Do we really have any idea of which freedoms matter the most?

Is it possible to have too much freedom?

I'm not sure, but I certainly think we have gotten to a place in this country where we mistake license for freedom, and value the wrong sort of liberty over real freedom.

Ask yourself this:

What sort of freedom would matter the most to you personally?

For most people it wouldn't be freedom of speech or even religion. One of the most important freedoms Americans have ever had is the ability to change their lives by moving from one place to another and getting a fresh start.

Starting in the last half century, though, so many things have been done to chip away at that freedom that our country has changed to where America in 2013 would be almost unrecognizable to someone from 100 years earlier.

First and foremost, what has changed is the idea of buying things before you have the money to pay for them.

Until the New Deal, a home mortgage basically meant making a 50 percent down payment and paying the

balance within five years. So you saved to buy a home.

Most young people didn't go to college, but when they did, if their families didn't have the money, they worked their way through school. They didn't amass huge loan balances that had to be paid back after college.

Then of course there was the sea change in postwar America that occurred with the beginning of widespread consumer credit. In the great equality of the '50s and '60s, we made the decision that everybody was as good as everybody else and we were all middle class.

Think about this:

Joe Blow in Goat Cheese, Arkansas, is never going to live like Bill Gates, but with easy credit terms, he can probably have a big screen TV nearly as good as Gates had to watch the Razorbacks play on Saturdays in the fall. Of course, the more debts Joe amasses, the less freedom he has.

Now Joe has lots and lots of freedom. He can say whatever he wants about the president, he can buy a pretty good gun (on easy credit terms) and he can go to church wherever he wants -- or not go at all.

In the fullness of time, Joe can evolve to where he decides to smoke marijuana, and depending on where he lives, he can even admit that he'd rather be married to his buddy Jim than to Mary.

But is Joe more free? Probably not, because at the same time all this other stuff is happening, his company started making him pay a greater share of his health insurance and also told him he was going to have his own 401(k) account instead of the pension he had been counting on.

Then when Joe turns 54, his company closes the Goat Cheese plant and relocates to Taco Bell, Mexico.

Pardon my vulgarity, but all of a sudden, Joe is royally fucked.

But he's got plenty of freedom. He can watch pornographic movies, smoke dope and worship at the Church of Snake Handling. Yup, he's free, except when the bills come in and he can't pay them.

Those who prey on people like Joe will tell you he can make his own choices and if he makes bad choices, it's his own fault. These are the same people who want to privatize Social Security, because you see, as long as Joe still has that, he hasn't been picked clean.

Freedom isn't only for the lucky and the strong.

At least it shouldn't be.