Blog Love Omega Glee: National Freedom Day (1 February 2012)

"Good morning, Francine. You want your usual?"

"Morning, Lilith! Happy National Freedom Day too!"

"National Freedom Day? What's that?"

"It's a day that celebrates freedom. It's observed annually on the day Lincoln signed the amendment outlawing slavery. And, yes, I'll take my usual."

"Alas, it won't be free."

"That's OK, even though we observe National Freedom Day, we aren't too free. For example, I can't celebrate it by walking down the street naked."

"No, the cops would arrest you."

"It's too cold for that today anyway. Maybe instead I could go see the president speak downtown and protest by heckling him."

"You'd get arrested or they'd put you in the 'Free Speech' zone they've set up a couple blocks away from where he or anybody else could actually hear you."

"I thought the whole country was a free speech zone, but apparently the government officials with guns don't view it that way. Maybe I could get my pistol and holster out and walk around town to dissuade them from hassling me?"

"They'd probably shoot you before asking you for your permit."

"A right to bear arms still needs a permission slip from the government, huh? Perhaps I'll skip both baring and bearing arms, and maybe I'll go celebrate my freedom by smoking."

"That depends where you smoke and what you smoke. Plus even if what you smoke were legal, you'd still have to pay all the taxes that cost more than the product itself because the government has decided that you shouldn't smoke. The where part is a freedom from issue though. Other people should be free from putting up with your smoke if they don't like it. That's where the whole idea of freedom gets tricky. Freedom tos can clash with freedom froms."

"Well, today's a day for definitely testing the boundaries of freedom, if that isn't an oxymoron."

"No, what's an oxymoron is an unfree nation that celebrates freedom."

Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.