What do Tea Party Protesters, conservatives and Republicans mean by "Freedom?"

I've always wondered what Republicans, tea party crazies and right wingers meant by "freedom." Does freedom mean giving everything away to business so they can keep us from falling through the cracks? Is freedom the ability to pay out of pocket whatever a deregulated market demands? Is freedom the feeling you get now not knowing if you'll have a job next week? Is freedom the feeling you get not having Social Security to depend on in old age, or big government Medicare coddling you as your health declines?

Freedom is not knowing what's going to happen next, but still knowing that you're armed and ready to defend yourself from some guy who cut you off at the stop light.

Freedom is finding an affordable private school that's not so great but at least doesn't have a waiting line. The following is another look at what it means to conservatives to be free:

Tina Dupuy: Everything American: freedom. You disagree with them, you disagree with freedom. They’re against things and those things naturally are against freedom, the thing they’re for. You know who’s against freedom? Anyone they put on a First Amendment protected picket sign.

What does “freedom” mean when Republicans say it? During the marathon C-SPAN filmed Health Care Summit at the Blair House, Rep. Paul Ryan (endorsed by Dick Armey’s business boon FreedomWorks) summed up the bait and switch behind the watchword best, “We don’t think the government should be in control of all of this. We want people to be in control.” Of course, the Grand Old Party’s founding father, Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg address described our Union as, “a government of the people, by the people, for the people.” But now according to Rep. Paul Ryan it shouldn’t be in control, but the people should?

Really when freedom is invoked by the GOP it means liberty for corporations. Its big government getting out of the way so big business can step up.

The opposite of freedom is being gouged by your credit card, denied by your health insurance and pick pocketed by your bank. The opposite of freedom is being a Wal-Mart sharecropper and a Payday Loan serf. The opposite of freedom is being blackmailed by companies that are “too big to fail.”

Yes, America is the land of the free…and since the GOP had their way for eight years, it now comes with interest.

Ah, now that's what they mean by "the price of freedom."