.  You think you still have freedom of religion?  Think again.  Only the religions the government deems acceptable are allowed.  Even churches must meet strict government standards, or they will lose their tax exempt status, and without being tax exempt, most churches would be taxed out of existence. 

And the government decides which light bulbs you can buy, and the government decides how energy efficient your appliances have to be, and the government decides how much gas mileage your car must get -- or if you can even drive a gas powered car --, and the government decides what kind of health insurance is acceptable, and the government decides how much salt you can put on your food, and what kind of stove you can cook that food on, or how much soda you can drink, and the government decides pretty much every miniscule jot and tittle of your life. Heck, you even have to ask the government's permission to get married.

Free?  No we're not free, and haven't been for quite some time.

 Or as Harriet Tubman once allegedly said, "I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more IF ONLY THEY HAD KNOWN THEY WERE SLAVES."

We are slaves, and most of us don't even realize it.

But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.   -- The Declaration of Independence