What is free these days? Freedom is “free”, but what is freedom really?  According to Wiki, Freedom means: the human value, or situation, to act according to one’s will without being held up by the powers of others.  In that case, yes, I guess the American people are “free” but not financially free, maybe at will we are free.  According to the dictionary Freedom means: the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint.  Again, I guess emotionally and physically we are free, but once again, not financially.  My most favorite meaning of “Freedom” comes from Urban Dictionary: Something the American people just think they have. I agree with that because we as Americans seem to think we are free, but like any other Country, we are only as free as the rules and laws allow us to be.  What I am getting at is more of free vs freedom.  What do we have or get that is actually free; of no cost to us.

I guess I got on this subject when someone mentioned to me the other day that nothing these days were free.  I refused to accept that, thinking there must be something in America that is still free.  Sadly, there were only a very few things that I could think of that were actually “free”.  The first thing that I thought of right away was the radio.  We can still listen to music in our vehicles while we drive on our long commutes to work for free.  Although you can purchase products like Sirus Satellite radio, etc.  but I refuse to pay for Sirus when I can get decent music (yes with ad/commercial interruptions, unlike Sirus, which I guess is our “cost” to listen to radio) for free. It makes sense that we pay for CDs because that is in part how the musician gets paid, but it is nice to listen to the radio at no cost, but a few minutes of our time to listen to ads and commercials.

The second thing I thought of was the United States Postal Service.  Although we do pay to mail out our mail (stamps, etc.) we do not pay the postman to deliver our mail.  I then realized that any part of the government gets paid by our taxes, so I realized, in actuality the postman is not “free” of charge to me, I pay for his services whether I have incoming/outgoing mail or not.  I then thought – oh, parks and free… nope.  Water from the water fountains, maybe?!

The next thing I thought of was the plastic bags at grocery stores, those are still free in most areas, although some stores are going away from them trying to be green, or are now charging for grocery bags.  Or do grocery stores up the price of their foods to cover the cost of bagging groceries?  I know you cannot go to Ikea now and use a bag there; they make you purchase their Ikea “green bag” or walk out with a handful of Ikea merchandise.  So maybe grocery bags when you get down to it are not free after all…

Then I thought – well, Costco gives out free samples of food… that’s free, but then I realized in order to get into Costco in the first place you have to have a membership, which COSTS MONEY.  Although when you go to let’s say Nordstrom and want to try on perfume or cologne, they do give you a free sample bottle of what you tried on to take home with you, without even having to purchase a bottle.

Riding your bike is also free (besides buying the bike).  You can ride it without having to pay for gas, you can park for free, but does that really constitute free? Every now and then you’ll find something on Craigslist that someone is giving away for free… I guess that counts?! 

So all in all, the only things in this Country that I could actually think of that were still legitimately free are what?  The radio, grocery bags (in most places), and most samples, riding and parking your bike and the “free” on Craigslist…  I understand the Country is changing and we are getting more and more in debt and need to pay for costs of items and to run the Country in general, but what happened to free?